The Omnibus flees the state of Florida and heads north on Interstate 75 to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, home of the Brewers. I will confess, dear reader, that I was glad to have the Marlins of Miami in my rear-view mirror. It was all too much: the orange, the stadium, the Loria. But if the Marlins are an overdose in irony, the Brewers may very well be its opposite.
I tabulated the statistics, collated the names, sifted through the history. Afterward, I found myself at a loss. I had no idea, I realized, who the Milwaukee Brewers were, or who they were trying to be. Confounded, I turned to the wisdom of my esteemed colleague Robert J. Baumann, who resides ‘round thereabouts. His response:
“All of this speaks to a sort of Midwestern complex: we are at once embarrassed of who we are, and apologists for our pasts. There’s a statue of Bud Selig outside of Miller Park that was just erected last year, for crissake: the man who brought baseball back to Milwaukee, yes, but also the man who undermined their success for nearly two decades by insisting that small-market Milwaukee could never compete, allowing the team to throw their hands in the air and sign players like Jeffrey Hammonds as a half-assed effort to field a team that wouldn’t finish last. There are a number of reasons why Major League was filmed in Milwaukee…”
Milwaukee’s baseballing history is as flat as the cornfields that non-Midwesterners associate with its name. While most franchises are garnished with surprising veteran appearances and loud rookie implosions, the Brewers have few of either: Selig rarely paid for name recognition, and even Pat Listach hung around five seasons with the team. What’s left is apologetic mediocrity, celebrated and familiar. Even the names on the backs of the jerseys are vanilla: Thomas, Scott, Cooper, Harper.
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