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Brewer Baseball

I'm a Brewers fan. They moved to Milwaukee the year that I graduated from high school. While I was in college, my brother and I spent many nights going to baseball games at County Stadium. We would go early, as soon as the park opened, and watch batting practice to catch baseballs hit into the stands. The Brewers weren't very good in those days so there weren't many fans. Very few of those came to the game early. Everyone had their standard spots, and my brother and I claimed the gap between the grandstand extension and the right field bleachers. By the time I moved away to go to graduate school, we had a whole box of souvenir baseballs, probably thirty or forty of them. I'm not a big sports fan but I have stayed loyal to my Brewers over all these years.

My son Mickey has inherited Brewer fandom from me. When I was making plans to visit him in Baltimore earlier this year, he suggested that I come in April when the Brewers were in town to play the Orioles. I was able to go to some games with him on that trip.

Another chance to see a Brewer game came up later this year. I was going to be in Tempe, Arizona in late August/early September for Consimworld Expo. It's a wargame convention that I go to every year if I can. Checking the schedule, I saw that the Brewers were in town then to play the Diamondbacks. I contacted Mickey to see if he could get away from work. We made arrangements for him to fly out and meet me so we could catch a couple of ball games.

After a couple of good days at Consimworld, on Thursday I packed up my wargames and switched to baseball mode. Mickey had an early flight out of Baltimore that morning. Traveling west with the time change in his favor, he was scheduled to get to Phoenix in the middle of the afternoon. If his flights were on schedule there would be plenty of time for us to make the first game of the series that night.

The airport wasn't far from my hotel in Tempe. Traffic wasn't too bad in the middle of the afternoon until I got to the airport. Then it was a total zoo. It took me twenty minutes just to go around the loop that connects the four terminals. The waiting cars were three lanes deep at arrivals but fortunately Mickey came out and found me so I didn't have to get into that mess.

But while Mickey arrived on time, his luggage did not. It was impressive though that American Airlines had texted him before he landed to let him know it was late. They provided a link where he could fill in an address for them could deliver it when it arrived. We stopped at the hotel and warned the people at the front desk to expect it. The lady working there noticed our Brewer gear and asked if we were going to the game. When I told her I grew up in Milwaukee, she said that she grew up in Whitefish Bay. Since she looked fifty-ish I asked if she knew Craig Counsell growing up. She said that she didn't but that her husband had gone to high school with him. Pretty cool.

Then it was time to head downtown to the ball park. It was still early enough that traffic wasn't too bad and the parking structure right next to the stadium had plenty of room. From there we walked a couple of blocks to Pizzeria Bianco. We had plenty of time, almost three hours until game time so we started with a cold beer. With the temperature at 110 degrees we were pretty hot after just the short walk to the restaurant. We were already thinking that it was a good thing that Chase Field was air conditioned.

There were two women at the table next to ours that were wearing Brewer jerseys. Both were #50 Bush which was a little unusual, since he had only been with the Brewers a few weeks. We asked them about it, wondering if they were family. They said that they were from Texas (he played for Texas before coming to Milwaukee) and were friends of his. They must have been on the same Phoenix tour schedule as us because we saw them at the game that night, at the game the next night, and the day after that in downtown Scottsdale.

Mickey was in charge of getting our tickets. For the first night we had good seats on the first base side, behind the Brewer dugout. Woodruff pitched for the Brewers but didn't look very good and their offense was terrible. Not a very exciting game. They lost 5-0. Mickey fell asleep as soon as we got back to the hotel. He had been up since midnight Phoenix time because of his early flight from the east coast. I cried myself to sleep fairly quickly too.

That meant we were up early the next morning. The previous day, Mickey had commented that Phoenix didn't seem to be very big. I took him to downtown Tempe where Consimworld Expo was still going on. My code still worked in the parking lot. Hayden Butte is right behind the hotel and we took the trail to the top. It's just under a mile and 232 feet of elevation gain. Not hard but it was already hot even though we were on the summit by 7:30. I'm used to it being hot in Phoenix when I go to CSWE. I was just surprised this year that it didn't cool off at night. Once I was driving back to the hotel at 10:30 pm and it was still over a hundred degrees.

Although it isn't that high, the view from the top of Hayden Butte is impressive. You can see the entire Valley of the Sun. To the north, Camelsback Mountain shows the distinctive shape that earned its name. To the west is the airport and even further is downtown Phoenix. And in every direction, the city stretches across the valley for miles to distant mountains. Mickey was convinced that Phoenix is a big city.

Next Mickey suggested that we check out the Brewers spring training facility. It took 20-30 minutes to drive to Maryville, where American Family Field Phoenix is located. The gates were open so we could wander around all the practice fields except for one area where some catchers were practicing. Mickey said he was determined to get to spring training some year. Our friend Mary Beth has gone and says it is a lot of fun. Maybe I'll go someday too. To entice me, they'll have to have a more promising team than they ended up with this year.

By now we were getting pretty hungry. We went back to Tempe, since I know that area the best and we had free parking with my access code from the game convention. We walked a couple of blocks and decided on Zipps Sports Grill for lunch. Then it was time to head to the ballpark again. Just like the day before, we wanted to get there early to avoid downtown commute traffic. We parked in the same parking garage and went to the Crown Public House, right next to the stadium, to get out of the heat and have a beer. Just like at the game the night before, there were far more Brewer fans at the bar than Arizona fans. Mickey even used the TouchTunes app on his phone to play Rush songs on the jukebox. That was a new one for me.

When it got closer to game time, we moved to Four Peaks Brewing Company, which is located inside Chase Field. We had time for one more beer before we had to head down to our seats. This time we were in left field. Our tickets said row eleven, so we were surprised when we found ourselves in the very first row. I guess they have a strange way of counting in Arizona. It was cool being right at the railing looking down on the field. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) there were no home runs hit that night. We were optimistic about the game. Eric Lauer was pitching for Milwaukee and he had been doing well lately. Zach Davies, a former Brewer, was pitching for Arizona. Davies isn't a bad pitcher, but we expected the Brewers could score some runs against him.

Well, we were wrong, mostly. Lauer pitched well, only allowing two runs. But the Brewer offense was terrible. They only scored one run, and that was on a single followed by three walks. That's a gift. It's nothing to brag about. Arizona ended up winning 2-1. So far the Brewers weren't rewarding us loyal fans who showed up to root for them on the road.

The next morning we were up early again. For some reason I woke up at 5:20 am, although I didn't get out of bed until six. With such an early start, we decided to try to hike up Camelsback Mountain. It's more ambitious than our hike up Hayden Butte, but looked really tempting from that summit. We read on the web that it was important to get there early because the parking lot filled up quickly. I checked google maps and saw that there were two parking lots that together held well over a hundred cars. Well, when we got there at 6:45 am both lots were completely full. Swing and a miss.

As we were driving back I had Mickey look up an alternate. Papago Park is a large park just west of our hotel. The Phoenix Zoo is there, as well as sports facilities, hiking trails and various rock formations. I had seen something called "Hole in the Rock" on the map. That sounded interesting, so that's where we went. There was plenty of parking and it was only a short hike to the Hole in the Rock formation. It was actually pretty cool. Not as expansive a view as the day before from the top of Hayden Butte, but pretty neat looking through the large hole in the center of the rock. There were a few people there, but not that many. It was a good recovery from our miss on the Camelsback Mountain hike.

It was only a few minutes drive back to our hotel, where we regrouped and planned for the rest of the day. Mickey suggested that we visit the Phoenix Coyotes practice facility, which was on the northeast side of town. It was Saturday morning so when we got there the parking lot was jammed. From years ago both of us were familiar with youth hockey games at ice rinks on Saturday. I remember lots of oh-dark-thirty starts to make it to 5:45 am games. We weren't quite that early this time but the rink was packed. As we pulled into the parking lot, there was a line of half a dozen sports cars leaving. There were Porsches, Corvettes and even a Lambourghini. Mickey suspected that the Coyotes had just finished a practice. It seemed likely as the sports cars all pulled out and raced off with engines roaring and tires squealing. It seemed consistent with how twenty-something elite hockey players who made lots of money would drive.

The Coyotes team shop at the ice rink was underwhelming, so we moved on. Next stop was downtown Scottsdale, which has a tourist-oriented historic district. As we drove in Mickey spotted a parking spot on the street so I grabbed it. We braved the heat to walk around for a few hours and there were actually quite a few interesting shops. I found one that had a lot of good tshirts (yes, I bought a couple). We also found a Wisconsin themed bar/restaurant. It had "W" flags everywhere and a large inflatable Bucky Badger by the door. After checking out the area we ended up at Cold Beer and Cheeseburgers, a restaurant that Mickey said sounded perfect to him. We went inside, which was pretty crowded and while it was cooler than outside, the doors were all wide open. The doors led to a large patio which was also packed. While normally it would be pretty warm, the patio was in the shade and had misters going full blast. I remember misters from when I lived in Singapore. With the high humidity there, they were totally useless. Here in Arizona where the relative humidity might actually have been negative, they actually worked pretty well. Still, after walking around in the hot sun, we thought it was better inside in the semi-air conditioning.

Lunch was good. And yes, Mickey did order the eponymous cold beer and cheeseburger. I varied a little more from the formula with a grilled cheese sandwhich and a Diet Coke. After lunch we headed back to the hotel to clean up after a day spent wanering around in hundred degree plus heat. We put on our Brewer gear and headed down to the game.

This time I got wild and crazy. I parked in the economy $10 lot instead of the $20 parking structure. It worked out just as well. We were over two hours before game time so we headed up to Twin Peaks Brewing again. We knew the way by now.

For this game we were directly behind home plate, about twenty rows up. We were close enough that we could complain about the umpire's ball and strike calls. The game was billed as a pitching duel, with Corbin Burnes pitching for Milwaukee and Madison Bumgardner for Arizona. It didn't quite live up to that, as neither starter managed to complete six innings. Sadly the Brewers fell behind although they managed to battle back to within a run, trailing 6-5 going into the ninth inning. The Brewers had all right handed batters because Bumgardner is a leftie. In the ninth, the relief pitcher was a rightie. He had pitched to one batter in the eighth and then come on for the ninth. After one out, Counsell put Rowdy Tellez in as a pinch hitter. I complained loudly to Mickey. Why not use Wong first, and then Tellez after. Clearly he was looking for a homer from Rowdy to tie the game. If Wong batted before and got on base, that would be a lead not just a tie. And if he made out it wouldn't matter. Rowdy would still get to bat.

Well afterwards I found out that Counsell was right. Once the pitcher was brought back for the ninth inning, he needed to face at least two batters. Since Tellez has much better home run numbers against righties (23 vs 3) it was better for him to bat against the rightie. And Counsell proved to be a genius as Rowdy hit a home run to tie the game. It was a no doubter, going out in the deepest part of the park, the 213 corner in right center field. I guess that's why I don't get paid millions of dollars to manage the Brewers.

Even better, Tyrone Taylor hit his second home run of the game in the tenth to give the Brewers a two run lead. It held up and Milwaukee got an exciting 8-6 win. At least we finished the trip with a fun and exciting game.

Mickey was hungry after the game so we went to Gus's New York Pizza. Afterwards I dropped Mickey off at a Holiday Inn right at the airport. He had a 6 am flight in the morning. I didn't want to get up as early as he needed to get to the airport since I had a sixteen hour drive home on Sunday. I was a little sad when I dropped Mickey off. We always have fun when we hang out together but now our weekend was over. Next day Mickey flew home without any problems. I got a text from him that he was already home in Baltimore and at a bar while I was just having a late lunch in Page, Arizona with another ten hours of driving ahead of me. I made it home too although not until 3 am.

It was a really good trip. I got a good chance to show off my game design at Consimworld Expo. Mickey and I had fun hanging out and going to some ball games. A very good week.