Help for an article I'm writing

[tristarscoop]

I'm putting together an article about the Brewers run and I'm hoping some of you will be willing to give me some info and be willing to be quoted.

 

My basic idea is to gauge people's reaction to our current position of 1 game back. I was a baby in 82, so I can't compare this season to our last run at any sort of post-season. I think it best to put my list of questions because I think it will be most clear. Answer in paragraph form, don't go down the list of questions.

 

1. Were you around for 82 and if so, how does this compare?

2. Are you optimistic about the post-season, or do you still have doubts?

3. Normally by this point of the summer, football talk has crept in and we start looking forward to that season. Has the fact that the Brewers are still competitive changed that for you?

4. Has the Favre hoopla changed your outlook on the upcoming season?

 

 

For example, I got my ESPN the Magazine in the mail yesterday and it has the Fantasy Football preview and I realized I am so NOT prepared for my draft that's in less than a month. I'm absolutely not at all in the football mindset and the tighter the baseball race gets, the farther the Packers get from my mind. Am I the only one?

 

I'm looking to do a feature-style piece on how the Brewers' season is affecting the sports climate in the state.

Anything you'd like to share, I'd appreciate.

 

you can email me at nicole.haase(at)gmail.com

 

Thanks!

[Menotti80]

i was -2 back in '82; does this make me ineligible?

[Thurston Fluff]

I was 18 in 82 and not interested in baseball until I was stuck working in a factory second shift. The guy i worked nect to was a huge Brewer fan so it was on all the time. By the end of the year I was addicted. It's hard for me to compare because that is where I became a fan of the Brewers yet wasn't really a baseball fan yet. That and I had yet to suffer through the lean years like I have since then. This one is special because of the wait. That one was special because it was my initiation into baseball.

[GAME05]

1. I was 5 in 82. 92 was sure fun, though. although if i lived in Milwaukee, I don't think my attendance at games this season would have come from any nostalgia to any playoff or near-playoff season.

 

2. be a baseball fan for long enough and you'll have a counterexample to any bit of optimism or pessimism. so call me hopeful rather than optimistic about this season.

 

3. it's not like adding in football talk to my conversations is more of a hassle than just baseball talk, so it's not really an issue. plus it's still just Packer off-season, and watching TT deftly avoid any and all free agents makes for a very boring off-season.

 

4. Favre wasn't holding up the sky in Green Bay, so i don't think it's going to fall now.

[Patrick425]

1. I was 16 in 1982. I attended all the post season home games, sitting in the left center field bleachers. The two teams are not comparable and I don't want to take anything away from this year's team. However, the community seemed to really have a connection to the 82 squad. Gorman, Ganter, Vuke and even Molly and Yount seemed to have this blue collor hard nose persona that really resinated with the typical Milwaukee resident. They had a manager that was a local guy from West Allis. Gorman and Vuke opened a local bar together (Stormin' and Vukes'). Players like Thomas, Gantner, and Augustine still continue to live and work in the community today. You also have to remember all the other differences. Players did not come and go from teams as often as they do now and they did not have the contracts that seem to put them out of touch with the fan base. Every game was not on TV. Going to a game was really a special event. The Brewer rivals were Boston, NY, and Balt, not StL and Chicago. It's hard to compare the two, it's was a completely different era. I also have a different perspective on sports and baseball as a 42 year old with a job and mortgage and family and other responsibilities than I did as a basically worry free 16 year old.

2. I'm very cautiously optimistic about the Brewers post-season chances. I've been let down too many times to make any assumptions. But I really do like the make up of the team right now

3. Baseball has always been my favorite sport regardless of how competitive the Brewers are. I like football and watching Packer games, but I'm not by any means a HUGE football fan like most Wisconsinites. The fact that the Brewers are in the pennant race does make any difference regarding my interest or lack of interest in the upcoming football season.

4. Whether Favre stays or goes. Does not matter to me. I'm tired of the news coverage. I try to follow sports teams and not individuals.

[splitterpfj]

1. I was 15 in 1982, there are some differences in the two seasons. The '82 team had been in the strike-related playoffs in 81, and was loaded with proven talent - they were expected to win. They started slowly, then took off after a change in managers in early June - from that point on, they were the best team in baseball that season. In 82, the Brewers caught the first-place Red Sox right around July 4, and never gave up the lead.

 

2. Optimistic? Yes. Fully aware that anything can happen over the next 9-10 weeks? Yes, again. I do think the Brewers are the favorite for the NL wild card, and obviously, they've gotten right back into the division race. I thought they were the wild card team before the season, as soon as Sabathia joined the rotation, I believed it again.

 

3. Yes, I'm completely unaware of football at this point, it's not even on the radar.

 

4. The only thing the Favre thing has done to me is cause extreme boredom, and a bit of a disdain for Favre. Go away already, you've been "almost retiring" since 1952.

[burniebrewer]

1. I was 10 in 1982 and as a kid it was exciting. We'd go to our Pepsi/Coke Fan Club games, but the result was still more important to our Dads. I think I'm much more hyped now than then.

 

2. I'm hopefully optimistic, but I realize it's gonna be a fight with about 5 other teams (wild card) and 2 other for the division.

 

3. Football season doesn't really start for me until baseball is over...ever.

 

4. Favre hoopla just annoys me. I don't like him or the Packers so I'm sick of hearing it.

[Jimbo]

1. I was also 16 in 1982. Being just a teenager, the Brewers were most part the whole world to me. Being an adult now, I still follow the Brewers closely, but my life doesn't revolve around it. I have other responsibilities now. Pretty much ditto what Patrick said. The Brewers were an AL powerhouse from '78 through '83, but it always seemed as though another division rival started the season hot and ran away with it. No WC then, so only first place mattered. A string of upper 80 to mid 90 win seasons, yet they were always chasing somebody. The 2008 Brewers are doing it with starting pitching and above average hitting. The Muderer's Row seasons of Bambi's Bombers and Harvey Wallbangers had a legit All-Star at every position except RF Moore and the DH. Their pitching staff was at best fair. Back then, all clubs were pretty much competitve economically, so every team had a fair shot at free agents, and at winning.

 

Back then the city got all abuzz when the Yanks rolled into town. I haven't seen anticipation like that in 20 years. I have tix to Tuesday's game. I expect to sense that same buzz that has been missing.

 

I attended ALCS Games 4 and 5, WS Game 5 down the RF line. I would like to attend one post-season game this year.

 

2. I was still doubtful, thinking Milw would end up 3rd place with 3rd best NL record. That was before the break. If Weeks and Hall can keep the bats going, that should put them over the top.

 

3. I'm a casual follower of football, so I don't get into it until September anyhow.

 

4. I started to tire of Favre two years ago.

 

On edit: to follow up with Patrick. Home games were NEVER televised. You had to attend home games to be a part of the fever or else listen to Uecker. If you lived out of town, wait it out for a road trip. Some road games on TV, but not sure how many, maybe 30?? I chuckle now when someone complains that a single is not broadcast for whatever reason.

[hawing]

1. Like Jimbo and Patrick425, I was 16 in 1982. Like Backupcatchers, 1982 was the first year I followed baseball and the Brewers, so while I was excited by the Brewers' success, I wasn't yet familiar enough with 'the game' to fully appreciate the team's overall strength in the league. Living "outstate" meant I didn't get quite the chance to eat/sleep/breathe Brewers like some in Milwaukee might have, nor to share the excitement as wildly (Monroe, where my family lived at the time, was pretty much a football town).

I didn't attend my first game until September 1983, so I developed my Brewers interest without having ever set foot in County Stadium - and, as others mentioned, without regularly seeing the players on TV.

 

Obviously I was glad the Brewers made the playoffs (I'd write about game results in a diary I kept at the time), but I remember clearly - and now marvel at - how easily I accepted their Game 7 loss. I saw footage of the welcome-home parade and rally on the news and literally, naively thought to myself, "well, they'll win it in 1983." I was absolutely convinced of that.

There wasn't Brewers merchandise for sale in Monroe (though I did get a McDonald's commemorative placemat); I had no means to go to Milwaukee and get any postseason swag, and consequently, I feel like I under-appreciated the 1982 season.

There is no way I'd be so sanguine about the Brewers just missing out anymore. If they reach a WS game 7 and lose, I'll be bawling. Of course, if they reach a WS game 7 and win, I will also be bawling. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/eyes.gif

 

2. I consider myself a hopeful fan, which I think is different from being optimistic, and I strive to not make too many assumptions (either positive or negative).

 

3. I'm not really a football fan, and only the most casual of followers, so I don't pay that sport much attention at any time of year.

 

4. I feel bad for "Packer Nation" and Favre followers, since he and the Packers have turned his retirement/unretirement into an unpleasant circus that is bound to tarnish Favre's legacy with at least some of his fanbase; but since my interest was casual to begin with, it's not affecting me - apart from when the local sports segments in Madison news start off with Favre issues and I impatiently wait to see what they're going to say about the Brewers. (Note I didn't say "impatiently wait for Brewers news." I get Brewers news from this website.)

 

Hope that helps.

[Samurai Bucky]

1. I was 13 years old in '82. In '82, I would say I was more excited about the race than I am now. Perhaps it was because I was looking through a child's eyes seeing players that I idolized. Heck, I wanted to "be them" when I grew up, so their successes were my successes. I also remember the anger I felt the previous year when the Yankees beat the Brewers in the strike-shortened season. The trades during the off-season is what probably fueled the fire. I do think that that team has a little more character than this team in the fact that Rollie had the handlebar, Gorman was, well, Gorman, and Vuke was a big 'ole messy-type guy. I remember sitting in the outfield bleachers at County Stadium yelling "Rollie! Rollie!" at the top of my lungs has Rollie came on the field.

 

Now as a parent of four children, I see some of the same excitement in the eyes of my children that I had. My son pretending to be J.J. Hardy while he's hitting; my daughter reciting the starting lineup to me; another daughter asking, "What does CC stand for?" I'm just glad that I have this chance to share the same emotion with my children that my parents shared with me.

 

2. I am very optimistic. Perhaps one reason I would really like to see the Brewers win is to spite the "experts" that say the Cubs are so incredibly talented.

 

3. If the Brewers were out of the picture, I would probably pay more attention to football. I'm more of a baseball fan anyway, so with all things equal: baseball wins. There is a little different flavor to baseball than football in that baseball is a sport you follow daily. If a baseball team is in the playoff hunt, you look at the paper (Internet) daily to see who won, lost, etc. For football, you have one day a week (for the most part), and then the rest of the week focuses on who got injured, and what the matchups might be. So with baseball, the cycle of the emotional rollercoaster just seems to be shorter. For example, if the Brewers are one game back and beat the Cubs, may people would be euphoric. However if they lose the next two games against the Cubs, panic starts to ensue, message boards are flooded, and people are thrown under busses.

 

4. Favre wants the attention, and I don't want to give it to him. End of story.