Home Field Disadvantage

[gypcasino]

Fatter than Joey wrote:

The professional sports team with the longest playoff drought

MLB

 

NHL

NFL

 

NBA

[1992casey]

You're right -- Maybe I am forgetting the context in which the graphic was presented, or any qualifiers. In either case, it's been awhile.

 

I saw the graphic, too, and I don't think you're forgetting anything. Nobody made it clear that the information in the graphic was on a sport-by-sport basis.

[jeffy]

Looser Losers

[adambr2]

Is this roadtrip the fans fault, Corey? Were you thinking about the boos of the 40,000 in Milwaukee when you were in Philly?

[MaxJ72]

They seemed to play pretty loose in Philly. I mean the first two games of the seris they hit .100 with RISP. That is pretty impressive. I mean my softbal team has done that except that was with us spending 2 hours at the bar before the game.

[owbc]

Time for another futile argument, but here goes:

 

The Philly series is related. In past years, the downward spiral was started by bad road trips, even going back to the "sweep suits" incident in 2001. This (likely) collapse was started by a bad home stand in which the fans were booing starting on September 1st when Gagne blew a late lead against the Mets. We just had a 20-7 August and the team returned home and was immediately booed.

 

Secondly, I don't care who is getting booed, whether it be Gagne, Hall, Yost, whatever. As fans, we love to find scapegoats. We love to think that everything is rosy except for (fill in the blank) who needs to be (fired/benched/removed/traded) to make things better. The Brewers players don't think that way. They are a team. The are in it together. If you boo Gagne, you are having an effect on the entire team. He isn't the only one on the field, there are 9 players out there. You don't think the other players are thinking, "If I screw up, that's going to happen to me"? Don't you think the players want to be well-liked? They aren't robots, they are human beings who love the game of baseball. They do it for the fans. Even Barry Bonds admitted that baseball players were entertainers.

 

Obviously, there isn't one factor in a (likely) collapse like this, but I definitely would place the overall pressure of the Brewers fans/media as one of the contributing factors. Maybe the #1 reason was that we aren't as good as we thought, but shouldn't we be cheering the Brewers for making it this far if that is the case? Shouldn't we have been encouraging them to continue their amazing run, instead of booing them and placing unreasonable expectations on them?

 

If the Brewers somehow manage to turn this roadtrip around and still have a shot at the Wildcard when they return home, they need to be greeted with cheers and encouragement--they're going to need if it they're going to pull this off.

[brains and braun]

you can't really believe some of that stuff, can you? there are a lot of factors in the brewers' september swoon, but i have to believe that fan booing is lower on the list than say, errors, overall bad d, inability to hit with risp, inability to hit period, and on and on. if this team can't make the playoffs this season, it's time for brewers v.2.0.

[owbc]

That's all true, but you don't magically go from a 20-7 August to this. They're still a really good team--they're a winning team even if they lose every game the rest of the season. I just don't understand why we're ok with the fact that the fans might have contributed to this disaster. The pressure got to them, and part of it was the attitude of the fans at home games. The Brewers played decent defense this year until recently, they hit much better with RISP until recently, they actually could hit the ball until recently. The common denominator is that they couldn't handle the pressure of the pennant race.

[Fatter than Joey]

I saw the graphic, too, and I don't think you're forgetting anything. Nobody made it clear that the information in the graphic was on a sport-by-sport basis.

 

Thanks Casey, I should have figured it out though...

 

I just don't understand why we're ok with the fact that the fans might have contributed to this disaster.

 

I really think it doesn't have much merit, and it is mostly passing the buck.

 

The common denominator is that they couldn't handle the pressure of the pennant race.

 

Which may be true -- but that is the fault of the players and especially the management.

[owbc]

The common denominator is that they couldn't handle the pressure of the pennant race.

 

Which may be true -- but that is the fault of the players and especially the management.

Maybe I give the fans more credit/blame than they deserve, but IMO, the comments by Corey Hart suggest that the fans have a bigger impact than we might think. Maybe he's just unnecessarily placing blame, but if the fans would cheer more and boo less, this debate wouldn't even be possible.

[jeffy]

"We put ourselves in this position. It's nobody else's fault. It's not other teams playing good. It's us playing bad."

"I don't think it matters who throws against us now," said Braun. "We're struggling in batting practice."

http://blogs.jsonline.com...-total-disaster-quot.aspx

[DougJones43]

The common denominator is that they couldn't handle the pressure of the pennant race.

 

Which may be true -- but that is the fault of the players and especially the management.

Maybe I give the fans more credit/blame than they deserve, but IMO, the comments by Corey Hart suggest that the fans have a bigger impact than we might think.

If they hadn't gone on the road to Philly (where they felt "looser") and laid a gigantic turd, these comments might have some prudence. Getting swept in 4 games doesn't back up the argument much though.

 

edit: Also, look at their home/road splits from the past handful of years. Playing at Miller Park must not be that bad. This is just an example of a guy not wanting to admit his team is completing choking, so he finds something else to blame.

[bklynbrewcrew]

Only losers complain about the fans. The bottom line is these guys are a bunch of whiny complainers and that attitude comes from the manager who is the biggest excuse maker in the world. Maybe if this team had a leader that made the players accountable they wouldnt always be looking for other to blame.

[DougJones43]

Can someone just simply tell me what positive impact booing your team at home has?

Helps convince the owner to fire the incompetent manager.

[rluzinski]

Wow. So the noble booers have accomplished what they wanted. No more booing. Yipee!

 

I agree that it's lame for a player to blame bad play on booing. I don't have a problem expressing that he doesn't like beeing booed, however.

[Fatter than Joey]

Wow. So the noble booers have accomplished what they wanted. No more booing. Yipee!

 

I think the booers are just on standby -- I'm pretty sure any K, Error, Gagne, etc. will be met with booing.

[owbc]

I think the booers are just on standby -- I'm pretty sure any K, Error, Gagne, etc. will be met with booing.

I don't think we can't say anything about the future of booing this year until the Brewers play out the next 6 games. If they go 1-5 or 2-4, I don't know how much will change. 3-3 or 4-2 and a Wild Card tie/lead should result in a wild atmosphere at Miller Park for the Pirates series. I doubt there will be any booing at all. I really think the Yost firing will change fans' attitudes...at least temporarily.