If the Brewers Played a Lame Duck Season...

[Warning Track Power]

...what would you do?

 

http://www.turfshowtimes.com/2015/3/22/8272457/st-louis-rams-los-angeles-stadium-stan-kroenke-new-pictures

 

If you believe all the rumors out here in California, the Rams will be coming back to Los Angeles in 2016. While I for one am happy about L.A. potentially getting back "our" football team (yes, I know they started in Cleveland but are Los Angeles' true team), it makes me sad for a fan base to lose a team they called their own (although if it had to happen to a fan base, I couldn't think of one better than St. Louis ).

 

It did get me thinking though...what if the Brewers were to play a lame duck season in Milwaukee? If you knew the Brewers were moving away after 2015, what would you do as a fan of the Brewers? Would you follow the team after they moved to Charlotte or Portland or Las Vegas? Would you boycott the team all year and burn all Brewer gear? Who would you root for and why?

 

Hopefully, we never have to go through this (looking at you Bucks) but in the event any of my teams left, I think the amount of disdain I would have for them would lead me to rooting for their archrivals which leads me to the Bears and Cubs. Now, having grown up in Los Angeles and not in Milwaukee I understand that some of you would never root for a Chicago team which I understand. I on the other hand, don't have this ingrained hatred for all things Chicago. To me, leaving me as a fan makes me want to run into the arms of your most hated rival.

[JimH5]

If the Brewers announced they were leaving, they would be dead to me. I wouldn't follow them in their new market, I wouldn't go to another game at Miller Park. The only reason they would leave would be financial, and I would feel especially bitter about funding an ownership group that doesn't want to be in Milwaukee. I wouldn't get rid of any of my Brewers stuff, because it's mine. Maybe I would decide to wear it again some day.

 

As for baseball, I like the Mets and I kind of like the Twins, so I would become stronger fans of those teams. I spent several years in New Jersey and I came to like the Yankees/Mets rivalry. And I feel a certain kinship with Minnesota that I don't feel toward Illinois. I think the Twins are not dissimilar to the Brewers in terms of being a cold weather smaller market team. I'm not a fan of the NFL, so the whole Packers/Vikings things doesn't matter to me.

 

. .but really, with MLB Network and fantasy baseball, etc., it's possible to become a fan of MLB without really devoting oneself to any particular team, and maybe I'd just do that.

[RockCoCougars]

This exact scenario played out 50 years ago in Milwaukee with the Braves. From what I've read, attendance tanked, and no sponsors would pay for spots on the radio broadcasts as they wanted no association with the Chicago carpetbaggers. I don't blame the fans one bit for that reaction, as I'd probably lose all interest in Major League Baseball moving forward if this were to happen with the Brewers.

[bylo tesi me]

I would feel a sense of Deja vu, as I am old enough to remember the Braves lame duck season in '65. albeit through a 7 yr. old's memory. (I know, I'm old!) I would still pay attention, but I doubt I'd spend any money supporting a lame duck team. Back then we loved the players, felt like we belonged. there isn't the same sense of belonging these days. we were naive enough to believe it wouldn't really happen, at least I was. Now days I would have no doubt. Can't see a team playing a lame duck season in a small market like Milwaukee these days, they would find a way to play near there new market, even in outdated faculties.

[DocLuna7]

I am really, really, glad that we haven't had to discuss this since about 1994 or 1995 when the debate was swirling about whether or not to build Miller Park.

[Ennder]

Nothing would change for me and I'd be hoping that the owners changed their minds.

[3and2Fastball]

It would depend on the way they went about it.

 

Leave like a thief in the night like the Baltimore Colts did? They'd become my least favorite team

[JohnBriggs12]

I was 12 going on 13 in 1965. Yes it was a lame duck season, but Milwaukee County and Wisconsin were in the courts trying to prevent the move, so I held on to hope as slim as it was. The Braves were still my team that year though I was looking around at the same time for a team to adopt.

 

There was some excitement when the Braves beat the Dodgers on Saturday June 5 and got within 3 games. They had a doubleheader scheduled the next day, June 6 and I talked my older sister who had a car to go to the game. Back then almost all the tickets sold were walk ups. And the 17,175 that showed up on a beautiful June day overwhelmed the skeleton staff they had manning the ticket booths. Lines to get tickets stretched across the entire parking lot. The first game of the doubleheader was delayed to allow the fans to get in. That crowd seems small by today's standards but they were there to root on the Braves and it seemed much larger.

 

I remember thinking this exact thought. If the Braves were to win the pennant, major league baseball would have an embarrassment of epic proportions. If fans filled County Stadium for a World Series, how on earth could MLB leave this city without a team? Was I naïve? Sure I was 12. But that thought kept me going that entire year as the Braves contended until early September. I ended up going to 7 games that year, more than any I had before.

 

The fans that were there cheered the team as passionately as ever. But any time southerner Bobby Bragan, the Braves manager, stepped out of the dugout, he was booed with a venom that I can't describe. He was the lone symbol of management that the fans hated.

 

Alas, John McHale, GM and liar in chief for the franchise, sabotaged any chance they had of making my dream come true by basically standing pat and not getting the one extra starting arm they needed to get over the hump. They rode the starting threesome of Tony Cloninger, Ken Johnson, and young Wade Blasingame to death. Blasingame was just a kid and his arm nearly fell off. There was a time in that season in July and August where those 3 were winning almost all the time. Cloninger won 25 games that year, Blasingame 16 (at age 21) and Johnson 13 after the Braves got him early in the season.

 

Around July, the Sporting News ran a story about Charlie Finley titled (and I'll never forget it) "Finley Dickering to Move A's to Milwaukee". That moment I followed the A's every move, something that lasted until about 1971 when my allegiance to the Brewers took hold. Turns out the Milwaukee pols wanted no part of another out of town owner and rebuffed Finley, who was a Chicagoan. But think about it. Finley was starting to assemble the team that would win 3 straight championships in Oakland.

 

Staring in 1966, I loathed the Braves. It wasn't hard. It was easy. I wanted so bad for the Braves to get by the Cardinals in 1982, so that Milwaukee could exact some revenge. To this day, I take a little extra satisfaction from the Brewers beating the Braves.

[JohnBriggs12]

I might add this. 1965 marked the 13th season of the Braves in Milwaukee. That entire time, the actual ticket buyers were all people who had other baseball allegiances before the Braves had arrived. The Braves were a novelty and when they were winning and contending through the entire year they all were on the bandwagon, but once the team started to disappoint and they took away the right to carry in beer, these fair weather fans disappeared.

 

But the kids like me who only knew the Braves as their team took the departure a lot harder and we couldn't do anything about it because we didn't make the ticket buying decision. My dad and a brother who was 12 years older, just went back to following their previous team, the White Sox. Heck they never really had left the White Sox, because after Braves games finished, my dad always turned White Sox games on the radio. I had zero interest. Had the Braves survived in Milwaukee another 5 years, the kids who grew up as Braves fans would start becoming ticket buyers, and I have no doubt the love affair for the Braves would have come back.

 

If the Rams were to leave St. Louis, most of their fans over 40 who grew up as Cardinal fans anyway will just switch allegiances again, to either the Chiefs or the Bears I imagine.

[JimH5]

JohnBriggs12, that's good stuff.

 

At what point did you become aware of the Selig group and their efforts? And did you attend any of the White Sox home games at County Stadium? Did you have expectations that the White Sox would be moved to Milwaukee?

 

I turned 8 in 1970, so I had no memory or connection to the Braves. In the Brewers early years, they played in-season exhibition games against the Braves at least a couple of times. I recall that there was some community excitement over those games.

 

Was some of the anti-Braves sting gone by then?

[Dean Machine]

John I really enjoyed reading those last two posts. Very touching.

[pacopete4]

I probably wouldn't follow baseball much at all and I love baseball. That's how much it'd break my heart.

[folly412]

I thought I would be done with them...then I got to the word "Charlotte". Now that would make it interesting. If my home team relocated to my new home, how would I feel about it? They would be the Brewers in name (assuming no name change), and I could go to many more games. Then again, visiting friends and family in the summer is much more pleasant when you can take in a couple of games. I suppose I would root for them, but probably not on the same level. It just wouldn't be the same.

[hawing]

I was born in the first off-season after the Braves left Milwaukee. My mom's family was pretty into baseball (my grandpa even went to some of the late 60s White Sox games at County Stadium), but I'm told my dad swore off the sport as soon as the Braves left town. This has got to be part of why I had to find baseball on my own as a teenager, instead of it being a part of my childhood.

 

In 1995 I knew things might go awry for the Brewers, and I had decided before the stadium vote that if the Brewers left, they would instantly become the "anti-franchise" for me. (I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have remained the Brewers in Charlotte.)

I think I've mentioned this on the forum before, but in 1995 I also started a mental list of teams I would consider adopting as my team if the Brewers ceased. The teams I remember being on the list are the Twins, Pirates, Royals, Mariners and Indians (not necessarily in that order). Interestingly, I've been to games at each of these teams' parks, except not yet to Target Field.

 

At the time I remember the S.O. (who grew up a Cubs fan since his prime getting-into-baseball years fell right when there was no team in Milwaukee) saying, well duh, root for the Cubs. But I felt no desire to do that. Even if I somehow, someday found the Cubs' story compelling, they have a zillion fans and don't need my support. The only selling point for me would be relative proximity.

 

If I had to create a 21st-century MLB contingency list...it would be harder because I'm into the Brewers that much deeper now, but the list would probably not be much different. Pirates/Royals/Indians/Mariners are all more my type of market size, and the Twins are relatively nearby. I might even add the Nationals to my list.

 

I wouldn't see a reason to divest all of my Brewers stuff if they changed places/names, but I might have to forego wearing them for a mourning period.

[Roderick]

If the Brewers announced they were leaving, they would be dead to me. I wouldn't follow them in their new market, I wouldn't go to another game at Miller Park. The only reason they would leave would be financial, and I would feel especially bitter about funding an ownership group that doesn't want to be in Milwaukee. I wouldn't get rid of any of my Brewers stuff, because it's mine. Maybe I would decide to wear it again some day.

 

Ditto. I would use my Brewers clothes as my old and to be abused clothes, so they wouldn't necessarily last that long.

[FVBrewerFan]

Circumstances behind the move would determine if I continued to be a fan or not. Current Bucks situation is a good example. Former and current ownership has bent over backwards to keep the team here. If the politicians can't figure out how to get the rest done, I don't blame the Bucks organization one bit, and I will continue to be a Bucks fan.

 

If Miller Park never got built and the Brewers left, I would have remained a fan because the circumstances were very similar to the Bucks today. Now if Mark A just decided he got a great deal from Fargo and is moving the team, that's a different story. I would not remain a fan.

[DuWayne Steurer]

I'd like to think I'd remain a fan, but realistically if they became the Portland Brewers, or Charlotte Brewers, or whatever, I honestly would not follow them any longer. I wouldn't care about the circumstances or the method....... I just wouldn't care. I wouldn't hold a grudge, but I just can't see myself caring about a team half a country away.

 

Also, JohnBriggs, those are some fantastic posts. Thanks.

[Thurston Fluff]

Can't love someone who leaves you so no to following the Brewers. Long distance relationships are too hard to maintain so I don't know if I'd ever get interested in another team unless they were close enough to follow day in and day out. I hated the Cubs even before we ended up in the same division so I doubt that would change. So unless the White Sox, Tigers or Twins broadcast all the games in the area my interest in baseball would probably just fade away.

[WV Brew]

I guess I'm the same age as JohnBriggs12. We used to go to the Braves' games as well. Generally, I went with my father and brothers. My father was only ever a lukewarm Brewers' fan after the Braves left but I guess I was young enough not to have become totally embittered. Of course, it was years before Atlanta drew as well as Milwaukee. It was the TV money that made the difference and then the Braves would always have blocked another NL team in Milwaukee. With good reason.

 

I did go to a couple of those White Sox games. I remember one in which the crowd was sitting on the warning track because so many people had showed up. Must have been difficult for the outfielders but it was only an exhibition. I never did really believe the Sox would move to Milwaukee though. They used Milwaukee to get concessions from Chicago I suspect. I will always be grateful to that Sox ownership though for its small bit of help in returning baseball where it belonged.

[Warning Track Power]

I'd like to think I'd remain a fan, but realistically if they became the Portland Brewers, or Charlotte Brewers, or whatever, I honestly would not follow them any longer. I wouldn't care about the circumstances or the method....... I just wouldn't care. I wouldn't hold a grudge, but I just can't see myself caring about a team half a country away.

Living in California it gets tough...especially when Brewer games mostly start at 5pm here. By the time I get home the game is in the 6th or 7th inning. That what XM, MLB At Bat and Extra Innings package on Directv are for though. It's not as hard as when I was a kid waiting for the sometimes SportsCenter highlight of the Brewers. It is fun though to be the only Brewer fan I know out here as most of the people that live close to me are Dodger, Angel or Padre fans.

[JohnBriggs12]

JohnBriggs12, that's good stuff.

 

At what point did you become aware of the Selig group and their efforts? And did you attend any of the White Sox home games at County Stadium? Did you have expectations that the White Sox would be moved to Milwaukee?

 

I turned 8 in 1970, so I had no memory or connection to the Braves. In the Brewers early years, they played in-season exhibition games against the Braves at least a couple of times. I recall that there was some community excitement over those games.

 

Was some of the anti-Braves sting gone by then?

 

Selig's name was out there in those days. He was working on securing an expansion team. The White Sox were hurting at the gate in the late 60's and rather than see them as moving when they played games in Milwaukee, I thought they were attempting to win over baseball fans in Milwaukee to get them to eventually align themselves with the White Sox. Plus they knew people were starved for baseball and they could get better gates than they were getting in Chicago.. I went to one game each in 68 and 69, both times to see what by then were my team, the Oakland A's. Saw Reggie Jackson unload on Hoyt Wilhelm and take a knuckleball about 3/4 of the way up the right field bleachers. Just like the knuckleball, I don't think it had any spin on it as it left the yard. Got Rick Monday's autograph too (long since tossed). When the expansion teams for 69 were announced and did not include Milwaukee, I figured they weren't going to get a team. Influential guys like Walter O'Malley and Wrigley in Chicago were blackballing Milwaukee for taking baseball to court in O'Malley's case and Wrigley not wanting to give up his restored Milwaukee market.

 

What was disgusting was that the Cubs television network was telecasting Sunday Cub games all over Wisconsin in those years. I hated the Cubs and blamed them for the Braves leaving though I was in the minority. Friends of mine became Cub fans.

 

Early in spring training 1970 rumors started circulating about Seattle being in trouble and Selig working to get the team. Well before it was official, Duane Dow on Channel 6 in Milwaukee started reporting Pilots exhibition game scores and calling them the Brewers. He did that before anyone else. Will never forget that.

 

What the Brewers had to overcome wasn't so much anti-Brave sentiment as it was anti baseball. There was still a lot of allegiance to former Brave players. Ironically among the many moves that first year was the acquisition of Dick Allen's brother Hank Allen. Hank Allen was given number 44. Whether that was an accident or on purpose, it was weird.

[bork]

I never did really believe the Sox would move to Milwaukee though. They used Milwaukee to get concessions from Chicago I suspect. I will always be grateful to that Sox ownership though for its small bit of help in returning baseball where it belonged.

 

I'm reading "Brewers Essential" By Tom Haudricourt right now. Interesting read. He says Selig had an agreement with the Sox owners to move them to Milwaukee, but the AL teams blocked it because they didn't want to lose Chicago.

[JohnBriggs12]

I never did really believe the Sox would move to Milwaukee though. They used Milwaukee to get concessions from Chicago I suspect. I will always be grateful to that Sox ownership though for its small bit of help in returning baseball where it belonged.

 

I'm reading "Brewers Essential" By Tom Haudricourt right now. Interesting read. He says Selig had an agreement with the Sox owners to move them to Milwaukee, but the AL teams blocked it because they didn't want to lose Chicago.

 

That's not how it was reported back then. The White Sox were owned by the Allyn brothers, John and Arthur Allyn Jr. Selig got John Allyn to agree to the move but brother Arthur who was never on board, nixed the deal, probably at the behest of some other AL owners, but it never was voted on by the league. This was all behind the scenes stuff and not reported. The games in Milwaukee weren't sold as some preview of the White Sox moving to Milwaukee. They still had to sell tickets in Chicago after all. It was just seen as an opportunity for Milwaukee to restore it's somewhat tarnished image as a baseball town.

[hawing]

I wouldn't hold a grudge, but I just can't see myself caring about a team half a country away.

For what it's worth, if you began to follow a team not in your MLB-designated market, they might actually be easier to follow via MLB.TV - provided you can manage any time zone differences. [sarcasm]Thanks, MLB and your irritating market rules![/sarcasm]

[Thurston Fluff]

I wouldn't hold a grudge, but I just can't see myself caring about a team half a country away.

For what it's worth, if you began to follow a team not in your MLB-designated market, they might actually be easier to follow via MLB.TV - provided you can manage any time zone differences. [sarcasm]Thanks, MLB and your irritating market rules![/sarcasm]

 

Not to take this to far off track but the blackout rules never made much sense to me. In an effort to get more people to go to the games you sell them a tv package that doesn't allow them to see the team they most likely want to watch? Here's an idea MLB, why not try to give people more access to the games and see if they might get interested enough in the team to go see them live?