Not complaining...

I'm taking a brief respite from my Hamlet pentology (I promise my next post will be the last on the subject), to talk about current events. And what current events could those be? Well it's October and what can be more current than the Major League Baseball playoffs which concluded this week with the Tampa Bay Rays beating the Cleveland Guardians to face the Milwaukee Brewers in the World Series which begins Friday night.

One interesting tidbit in a sport that lives for interesting tidbits, is that this year something will have to give as neither team has a World Series Championship in their resume. This is interesting because having two teams that have never won a World Series meet in a World Series is a far rarer occurrence than you might imagine.

The last time it happened was in 1980 when the Philadelphia Phillies beat the Kansas City Royals. That year the Phillies won their first title after 97 years of existence. 

The last time before that was 1920 when the Brooklyn Robins (today's LA Dodgers) faced the Cleveland Indians (today's Guardians). Cleveland won that best of nine series. 

Since the World Series in its current form didn't start until 1903, obviously there were plenty of opportunities before that for two non-champions to face each other, five to be exact.

Another rare occurrence this year is the fact that both Chicago MLB teams made the playoffs, something that's only happened four times. The first was in 1906 when the Cubs (yes they were indeed called the Cubs then), played the White Sox (ditto) in the World Series, the only "subway series" this town has ever experienced. I put the term in quotes because Chicago didn't have a subway in 1906, so perhaps calling it a streetcar or horse and buggy series would be more appropriate, 

Even better, the Cubs and the White Sox this year clinched playoff berths within minutes of each other on September 24, making that a red-letter day for Chicago baseball fans. But our long-awaited dream of an honest-to-goodness subway series was short lived. The Cubs unceremoniously exited the playoffs after being swept in two games in the Wild Card series against the Padres. The real story in town and in fact in all of baseball this year was the White Sox.

The old baseball adage is that in a 162 game season, every team wins 60 games and loses 60 games, so it's the rest of the games that make the difference between success, mediocrity and abject failure. Well in 2024 the White Sox didn't even come close to meeting that benchmark of futility, winning only 41 games and losing 121, competing with the woebegone 1962 Mets for the worst record since they started playing 162 games in a season* In fact, in each of the three seasons previous to this one, the Sox lost over 100 games making them the first team ever to make it to the playoffs after losing over 100 games in three consecutive seasons.

If you recall my post from exactly one year ago about that year's playoffs, I mentioned that I could just sit back, relax and enjoy what had to have been among the most exciting playoff seasons ever in baseball history, because I didn't have an emotional investment in any of the teams.

Well, this year I did. It was the team I've been a fan of since the early seventies, you guessed it, the White Sox. 

And how right I was about being able to sit back and take it all in, last year. This year with some skin in the game, I hung on every pitch (WHAT DO YOU MEAN THAT WAS A BALL, ANOTHER LEAD OFF WALK? SH%T!) in the White Sox playoff games. Which means instead of hoping for entertaining, competitive games, for the sake of my mental health I wanted the Sox to take an early lead and hold on to it for the rest of the game, which much to my surprise, they did in each of their first four games, sweeping the Astros in two games to take the best of three American League Wild Card series, then the first two games of the AL Divisional Series against the Guardians in Cleveland. 

With the demise of the Cubs along with hopes for a Chicago subway series, my second choice for an ideal World Series matchup was an I-94 series, the interstate highway that connects Chicago and Milwaukee.

But that wish came to a screeching halt when the Sox returned home to be crushed by Cleveland in both games here. In the pivotal game five back in Cleveland, I let myself fall asleep after the Guardians took an early lead, not wanting to suffer through yet another agonizing exit of a Chicago team from the playoffs, something I've experienced far too many times in my life. Maybe, just maybe I'd be surprised when I woke up to find the Sox made a brilliant comeback as they had so many times this season to take the game and the series, but no such luck.

But truly, it was fun while it lasted and I'm not complaining at all, this year my team made the most remarkable turnaround in baseball history. 

Thank you, White Sox.

After the I-94 series dream crumbled, my next ideal series was an all midwest series, featuring the Milwaukee Brewers and the Cleveland Guardians. Now we already know that the Brewers have never won a World Series but the city of Milwaukee did have a World Series winner more recently than the city of Cleveland. That team was the 1957 Milwaukee Braves. The Braves while they were in Milwaukee have the distinction of being the only team in the history of baseball who never had a losing record. The last time the Cleveland American League team won the World Series was in 1948, back when they were called the Indians.

This year the Brewers faced the mighty LA Dodgers who swept them in their best of seven National League Championship series last year.  The Brewers won their first two games at home in this year's NLCS but were headed for LA where I was sure the mighty Dodgers, probably the most talented team in the game, would at the very least return the favor. 

That feeling went away in game three as Brewer leadoff man Jackson Chourio homered off LA southpaw Blake Snell, taking the former Cy Young Award winner's first pitch of the game the opposite direction to the right field bleachers. After scoreless baseball on both sides for the next five innings the Dodgers would put up a two spot in the sixth to take the lead. But as they did in every game up to that point, the Brewers would come from behind, this time off consecutive home runs from Jake Bowers and Garrett Mitchell putting the Crew up 4-2 from which they never looked back, Brewers up three games to none.

But momentum is the name of the game, or so they say, and in a win or die game four, the Dodgers scored four runs in their half of the second, capped by a three-run homer by generational player Shohei Ohtani who had been virtually invisible up to that point in the playoffs. Folks in Dodger Nation must have breathed a sigh of relief thinking everything would turn around as their team was finally operating on all eight cylinders. I kind of thought that way too as I allowed myself again to doze off thinking that this game at least was over and the Dodgers would live to play another day.

How silly of me, Milwaukee chipped away at that lead with two spots of their own in the fourth and fifth innings and taking the lead in the sixth which the never relinquished, thanks to great pitching which held the Dodgers scoreless for seven innings three of which were pitched by Aaron Ashby who earned the National League pennant winning save. 

It was truly an impressive series for the Brewers, certainly the highlight of this year's playoffs, having come back for the win in every game of the series, making them the first team to do that in a sweep of a seven game series. More impressive they were also the first team in any of the major US/Canadian sports to sweep a team that had swept them the previous year in the playoffs.

In the other League Championship series, the team I was rooting for, Cleveland, currently holds the record for the longest dry spell after winning a World Series, 78 years. As mentioned at the top of this post, the Tampa Bay Rays have never won a World Series championship (an expansion team, they played their first game in 1998), so there were plenty of reasons to root for either team, 

Here's another interesting tidbit about both teams, and another reason to root for them. They are both in the bottom quarter of MLB teams in terms of payroll. Tampa Bay comes in at 25 of 30 teams and get this, Cleveland is dead last. 

Of the top ten teams on that list, eight of those teams made the playoffs this year and one of those who didn't, the Toronto Blue Jays, were in the World Series last year. ** 

But all of those teams with seemingly bottomless pockets will be watching the World Series from home this year as the Milwaukee Brewers, number 19 on the list will face off against the Tampa Bay Rays.  

In other baseball news, the players' current contract with MLB is set to expire at the end of this season meaning it is very likely that a strike or an owner shut down is around the corner. The main issue is a salary cap. Baseball remains the only major US/Canadian sport that has none. The owners and I would imagine the majority of fans are for it, while the players not surprisingly are against it.

It would seem that the two teams about to play each other in the World Series starting this evening, back up the players' position, proving you may be able to buy a good or even great team, but that does not insure a championship.  

I don't know about you, but I do find that kind of reassuring.

Oh and one last tidbit before I tune in the game, The Rays and the Brewers this year both had the best records in their respective leagues, another rarity. In the past 31 years since the wild card was introduced in MLB, the two best teams met in the World Series only six times.

The baseball gods must be pleased. 

Go Brewers!

* 1962 was the Mets' first year of existence so their abysmal record can be excused. Not so the 2024 White Sox. There is a little bit of an argument over who truly had the worst season as the Mets that year only played 160 games, probably not bothering to make up games that were rained out earlier in the season. So, their record of 40 and 120 percentagewise (.250), is worse than that of the 2024 White Sox (.253), but the Sox lost 121 games that season, more than any team in the history of baseball. So, take your pick of the worst of the worst.

** The other surprise on this is to me is that the team with the highest payroll in baseball didn't make the playoffs this year either, the team from New York that doesn't wear pinstripes.

There Used to Be a Ballpark

Now the children try to find it
And they can't believe their eyes
`cause the old team just isn't playing
And the new team hardly tries

And the sky has got so cloudy
When it used to be so clear
And the summer went so quickly this year
Yes, there used to be a ballpark right here

Those are the words that sum up Joe Reposo's maudlin tune about the loss of innocence. Written for Frank Sinatra, the song was titled There Used to Be a Ballpark.

Baseball of late has become a bittersweet passion for my son. My boy the high school ballplayer is learning the harsh reality that the higher up the mountain he climbs, the weight of each step becomes heavier and heavier, as the air sustaining him becomes thinner and thinner.

Yet the flame burns within him as bright as ever.

Meanwhile, my son the rabid baseball fan is in the process of "collecting" major league ballpark experiences, an interest I also had at his age. Unlike me however, he has a father who is almost as passionate about the game as he, and is willing to frame summer vacations around visits to ballparks. This summer has been particularly fruitful as we made it to three new parks (for us), bringing his total including the two hometown parks, to seven.

In addition to the extant parks, my passion extends to visiting the sites described in the Reposo song "where the field was (once) warm and green and the people played their crazy game with a joy I'd never seen."

I wrote about two such sites on this blog. In a post from 2012 called "In Their Footsteps" I wrote about the thrill of standing upon a spot where something important happened. In this case the spot was the former left handed batters box of Old Comiskey Park in Chicago, where luminaries such as Joe Jackson, Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth and Reggie Jackson performed their magic. The significance of that spot was not lost on my then eleven year old son. The site of the old lost ballpark with a monument marking where home plate and the batters boxes once sat is now the parking lot for the new(er) ballpark across the street.

A month later I wrote a piece called "The Corner" about the patch of land at the intersection of Michigan and Trumbull Avenues in the Detroit neighborhood of Corktown. At the time of that writing, control of the site where two ballparks stood, was bitterly contested by the city of Detroit who wanted the site reserved for potential commercial development, and a group of baseball enthusiasts who hoped the site could be used as a public space devoted to baseball. That group, who called itself the Navin Field Ground Crew, much to the chagrin of the powers that be, took over the abandoned site, brought the field back to playing condition, and encouraged passionate, like-minded fans to come back to the park to play ball, get married, even scatter the ashes of loved ones on the hallowed ground where their beloved Tigers played for over 100 years. It remained that way until this year when the site was taken over by the Detroit Police Athletic League who plans to build their headquarters on the land formerly occupied by Tiger Stadium's grandstands, and retain the playing field, making it accessible to the public on a limited basis.

The three cities my son and I visited this summer were New York, Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Last year we visited St. Louis. The current ballparks in those cities were built in the retro style, doing their best to emulate the classic ballparks of old while providing visitors modern amenities such as luxury skyboxes and up-to-date concession stands designed to separate fans from their money as efficiently as possible.

Miller Park, Milwaukee

Way back in 2010, we went to a game up in Miller Park in Milwaukee. You can read about that visit here. That park in contrast to those mentioned above, while paying lip service to the past in the form of superficial design elements found on its outer facade, is a thoroughly modern ballpark complete with a retractable roof. Miller Park was built to replace the fifties vintage Milwaukee County Stadium, which stood only a few feet away.

From 1903 until 1953, Major League Baseball was remarkably stable. During that period there was no expansion or contraction, and all sixteen teams in the two leagues stayed put in the cities in which they played. Several things changed after the Second World War. More and more people were moving out of the big cities and into the suburbs, and the automobile became the primary means of transportation for many Americans. The old ballparks built in a bygone era where people got around by streetcar, were ill equipped to handle people coming from the 'burbs in their cars. Making it worse, television and other amusements were competing for the public's attention. Adding to that, games were broadcast on the tube making some people feel no need to go down to the ballpark.

As you might surmise from its name, Milwaukee County Stadium was built with public funds and administered by the local government. It wasn't the first major league ballpark to have that distinction, more on that later, but it does have the distinction of being the first "build it and they will come ballpark", constructed with the expectation that it would attract a big league team to its city. They built Country Stadium atop a defunct stone quarry on the outskirts of town, on a site with acres of land, perfect for lots of parking spaces.

By the fifties, Major League Baseball was in trouble and it was becoming clear that cities like Boston, Philadelphia and St. Louis could no longer support two teams. So in 1953, the oldest team in baseball, the Boston Braves headed west for greener pastures in Milwaukee. That move proved to be a huge success as Milwaukee's new team set attendance records year after year. Their success at the gate was matched by their success on the field. In the thirteen year existence of the Milwaukee Braves, the team never had a losing record, a feat never duplicated in baseball. These Braves, led by baseball immortals Warren Spahn, Eddie Matthews and Henry Aaron, were one of only two teams who beat the Yankees in the World Series in the fifties. If anything, the Milwaukee Braves were victims of their own success. In the mid-sixties the owners, well aware of the success of their original move, looked to make even more money by exploiting a then untapped resource, the south. So in 1966, the Braves packed their bags again and headed down to Atlanta. Five years later, Milwaukee snagged another struggling franchise, the Seattle Pilots, who have played in Brewtown ever since. They were christened with a nickname that has adorned the uniforms of players on several teams in that city since the mid-nineteenth century, the Brewers.

Pretty much a no frills ballpark, there was nothing particularly beautiful about County Stadium as a building. It was a deceptively large ballpark, at its maximum it could hold well over fifty thousand fans. Despite all that, it was beloved for its intimacy; it didn't look all that big and the fans were never far away from the action. As it was set in a ravine created by the old quarry, it sported a lovely view of the Story Hill neighborhood, which sat beyond team mascot Bernie Brewer's chalet in the center field stands, from where he would slide into a huge beer stein after every Brewer home run.

Ballparks are not designed to last forever, their typical life expectancy is about fifty years. County Stadium exceeded that by seven years. Lots of memorable games in that ballpark in those years, I even saw a couple of them. But the craziest game had to be the one that took place on May 26, 1959 when "Hard Luck" Harvey Haddix of the Pirates, (more on him later), retired the first 36 Braves he faced in the game. In the bottom of the thirteenth inning, an error on a ground ball to third hit by Felix Mantilla broke up his twelve inning perfect game. Eddie Matthews sacrificed the runner to second, then Hank Aaron was intentionally walked. Haddix next faced Joe Adcock who blasted a home run to right-center field, but it wasn't quite over yet. As the Braves were running the bases, Aaron headed for the dugout, thinking Adcock's ball hit the outfield wall for a double which would have ended the game with Mantilla's run. As Aaron left the base paths, Adcock kept running his home run trot, passing up disappearin'  Hammerin' Hank, making both men out and nullifying his home run. However since Mantilla crosssed the plate before the infraction and the third out occurring, his run was ruled to have counted thereby ending the game, the no-hitter, and a chance for a "W" for Haddix. Final score Braves 1, Pirates 0. The Committee for Statistical Accuracy in Baseball would later decree that a no-hitter constituted  "a game in which a pitcher or pitchers complete a game of nine innings or more without allowing a hit." Since Haddix did not complete the game without allowing a hit (Adcock's home run would eventually be ruled a double), any reference to a no-hitter, let alone a perfect game would be washed away in the record books. Sadly all that Harvey Haddix would have to show for one of the greatest performances in the history of the game, at least in the record books, was a tough luck "L".

Helfaer Field, built atop the infield of old Milwaukee County Stadium

Unlike the sad memorial to Comiskey Park in the middle of a parking lot, the folks up in Milwaukee got it right by building a little league ballpark on the site of old Country Stadium. Today, youngsters can play the game at Helfaer Field in the shadow of the statues honoring the great Milwaukee Braves and Brewers players their parents and grandparents rooted for, a true field of dreams. Perhaps even the spirit of old Harvey Haddix is there rooting them on.

Next up: New York and St, Louis

Regarding History: There Used to be a Ballpark Part III