Scott Paulus/Milwaukee Brewers
Ryan Braun (left), Lorenzo Cain, and Christian Yelich, in 2018, looking for some love from the fans.
The Milwaukee Brewers might be Major League Baseball’s most lovable bunch. But don’t take my word for it.
“The Milwaukee Brewers are an entertaining team,” said the HuffPost on June 9. “They have the best record in the National League as of this writing, and they happen to be pretty good at making viral videos, too.”
The article referred to two videos members of the team made this season — the first one during spring training recreating a scene from 1993’s baseball classic The Sandlot, and the second paying homage to Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels in 1994’s Dumb and Dumber using a bullpen cart at Miller Park.
Never mind that one of the three stars of the Dumb and Dumber clip — pitcher Josh Hader — was still an infant when that movie was released. The fact that Hader, in the role of a hitchhiker, and fellow pitchers Brent Suter (who plays Carrey’s Lloyd Christmas) and Jeremy Jeffress (Daniels’ Harry Dunne) would even bother to make something so awesomely silly suggests just how loose this year’s Brew Crew feels right now.
Then there’s the guy who calls himself the “Mayor of Ding Dong City” (third baseman Travis Shaw), and TV cameras recently captured shortstop Orlando Arcia twirling second baseman Hernán Pérez’s man bun in the dugout.
Even if you’re unaware the Brewers have spent much of the first three months of the 2018 season in or near first place in the NL Central, it’s worth tuning in to Fox Sports Wisconsin and checking out the youthful exuberance with which this team plays the game.
Of course, depending on the day, Milwaukee might either blow up the scoreboard or blow up themselves. On June 16, one day after flattening the Philadelphia Phillies 13-2 with three home runs in the series opener at Miller Park, the Brewers coughed up a 4-1 loss even though the Phillies stranded 15 baserunners.
As we approach the season’s midway point, Milwaukee is positioned to make a strong run for the postseason for the first time since 2011. In order to win the division title, though, they’ll likely need to outlast the Chicago Cubs, whose fans can still outnumber Brew Crew fans when the teams meet at Miller Park — despite the Brewers’ best efforts to keep them out.
Milwaukee shut out the Cubs twice in three games earlier this month at Miller Park, after losing eight of the first nine matchups between the two teams. They meet again five more times this season, beginning in mid-August.
Here’s hoping the fun doesn’t stop anytime soon.
