At the start of the season, my surprise teams were Milwaukee and Detroit. Nice piece by Buster Olney
Good ol' domestic Brew
Spent the first days of spring training this year at the Milwaukee Brewers' camp in Arizona working on a piece on Ben Sheets, and after years of covering the Orioles, Mets and Yankees, it was a unique experience.
At the Orioles camp in 1996 and 1997, fans would start arriving at the park at about 6:30 a.m. – dozens of them, hundreds of them – and wait against the chain-link fence, hoping that Cal Ripken Jr. would stop on his way to the clubhouse and sign autographs. The Orioles would work out at 10 a.m. for a couple of hours, have an hour before the exhibition game, and writers would leave the place about 6 p.m., and incredibly, you'd still see some of the same fans at the chain-link fence, still hoping and waiting for No. 8. "Is Cal in still in there?" they'd ask, as you'd get into your car, and you felt like the grim reaper when you told them that Cal had left by a different exit two hours before (Cal, by the way, was more accommodating for crowds of autograph-seekers than any great player I ever covered, but usually, he consolidated his autographing to longer sessions).
The crowds were much, much larger at the Yankees' training camp, surrounding the place at 8 a.m., hovering at the mouth of the players' parking lot for a glimpse of a Jeter or O'Neill through a tinted window. When Jeter stepped onto the field to take batting practice, about 500 teenage girls seem to all shriek at once – deafening, high-pitched screams – all yelling for an autograph or a picture at the same time as 500 other non-teenage girls. Every veteran player would generate a reaction as they came out to hit or throw batting practice, as would the coaches. People would talk about the laid-back days of spring training, when players and fans could be more relaxed and interact, and I couldn't understand what they were talking about; the Yankees were like a 30-member rock band.
But then I went to the Brewers' camp, following Sheets around for a couple of days. He threw in the bullpen one morning, chatted with pitching coach Mike Maddux for a couple of minutes and then headed back to the clubhouse for some therapy on his back. To do so, he would walk about 200 yards through a park lot, through the fans who had arrived to watch the Brewers work out.
All three of them.
Sheets, a good guy and very easy-going and chatty, stopped and signed baseballs and a couple of cards, and he shared in a bit of conversation with the trio of fans before heading on his way. I kept thinking to myself: This guy was a Cy Young candidate last year, striking out about 10 guys for every batter he walked. And there's nobody here. A real shame.
Maybe that's starting to change. The Brewers have won seven games in a row, after dumping the Cubs Thursday to complete a sweep, as Tom Hardricourt tells us. Hard to imagine that they will stay in contention for the NL Central crown all year, but they are getting better, with some good position prospects making their way to the majors. Internal expectations are growing, as evidenced by Ned Yost's annoyed reaction to something Danny Kolb said after he was traded from Milwaukee to Atlanta. (In this notebook, by the way, it is also mentioned that Sheets is getting closer to returning from the disabled list).
Maybe some day soon, Sheets and the other Brewers will wade into a crowd of fans as they head back to their clubhouse in spring training.
Good ol' domestic Brew
Spent the first days of spring training this year at the Milwaukee Brewers' camp in Arizona working on a piece on Ben Sheets, and after years of covering the Orioles, Mets and Yankees, it was a unique experience.
At the Orioles camp in 1996 and 1997, fans would start arriving at the park at about 6:30 a.m. – dozens of them, hundreds of them – and wait against the chain-link fence, hoping that Cal Ripken Jr. would stop on his way to the clubhouse and sign autographs. The Orioles would work out at 10 a.m. for a couple of hours, have an hour before the exhibition game, and writers would leave the place about 6 p.m., and incredibly, you'd still see some of the same fans at the chain-link fence, still hoping and waiting for No. 8. "Is Cal in still in there?" they'd ask, as you'd get into your car, and you felt like the grim reaper when you told them that Cal had left by a different exit two hours before (Cal, by the way, was more accommodating for crowds of autograph-seekers than any great player I ever covered, but usually, he consolidated his autographing to longer sessions).
The crowds were much, much larger at the Yankees' training camp, surrounding the place at 8 a.m., hovering at the mouth of the players' parking lot for a glimpse of a Jeter or O'Neill through a tinted window. When Jeter stepped onto the field to take batting practice, about 500 teenage girls seem to all shriek at once – deafening, high-pitched screams – all yelling for an autograph or a picture at the same time as 500 other non-teenage girls. Every veteran player would generate a reaction as they came out to hit or throw batting practice, as would the coaches. People would talk about the laid-back days of spring training, when players and fans could be more relaxed and interact, and I couldn't understand what they were talking about; the Yankees were like a 30-member rock band.
But then I went to the Brewers' camp, following Sheets around for a couple of days. He threw in the bullpen one morning, chatted with pitching coach Mike Maddux for a couple of minutes and then headed back to the clubhouse for some therapy on his back. To do so, he would walk about 200 yards through a park lot, through the fans who had arrived to watch the Brewers work out.
All three of them.
Sheets, a good guy and very easy-going and chatty, stopped and signed baseballs and a couple of cards, and he shared in a bit of conversation with the trio of fans before heading on his way. I kept thinking to myself: This guy was a Cy Young candidate last year, striking out about 10 guys for every batter he walked. And there's nobody here. A real shame.
Maybe that's starting to change. The Brewers have won seven games in a row, after dumping the Cubs Thursday to complete a sweep, as Tom Hardricourt tells us. Hard to imagine that they will stay in contention for the NL Central crown all year, but they are getting better, with some good position prospects making their way to the majors. Internal expectations are growing, as evidenced by Ned Yost's annoyed reaction to something Danny Kolb said after he was traded from Milwaukee to Atlanta. (In this notebook, by the way, it is also mentioned that Sheets is getting closer to returning from the disabled list).
Maybe some day soon, Sheets and the other Brewers will wade into a crowd of fans as they head back to their clubhouse in spring training.
