Know Your Enemy - Playoff Edition

The Phillies open the their 2008 NLDS series at home on Wednesday against the Milwaukee Brewers. A series preview will be up on Tuesday or Wednesday, but before we focus on stats and pitching matchups, let's take a closer look at the history of the Milwaukee Brewers. Who are they? What is their organization built upon? Hopefully the following tidbits of information will make you more familiar with the Phillies' next victim.

Rising From The Ashes...
The Milwaukee Brewers were established in 1970 after the Seattle Pilots franchise was sold to Bud Selig. The year before, Bud and his group failed to get an expansion franchise when four were handed out (Seattle, Montreal, Kansas City, San Diego.) Luckily for Bud, the Seattle franchise was destined to fail. They had an old, dilapidated stadium that only could seat around 17 thousand per game for much of the season. The team stunk. They only drew 600K for the entire season and at season's end, the organization was broke. They were declared bankrupt six days before opening day of 1970 and were sold to Selig and his group.

With only six days before the season opener, the Brewers didn't have time to get new uniforms, so they took the Pilots logo/name off of the shirts and stuck a Brewers logo on. They had originally intended to have navy and red as team colors, but because of the time crunch, the Brewers continued with the Pilots light blue and yellow. The other thing that continued...sucking.

They Suck Like Us
Since inception, the Brewers have been pitiful. How pitiful? Well, they almost have a worse winning percentage than the losingest franchise in sports history. The Brewers are 3010 and 3338 for a .474 winning percentage. The Phillies boast a .470 winning percentage.

Mmmmmm, Sausage
There is a sausage race in the middle of the sixth inning at Miller Park. The sausage (brat, hot dog, chorizo, polish, and italian) became a full-time attraction at the park in 2000 but didn't get really popular until 2003, when Phucco Randall Simon hit the italian sausage with a baseball bat and knocked it over. It was Randall Simon's only memorable hit as a Pirate.

Chuckie Likes To Hack
Chuckie Carr was an outfielder for the Brewers in the mid-90's. During a game in 1997, Chuckie popped out to third on a 2-0 count. When questioned about the decision to swing by manager Phil "Scrap Iron" Garner, Carr replied, "That ain't Chuckie's game. Chuckie hacks on 2-0." Chuckie was released shortly thereafter and never played after the '97 season.

From Motivation To Rehabilitation
Steve Sparks was a Brewer farmhand in 1994 and was on the verge of a major league call-up. That was until he dislocated his shoulder trying to rip a phone book in half. Apparently Sparks was trying to duplicate a stunt performed by a motivational speaker.

Freakin' Sweet Logo
This logo ranks right up there with the Montreal Expos "M", the bat swinging San Diego Padre, the wide-grinned Cleveland Indian and the Colt 45's logo with the gun for best baseball logo of all-time.

The Fat Man Is A Meat Whore
Prince Fielder went vegetarian this year. Why does this seem wrong? Is it because I expect vegetarians to be skinny? No, I know plenty of fat vegetarians who shove carb after carb down their throat. Is it because powers hitters should eat only rare steak and raw eggs top get their protein? No, they have supplement shakes for that. Is it because Prince got paid to promote meat? Yeah, that's it. The dude was in a Mickey D's commercial with Cecil. I don't care if he was only a kid, you can't go from selling McDonald's cheeseburgers to eating tofu. It's un-American.

Here's the video.

Corey