Living in Enemy Territory

Living in Atlanta as a Brewers fan isn't too bad, for the most part. I'm disconnected from the day-to-day crap that can inhabit fans from local news and local sports radio, so it's easier to come to my own conclusions about things going on in Brewerland. At the same time, I am also living in a city that really does not have any strong feelings about the Milwaukee Brewers. Braves fans generally think of Milwaukee as that place that the Brewers came from and that's really it.

On the other hand, living in Chicago -- especially the north side of town -- cannot be easy. Sure, Cubs fans will claim that they really don't care about the Brewers, that their rivals are the Cardinals. Historically, yes, that is accurate. But I would venture to guess that the next few years will make Cubs fans dislike the Brewers more and more.

I bring this up because I recently traded with a fellow Brewers collector, Robb a/k/a Brewers 792 (whether at his blog or on Twitter). I sent Robb a bunch of my early Brewers duplicates, and he filled in some gaps in my collection for me with some old and some more recent. Robb is the man who lives on the north side of Chicago, so he has to live among our enemies. So, let's see what Robb sent me with some appropriate music.

 Let's start with the recent cards:

Scott Podsednik would not have had a baseball career in the major leagues without the Brewers. He was drafted by the Rangers out of high school in 1994. He played a couple of years in their system before being the player to be named later in a trade to bring back prodigal son Bobby Witt to Arlington. Two years later, the Rangers suffered from seller's remorse and grabbed him back through the Rule 5 draft. He struggled to stay healthy and/or play well in reaching Double-A Tulsa in 1999 (a .155/.190/.190 slash line in 123 plate appearances is pretty bad) and the Rangers cut him. 

Seattle signed him, and he played well in a couple of years at Triple-A, but Seattle had enough outfielders in 2000 and 2001, so he only got 31 plate appearances in the majors. So, after his age-26 season, the Brewers plucked him off waivers. He impressed greatly -- .314/.379/.443 in 628 plate appearances led him to finish second in the rookie of the year race in the NL in 2003 behind Marlins phenom Dontrelle Willis. Pods only lasted 2 seasons in Milwaukee before being traded for Carlos Lee to the White Sox, though, so he's just a fan-favorite footnote from a period when fan favorites were tough to come by.

The White Sox...yeah, they used to be big enemies.

The one time I ever attended a White Sox/Brewers game in Milwaukee, the bleachers about a section over from where we were sitting looked pretty similar to the end result of this Shinedown band meeting. Those games in the days when folks could easily get overserved at the game -- it was, after all, the days of the origins of the Two-Fisted Slopper at County Stadium -- led to tons of fights and arrests. It's tough to describe, but Milwaukee people and Chicago people don't always get along all that well.

The late 1990s and early 2000s is a common black hole for many of us who left collecting as younger men or youths and came back in the past 5 to 10 years. So, these UD Choice, a Turnbow SP Authentic, and a random Pacific of Jeromy Burnitz were greatly appreciated. 

As an aside, that same time period featured the worst Brewers uniforms ever. I'm not a huge fan of the current uniforms either, but they were tons better than that weird ass font that the team used then. I'm pretty glad that none of the card companies even bothered showing Milwaukee in that timeframe.

I'm thinking that Butch Vig would agree with me that the Cubs and White Sox are the enemies. As his band Garbage with the lovely Shirley Manson tells us, "Sex Is Not the Enemy." Remember -- Butch Vig and his band mates other that Shirley (Duke Erikson and Steve Marker) are all originally from Madison, Wisconsin. They may not care about baseball, but that's not important here.

The true highlights from this package were these awesome Milwaukee Braves from 1960 (and one thrown in from 1958 too). It's not often you get a 58 year-old card of a Hall of Famer in a trade package, but there's that Red Schoendienst to make that happen. Throw in future manager Chuck Cottier -- whom I would have sworn was much younger than his 48 years old when he took charge of the 1984 Seattle Mariners near the end of that season. Those lines on Chuck's card are on the card too, which I suppose makes it okay that this one here ended up being a second copy of a card for me. 

This was actually the song in my head that got me started on the path of finding songs about enemies. Green Day is total pop punk, which means to me that their version of punk is less nihilistic and more hook-filled and lighter. 

Still, I bet Robb really knows a ton of our enemies living in the midst of them. To be fair, it still seems weird to me to dislike the Cubs since I didn't grow up with them being the focus of boyhood hatred -- that role was reserved for the New York Yankees and, to a lesser extent, the Chicago White Sox. 

Thanks, Robb, for the great cards. Everyone else -- be sure to follow him on Twitter and try to cajole him into blogging again.