Brewing Hope, Pouring Heartbreak: Milwaukee Brewers (Ep. 20)

Welcome back to Misery Sports Co, the only firm conducting independent audits of professional sports disappointment. That’s right. Our analysts specialize in evaluating the gap between preseason and postseason optimism. Huge gap. That’s right. Last week, Trevor covered the Atlanta Thrashers franchise that began with expansion era optimism, but it ended in relocation heartbreak. Today, we’ll once again review the latest developments and fan suffering across the marketplace. But before we do anything, we’re going to go to our next sponsor here. I wanted to say congratulations, Trevor on episode twenty. Hey done it. Episode twenty man. Look it up. That’s right. We show up, we pretend like we know what we’re doing. We just make it happen. You know who would have thought? This little startup. Nobody gave us a chance. Here we are. Episode twenty. Yeah, that’s right. In episode twenty, we have this, you know, similar structure. And we’re going to thank our first sponsor. So Trevor, who’s our first sponsor for episode twenty. This summer from the production studio that brought you the fourth and eleventh land before times and the third Air Bud films a story unlike any other you’ve heard. A young boy yearns for his one true passion of dropping into the gulag against his family’s wishes, a tortured fan base gives their hopes to a small, teddy bear sized man. Heartbreak and devastation shared by all Warner Bros. Pictures presents Duty Sticks The Kyler Murray Story coming to theaters this summer. Rated G. Somehow, I don’t know how that’s going to work. Uh, thank you, Kyler Murray. You just keep giving. You just keep giving. Keep showing up. Keep showing up. And best of luck, a free agent. Yeah. Wherever you land, buddy, we’re. We’re rooting for you. Hope you land somewhere. It’s gonna be a great film. Everybody check that out. Yep. Hope it’s not the Browns. All right, let’s go to the weekly performance review. Uh, we will begin with this performance review. Trevor. Hmm. Well, uh, not a lot doing on this side of the the portfolio here. Um, I will say probably the most interesting thing that happened this past week is, you know, this is a fun time. Whose which teams are getting linked to which players because we’re post combine. So now we’re just marching towards the drafts. Teams are doing their interviews. And I would say for you know, since the season ended, ninety percent of the of the mocks have been for us getting an edge, either the Miami or the Texas Tech kid. Um, but some things changed this past week. I have seen so much smoke around the Titans taking Jeremiah love the running back out of Notre Dame with the fourth pick and I have mixed feelings about it. I would say that immediately I was very out on that and thought that sounded like a terrible idea, because I just think that with a head coach as strong as Robert Saleh, like, if we can get him some studs on the D side of the ball, at least we have a side that’s taken care of. And I think, uh, Bane would go a long way towards doing that, even if he has little T-Rex arms. Um, but I’ve come around maybe ten to fifteen percent on the idea of Jeremiah love. What do you think? Love to the Titans. Does that make sense? I love Jeremiah love. Um, he’s a playmaker with the ball in his hands. He’s electric. Um, it is high for number four, right? So you want to you probably want a difference maker on the edge or like a wide receiver or something like that. Um, but that’s one on the Browns radar. I feel like on my end just with, you know, Quinn, Sean’s injuries and everything, and, um, but no, you it makes total sense to to go defense, to try to build the defense. Yeah. And just turn it into a knock out, drag out fight every single week basically. Exactly. And just tell cam Ward if you all can score like thirteen points. I think we have a good shot of winning this thing. Like, just get us a touchdown in a couple field goals. And honestly, um, I just have I have a lot of thoughts about this, but I, I think I would take even Sonny Styles, I would take at the four spot before I would take Jeremiah love, even if it’s not an edge, somebody that can just just a stud in the middle. We have not had a stud inside linebacker in God knows how long, and to just have that position taken care of and and have that freak out there. The the Ohio State Buckeyes have had a combine. Zach. It’s been incredible. You got, uh, the styles brothers, um, running crazy forties. Even Arvel Reese was flying. Yeah. Um, Caleb Downs is a stud. Like, there’s four or five Buckeyes that. It’s just like, you pick them, they’re gonna. They’re gonna perform. Uh, they’ve been in a pro style defense. You’re going to be okay. It’s a good pick if you pick any of them. It is. Um. And I would I would take any of them in a heartbeat. And, uh, so we’ll see. So that’s what I’ve been dealing with in Titans Nation. Coming to terms with that, I will say, when we drafted Derrick Henry High in the second round, we had just signed DeMarco Murray. And I remember we were at a family function. I remember showing you and I’m like, this is gonna piss off. We just got DeMarco Murray. Like this is going to be terrible. And then it turned out great. So what do I know? I know nothing, I’m just here to cheer for the team and complain. That’s about it. You never know. You never know. Uh, and, uh, we’ll check in with the stars briefly. Guess what? They have hit a franchise record. They are on a ten game winning streak. That is a franchise record for the Dallas Stars. Uh, the NHL put out a fun table of all of the franchises longest winning streaks. Uh, the highest one is the ninety two ninety three Pittsburgh Penguins. Seventeen game winning streak is very high for hockey. Yeah, especially when you can end in ties or overtime losses. I mean, that’s pretty incredible. Do you know who has the second with sixteen? I think there’s two teams that have a sixteen game win streak. Uh, the twenty three twenty four Oilers. And tied with them is your Columbus Blue Jackets from twenty sixteen to seventeen. How about that a sixteen game win streak they had. We gotta hang our cap on something Trevor. There’s not a lot to celebrate that in the lightning. Sweet baby. That’ll feed us for generations. So that’s. That’s what’s going on in my wish. We could have a whole segment on that. Yeah. We should. We’re gonna need it in the off season when there’s just baseball going on. We’re going to need that segment. Mhm. That’s what’s going on in my neck of the woods Zach what do you got. So I’m not going to cover the Browns too much. We did that. You know for the last several episodes I’m going to let it lay for a little bit until we hit the draft. You know we’ll we’ll start to talk about you know, the draft positions and things like that in April. Um, there are whispers of Deshaun Watson and I literally cannot bring myself to discuss that right now. Um, so we’ll table that. Um, except for one thing. We’ll see. Uh, a Cleveland Browns pop up in one of my sponsorships. Oh, okay. Uh, Cleveland Cavs doing okay. Uh, James Harden broke his, uh, thumb I think on his right hand Donovan Mitchell is out with a groin injury. Uh, not ideal, but we still have time to get healthy. I think we’re fourth in the East, so that’s one of the the bright, shining stars in my sports life right now that is carrying me. Love it. Um, the Buckeyes and basketball are just riding waves, man. They crashed and burned, like, a week ago, and then they beat Purdue. And just tonight, they beat Penn State. So they’re living on the bubble. They’re really close. We’re feeling good. But if if upsets happen in the you know the conference tournaments then we’re right back on the bubble. Um, so to be decided in the next couple games. Um, and then last but not least, the Columbus Blue Jackets, they’re not doing bad. Uh, they’ve won thirteen of their last sixteen games. Uh, still still not in the playoffs. Uh, they’re three points behind the Boston Bruins, who we host twice at the end of the season. Perfect. Perfect. Love it. So there’s a chance that we get into the playoffs. And then, per tradition, Trevor and I will go to a Columbus Blue Jackets playoff game. Yes, we will find the biggest beers that you can buy. Yes we will. Preferably a liter. That’s right. If you sell in liter quantities, we are there automatically. We’ll buy it. We’ll purchase it. Have done in the past. So that’s my. That’s my weekly performance review. Trevor. Excellent. Before we move on to the mail room, let’s pause for a message from our next sponsor. Have you ever looked at a speed limit sign and thought that number feels more like a suggestion than enroll today at Myles Garrett’s Defensive Driving Academy, where we teach athletes how to shave tenths of a second, both off both their forty yard dash and their commute to practice curriculum includes advanced acceleration, explaining things politely to the officer, and the always popular class. I thought it was kilometers. He, uh. I just got announced today. He got his ninth speeding ticket. Trevor. Ninth. How do you get nine speeding tickets and still have a license? Yeah. How does it not get taken away at that point? Nine nine, he was going ninety four and a seventy. Okay. Oh, he’s flipped cars. Trevor. He was driving a sports car. I don’t know, get a professional like a personal driver. I’m sure the Cleveland Browns would be like, here, we’ll pay for this. Like, what are you. They literally have a program where any player can call and get a ride for free. Yeah. There’s a there’s a running joke that Myles Garrett has more points on his licence than the Cleveland Browns offense. So. Uh, I like that one a lot. Well, thanks. Myles Garrett, um, for your school, maybe practice what you preach there at your school. Have some. Oh, he’s he’s practicing. He’s got that foot down. Uh oh kilometres. That’s a good one. I’m gonna remember that one. All right, well, with that, we’ll step into the mail room. That’s right. Throughout the week, we look at the tweets of the week and we submit our own from the mail room. We just have one employee at this point in the mail room. Um, we’ve tried to give them an AI chatbot just to make him feel, you know, a little comfortable, right? He can talk to somebody, but we we can’t afford an actual human. No, but he doesn’t know he’s training his replacement. That chatbot is is going to take over. Sorry. He doesn’t listen to this or he hates us. Are you kidding me? So, Trevor, what did you get from the mailroom? Uh, well, I’ve got. Excuse me. I’ve got two entries this week. Um, one is kind of a running gag. Excuse me. With our sponsorship, uh, you had a Kyler Murray sponsorship last week. Uh, he’s made appearances in the past with him getting cut this week. Uh, Jackie boy, seven ten. Uh, who is a forty Niners fan? Did a very funny, celebratory GIF and said sign Kyler to tank and then draft drew. Mr. Baker. Arch. Manning. So people are looking for Kyler to lead them into the gutter, which we appreciate here. We know what that’s all about. Uh, but back again is our boy, Eric Collins. I can’t get it. I can’t get enough of him. I just can’t. So the Uh, Mavericks were in town in Charlotte, and we thankfully lost to the Hornets. I was a little bit worried about how that would play out in the tanking. Max Christie is in the corner. Is a is a pretty good three point shooter this this season especially in the corner. And this shot bounces off the top corner of the backboard. And Mr. Collins and his, uh, color analyst have some thoughts about that. Corner three Christie. Oh, wow. Is that all about what. He had been blistering hot on his corner threes this year until that one. I’ll never trust numbers ever again. That last shot by Chris that’s hard to do a right handed shooter. This is now a timeout. They’re looping back to it to review the footage. The backboard. It’s on the left side of the rim. And it’s a good shooter. Yeah, he shoots forty two percent high volume on the year and wide open in the corner. He’s a run out on him. No. Oh my goodness. He held the ball well. So they had they literally replayed the shot from the other team to just go over how terrible it was. And, uh, that broke Eric Collin’s will to ever trust numbers again. So thank you to Brick Center for tweeting that out. How about you, Zach? What do you got? Good stuff. I’ve actually got a few. So I want to start with DraftKings, the DraftKings official Twitter. Um, they said this is the most absurd stat in college basketball. Ohio State’s Gabe Cups for those of you who don’t know Cade Cups, Gabe Cups is, I don’t know, the eighth person on Ohio State’s team. Like he’s solidly on the bench currently has more fouls than points in the twenty twenty five twenty six regular season. They show him. They say forty six total fouls, forty four total points. Why are we catching strays? Why? Why is this man catching strays from the full on DraftKings account? Yeah, it’s an assassination attempt. What’s going on? He should not have time to do that. No. It felt very targeted. Someone’s got something against him. Um, I have one that will include on our website. We’ve we’ve we’ve reposted it on Twitter, and I really can’t cover it, but it’s essentially Stephen A Smith went on a rant against our New Orleans Pelicans, who we’ve covered at this Misery Sports Cup. And, uh, the New Orleans Pelicans official Twitter actually retaliated and responded. So it’s just Stephen A with his comments. And then it’s a highlight of him like completely missing the rim on shots. I mean, totally botching a pitch. And he’s talking about I think he was talking about Zion Williamson’s just ability. Um, this man was a bona fide scrub. He can’t play. No disrespect whatsoever, but I’m sorry to tell everybody the truth. The man cannot play the game of basketball. He. It’s just. It is. He’s air balling threes. It’s so bad. Um, so we’ll post that one. That’s that’s better for a retweet. Um, but I wanted to take a moment and I found a nice tweet from at Metallica. Um, just saw an announcement where Lou Holtz passed away at the age of eighty nine. Um. Rest in peace, Lou. Uh, long happy life. Yup. Um, but you’ll remember, especially if you followed sports, if you were a young, you know, in the early two thousand, Mark May and Lou Holtz always ended up on this funny, weird post game show where Reese Davis dressed up like a judge. And then they just went at each other. It was the greatest television I’ve ever seen. It was. And so I wanted to give twenty nine seconds of of that show. And just to give, you know, the listeners what we experienced. And I mean, it was essentially the early two thousand at that point. So here it is. He can go by all the feelings and all the thoughts I’m giving you. Okay. I’m ready. It’s the same guy where the leprechaun uniform, I might add, because of some idiot comedy. Okay, I like that. Stricken from the record, that’s two times you’ve referred to your esteemed co-counselor as an idiot. Or not really Co-counselor counselor, but he. But he took him. I know you do. But he also took a little subtle jab. Moby Dick in a memo at your last championship. I will strike that from the record as well. Uh, Counselor Holtz, I am really persuaded in your favor that. No. Oh so great. I remember I was thinking about this earlier. I remember being home from college, and, uh, it must have been over, like, uh, winter break and this was on, and he said, uh, Lou Holtz went, oh, he’s always bitching and moaning about something. And I couldn’t get my phone out fast enough to text you like Lou Holtz just said, bitching on ESPN. And before I could type it out, my phone buzzed and you went, dude, I’m watching ESPN and Lou Holtz just said bitching because this was what we watched. This was the like, must see TV. Everybody tuned in. Oh yeah. Super entertaining. They went back and forth. You know, Mark May was just there to incite some reaction from Lou. Yes. Uh, so rest in peace, Lou. Uh, legend in college football definitely will be missed from a TV personality perspective. Absolutely, absolutely. Well, that brings us to the end of the mail room. As always, we appreciate the enthusiasm from our listeners, new and ones that have been around since episode one. That’s right. And before we recognize and enter the office of Moral Victories, here’s another word from our sponsor. Hmm. Well, it’s I couldn’t have set this up. You couldn’t have set this up any nicer. So thank you for doing that. With the tragic passing. Oh, no. Trevor. Oh, no. This is tough. This is tough. With this emotion. It’s emotional. Stuff. It’s really tough. Oh. Okay. All right, hold on. Reset. With the tragic passing. Of Coach Lou Holtz. We’re shipping. We’re shipping out the last batch of his famous dog slobber squeaky doors. You have one. Now is your chance. Now is your last chance to silence the creaks with the final golden batch of Coach Lou’s door slobber. Act now and use promo code Ryan Day as soft as Charmin. That’s Ryan Day as soft as Charmin. All one word to get thirty percent off and free shipping. Product will not ship to Ohio or any other trash estate. Some exclusions apply. Email Martin May with concerns. Wow, that, uh, that was powerful, Trevor. Thank you. Powerful powerful stuff, man. Well, thank you, Lou Holtz, for, uh, really buying into our show and, uh, supporting us for all these weeks. That was it was early on that he sponsored the show. He’s been with us for a hot minute. It’s been a hot minute. Looking down on us. Um, now we’re going to enter the office of Moral Victories. Yep. Now it’s time. So this. I’m just still really moved. Uh, so our Office of Moral Victories, we know exists for teams whose results may not reflect their effort, or at least their press conference explanations. Close games, promising moments. And we’ll learn from this performance is all qualify. Our committee of us have identified a few worthy candidates this week. I will offer one up. Uh, I have an honorable mention. Really quick. Honorable mention goes to, uh, Matt Duchaine, forward for the Dallas Stars. He had been having a rough streak, uh, before our ten game winning streak. Twenty two games, only nine points. One of the podcasters went on and called him washed that the stars needed to move on. And he must have heard that because immediately after that he now in ten games has seventeen points, so he is not cooked or washed. My employee of the week goes to me. Me? I’m the employee of the week. No, stay with me, stay with me. Zach I have been playing a board game that is far too boring to even try to explain. Okay, it’s about power plants. So I’ve put now everybody can wake up because I’ve put them to sleep. I’ve been playing this board game with some friends in person, and then once Covid started over, zoom, like in a Google doc, we play, uh, I don’t know, once a quarter. I’ve been playing for nine years. I have never won this board game. Do you know how many times I’ve played this game and I’ve never won? Well guess what? That all changed this weekend when ya boy finally won power Grid. Boom boom killed the streak. Lego. So yeah, you know what? I’m the employee of the week. Thank you everybody. How about you, Zach? What do you got? Well done. Trevor. You, uh, my employee of the week is going to be Zion Williamson from the New Orleans Pelicans. This man has played forty six games this season. Mm. Well done Zion. Huge. Uh, he’s still pushing three bills but that’s okay. We’ll work on it. All right. Uh, twenty two points per game. Awesome. And wouldn’t you know it Trevor, it’s it’s really weird. This is the last year of his fully guaranteed money. Huh? That’s so weird that that lined up like that. That’s really. That’s really strange. I don’t I don’t know what he’s trying to do. this. Okay. Um, so congratulations, Zion, for showing up and playing the game of basketball. Um, way to go, Zion. And congrats, dude. Ball out! Keep balling out. That’s right. Congratulations to this week’s employees of the week, myself included. Uh, it’s an honor to share it with Zion. Well done. And before we move into the deep dive, let’s hear from our last sponsor. 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This is where we step back from the week to week chaos and examine a larger story in the sports world. Trends discussions nope. Trends, decisions, historical patterns, anything that helps explain how organizations arrive at their current situation. That’s right. And so in this week’s deep dive, we are actually going to go to Major League Baseball. Oh, I’m going to take us on a little journey. It’s going to be a brief journey, Trevor. But, uh, we’re going to cover someone in the Cubs division. Oh, boy. It is none other than the Milwaukee Brewers. Okay. Alright. I’m ready. Yeah, I know it’s not, uh, it’s not going to bring a lot of great memories. Um, but they were formed in nineteen sixty nine as an MLB expansion team. So, um, there have been several other Milwaukee iterations. They do not share the history for the Brewers organization. Nineteen sixty nine is when they started, they were actually in Seattle, of all places. They were the Seattle Pilots. And after one year they said, this is terrible. We’re going to go to Milwaukee. And they relocated to Milwaukee. So originally, I don’t know if you knew this, but they were actually part of the American League. Um, so they weren’t even in the Cubs Cubs league at that time. Good times. Yep. They moved to the the National League in nineteen ninety eight. Their all time record since Nineteen sixty nine is darn near fifty over fifty. Forty four thousand four hundred and five wins, four thousand five hundred and ninety five losses, good for forty nine percent win percentage. So incredibly, incredibly average. Um, eleven postseason appearances. So really not much. Uh, they went to the World Series since nineteen sixty nine. Correct? Oof! Not great. Oof! Um, they lost the World Series in nineteen eighty two. At the time, they were in the A.L., so they lost to the Saint Louis Cardinals. Ooh, what a terrible World series. Oh, yeah. Not your favorite from nineteen eighty three to two thousand and seven. I’m bad at math. Twenty some years. Zero postseason appearances. Nothing for twenty four years. Twenty. Yeah. Yeah. That’s tough. Recently they’ve been decent, so they’ve won some division championships. Yes. Uh, twenty one, twenty three, twenty four, twenty five. Um, that’s four years where they’ve won it recently. Three first round playoff exits, one NLCS exit. Just not a lot Trevor for Milwaukee Brewers. Um, and their one NLCS that they got to they knocked off the Cubs last year and then they promptly lost. And everybody knew that the Cubs would give the Dodgers a better run for their money. But we lost to the Brewers. So you know hats off. Hats off to you. Yeah. They did nothing with it. Uh, they got crushed. Um, yeah. There’s not there’s not a lot of, uh, getting over the hump with this team. They always uh, recently they’ve done well, but historically very average. Um, just a huge postseason drought. It seems like they tend to connect to Hall of Famers that only spend like two seasons with them. So Hank Aaron started his career with Milwaukee and quickly left. Um, CC Sabathia was there for a half a season, so that counts. Yep. Count it. Um, and Trevor Hoffman’s about the biggest, uh, the biggest player that they’ve got that really stuck with them. So he was a Hall of Famer as well. Um, and the only other person that really stuck out to me was Ryan Braun, I remember. Oh, it was like twenty tens. He got busted for PEDs when everybody was getting tested. Who among us? You know, I mean, everybody’s doing it. You might as well. Yeah. So that’s the Milwaukee Brewers. There’s just not a lot, uh, not a lot to celebrate there. No, and I like that the recap of the Brewers was like, nothing special. There’s just like that. That is the Milwaukee Brewers, in my mind, is just like, yeah, they’re there. It’s fine. For so many years, they were always at the bottom of the division and, uh, they’re they’re fine, but I don’t I just I really don’t like them. I really don’t like. Not as much as I don’t like the Cardinals. They’re obviously at the top, but like the Pirates and Reds, I don’t feel the same way about. I cannot stand the Brewers for some reason. Just a thorn in your side. Yes. Yeah, well, they’re welcome at Misery Sports. Absolutely, absolutely, totally welcome here. And, uh, to have you. When I think about Milwaukee, I almost think about Cleveland, right where it’s not a big it’s not a huge city. Uh, so they’re not going to have a ton of money to spend on, you know, star players or anything like that. And in the MLB, MLB, MLB, MLB, um, it’s it’s just more apparent that if you’re not able to spend money and you’re a big city, you know you’re out of it. So Milwaukee, they’ve got an uphill climb just like Cleveland, a lot of my sports teams. So I feel the the struggle, especially when you talk about playing the Dodgers like that’s not fair in the postseason to have the Brewers or anybody playing a super team like that. No. And the good people of Milwaukee are working through maybe being done with Giannis. That remains to be figured out. So they’re they’re going through it. Small markets like you said that’s tough. Yeah. And it was actually a good call out Trevor. So Giannis is a minority owner. As of twenty twenty one. The Milwaukee Brewers know that random price point zero zero one percent. But yeah he’s doing it. I like Giannis a lot. How can you not. Yeah they’ve uh they’ve won a championship in Milwaukee with him. So there you go. Can’t hate it. Yeah hate it. Well that concludes this week’s deep dive. Thank you for that deep dive Zach. Today’s review produced several notable notable findings, but none particularly encouraging. I don’t think we’ll continue documenting the results and get back to you. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter. Uh, wherever you listen to your podcasts, be it Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Pocket Cast, our website. That’s right. And visit our website, Misery Sports Co. We’ll see you next week. Thanks for twenty great episodes. Join us again at Misery Sports Co.