I asked in yesterdays blog if “The Brewers were a player this offseason”. I should have waited a few hours. Milwaukee Brewers fans will be heading to Fan Fest in Milwaukee
this weekend buzzing about what happened yesterday. It was one of those Holy
S#*t days as the team re-made their outfield and sent a message to the Cubs
that they are coming. It started with a trade that brought Christian Yelich to
Milwaukee. He’s an exciting players just entering his prime with 5 years of
team control at a salary that is reasonable in todays market. The price was
high, 4 top prospects including Lewis Brinson. But for what they are getting in
Yelich it was worth it. His left handed bat and line drive power should really
play well at Miller Park. But David
Stearns wasn’t done. Later in the day it was announced that Milwaukee…the
smallest TV market in major league baseball….Milwaukee!!…had just signed the
biggest free-agent deal of the off-season with All-Star outfielder Lorenzo
Cain. Cain had started his career in Milwaukee before being traded to Kansas
City in 2010 in the Zach Grienke deal. He had turned from a raw prospect into
one of the best outfielders in the game. He will solidify centerfield at Miller
Park. But the dealing isn’t done yet. It can’t be. With 6 major league capable
outfielders you know that another deal will be coming. Maybe Domingo Santana,
who is also under team control for awhile will fetch a decent starting pitcher
in return. One thing we know….Mark Attanasio has put his money on the table and
decided that the rebuild is over. The Brewers are going after the Central
Division this season and are looking to be a perennial contender. These deals
are a big step in that direction. 19 days until Spring Training begins…
Also Happy Birthday to Bob Uecker who turns 83 today. Enjoy
him while you can…he won’t be in the booth forever..
Other notable birthdays today include Ellen DeGeneres who
turns 60 and Wayne Gretzky is 57
Giannis will play for Team Curry in the NBA All-Star game.
They kept the process of the team captains Steph Curry and Lebron James
selecting their squads pick-up style secret. Didn’t want to offend any of these
prima-donnas by having someone picked last. Kinda defeats the purpose of doing
it this way for entertainment purposes when nobody knows how it was done.
I even hesitate to bring up the announcement from Vince
McMahon that the XFL will be returning in 2020. Will you watch a second-rate
league? He claims it will be a better and faster game than the NFL provides.
The last time he did this it lasted one season and reportedly lost $50 million
dollars.
The Badgers have another tough hoops matchup tonight as they
travel to Michigan State. You can hear the game on WSAU at 6pm. The Big ten
continues to be interesting. Penn State hit a three-pointer at the buzzer last
night to hand Ohio State their first conference loss in Columbus. And Purdue
kept in rolling with a win over Michigan. They have won 16 in a row and are
20-2 on the season.
The Kansas City Royals announced they are having a George
Brett Pine Tar Bobblehead day on May 19
th
. For those who don’t
remember it….
The man who made extreme skiing popular with his films,
Warren Miller has died at the age of 93 at his home in the Orca Islands. He
produced more than 500 films of folks skiing, snowboarding and other outdoor
activities in some beautiful, at the time exotic locations. The Grand Theater
would regularly run his films (I think there is one coming up) My cousin Greg
posted yesterday that he remembers Miller coming to Wausau the late 50’s or early 60’s to promote his
films. Here is some of his stuff if you’re not familiar.
This can’t be a good idea right? Starting this spring in
Milwaukee a new bar called Axe MKE will open downtown. It will feature
ax-throwing. Yeah, you can drink and throw axes. One of the owners describe it
as a cross between “bowling and darts”. These same folks have an indoor
mini-golf bar as well.
Rapper 50 Cent let folks buy his 2014 album with bitcoin. Something
that had never been done before. He pulled in about 700 bitcoin in sales worth
around $400,000. He then forgot about it. He recently discovered the unused account
which has ballooned to $8 million. He said recently “I’m so proud of me”….
Elections have consequences….this one from Missouri. It
almost doesn’t sound real. Republican US Senate candidate Courtland Sykes was
asked if he supports “womens rights”. He responded “I want to come home to a
home cooked dinner every-night at 6pm” He apparently demands this of his
girlfriend. He also said “I expect to have daughters who also learn this after
they become traditional homemakers and family wives” But wait, it gets better.
He said he hoped his daughters didn’t “grow up to be career obsessed banshees
who forgo home life and children and the happiness of family to become
nail-biting manophobic hell-bent feminist she-devils who shriek from the top of
a thousand tall building they think they could have leaped in a single
bound-had men not been suppressing them”. “But good news. They’re finished. Ask
Hillary. Ummm….Me thinks even the state of Missouri will send this mouth
breathing Neanderthal back to his cave come election day…..
Quotes Of The Day
“The problem isn’t merely the normalization of Trump. It’s
the normalization of reckless demagoguery, of angry paranoia, of conspiratorial
thinking. And those now have a life of their own on the Hill and on the
airwaves almost independent of Trump”-Bill Kristol
“Defining deviancy down. Trump, Franklin Graham, Tony
Perkins, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell and too many more”-Norman Ornstein
“Getting the President to say what he wants is the easy
part. Getting him to commit to it, and to try to get other people to commit to
it is much harder”-Dara Lind
“Why is it so hard for news outlets to discuss immigration
with people actually impacted by immigration policy instead of a round table of
five white people”-Alazar Moges
Songs Of The Day (Happy Birthday to Anita Baker who turns 60 today.