Living It Up in Milwaukee

By Mike Dodd

MILWAUKEE — 1982? You need to go back further than that to replicate the scene Sunday when the Milwaukee Brewers claimed their first playoff berth in 26 years.

Consider that on a Green Bay Packers Sunday, about 40,000 fans were cheering every pitch of a New York Mets game on the Miller Park video board. That a California kid who started the season in Cleveland replaced that sometimes retired quarterback as the gutsiest sports figure in town. That the general manager of the team got the Gatorade ice bath.

It was a day unlike any other as the Brewers, left for mulch after losing 15 of their first 19 games in September, won for the sixth time in their final seven to secure the National League wild-card berth with a 3-1 victory against the Chicago Cubs.

“For us, the last week was like the seventh game of the World Series every day,” said outfielder Ryan Braun, whose two-run homer in the eighth gave Milwaukee its first lead of the day. “Any game we lost, we were basically done.”

CC Sabathia, the rent-a-pitcher who won 11 games and the admiration of the state of Wisconsin since being acquired from the Cleveland Indians in midseason, threw a complete-game four-hitter, pitching on three days’ rest for the third consecutive start.

“Everybody’s heard of Sidd Finch; I think we might have found him,” said Brewers pitcher Ben Sheets, referring to the fictional pitcher with the 150-mph fastball created by Sports Illustrated more than two decades ago. “What he did for us, it doesn’t even seem like a human can do.”

Sabathia’s willingness to take the ball on short rest for his last three starts before entering the free agent market this offseason drew the admiration of the professionals and fans alike.

“Doing what he did in his free agent year … will probably go down in history as one of the most unselfish things an athlete has ever done, whether it’s in football, basketball or baseball,” Brewers GM Doug Melvin said.

The crowd of 45,299 — the fifth largest in Miller Park history — was so preoccupied with the Brewers offense in the eighth inning that it barely reacted to news on the scoreboard that the Marlins had taken a two-run lead at Shea Stadium. It reacted a few minutes later when Braun hit Bobby Howry’s first pitch to him into the second deck in left-center.

When Sabathia recorded the final out, the Brewers ran to mob him, but it wasn’t an all-out celebration yet as they waited for the end of the Mets game.

The players went inside for the final outs, celebrated for about five minutes in the clubhouse before heading for the field to share it with the fans who had waited 26 years. They stayed there for nearly an hour.

“It’s our time,” Sabathia said. “We’re a good team. We can make some noise now.” (c) Copyright 2008 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.