Welcome back to the Yard Work 2008 Season Preview. In Part Three of our series, broadcaster/actor/pitchman Bob Uecker previews the team for whom he is the radio voice: the Milwaukee Brewers.
1. We believe in the supreme reality of the Brewers. The urgent collective task of all Brewers fans is to strengthen, elevate, and aggrandize the team. All individual, group, or class interests must be subordinated without question to the accomplishment of this task.
2. Milwaukee is an indivisible destiny in universal terms. Any conspiracy against this indivisible whole is repulsive. We demand for the Brewers a prominent position in Major League Baseball. We shall not tolerate coastal bias or journalistic malfeasance. All separatism is a crime we shall not forgive.
3. We are committed to winning the National League Central Division and the NL Pennant. We declare that our historical fulfillment is to win the World Series in 2008 and 2009, after which our young core will be too expensive and we will break up the team and start over around a new young nucleus including Callix Crabbe, Manny Parra, and Hernan Irribarren.
4. Our hitting — at home and on the road — is sufficiently strong and efficient to ensure total respect for the Brew Crew and a media status that befits our young sluggers. We shall give Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun, Rickie Weeks, and Corey Hart all the public dignity they merit, and we shall see to it that a similar respectful outlook pervades the whole of Wisconsin life.
5. Milwaukee will look again to pitching for her glory and her wealth. Ben Sheets will remain healthy all year, Yovani Gallardo shall rebound from knee surgery to become the most feared rookie pitcher in the league, and Jeff Suppan will eat a lot of innings without sucking too much. The Brewers will aim to become a great mound power, for times of danger and for the sake of supporting our offensive maneuvers. We demand for our team equal status among pitching staffs.
6. Ours will be a total effort in the service of the Brewers’ integrity. All fans, media jackals, and players will play a part therein through their allegiance to Ned Yost, Doug Melvin, and Mark Attanazio. No one shall play a part therein through ineffectual whining about management, roster moves, or failure to give unwarranted raises. The system of blogging will be resolutely abolished.
7. We reject the luxury-tax system, which disregards the needs of the people, dehumanizes clever moves, and transforms players into shapeless masses that are prone to misery and despair. Our spiritual and national awareness likewise repudiates deriving glory from being a “scrappy underdog” sort of team. We shall channel the drive of baseball “experts,” nowadays led astray by Sabermetrics, by demanding their direct participation in the formidable task of backing up the Brewers’ every move in all publications. When we win the World Series, we shall do so not just IN SPITE of our small payroll, but BECAUSE of it.
8. Every Wisconsinite who is not an invalid is duty bound to come to home games. The Milwaukee Brewers will not have the slightest regard for those who do not fulfill any function but who expect to live like guests at the expense of other people’s efforts. We are proudly based in the Cream City, but we affirm that all American citizens have the right to be fans of the Brewers.
9. As a matter of urgency we must keep up the high standard of food and drink in Miller Park, on which most of us will always depend for our food. For this reason, we commit ourselves to the strict implementation of an economic and social imperative: “Two brats and a beer, per inning, per fan!” (This goes for you too, Prince.)
10. It is a fundamental mission of the Crew to impose a rigorous discipline on education that will produce a strong, united, national spirit and fill the souls of future generations with joy and pride in their team. All men will receive preliminary training to prepare them for the honor of admission to the ground crew at Miller Park. Older women will be expected to contribute their talents in cooking, cleaning, and yelling lustily; younger women will concentrate on being pulchritudinous for the between-inning cameras. All Wisconsin schools will have one hour of mandatory Brewer-focused education, courtesy of our good friends at McGraw-Hill and Klements Sausage.
I HAVE SPOKEN.