Full Circle
by Ryan Krzykowski
In the fall of 1982 I was a first grader in suburban Milwaukee. Our city’s baseball team, the Brewers, made it to the World Series. I remember the TV being wheeled into our classroom so we could watch a game from the league championship series, in those days the opening round of the MLB playoffs. I’m sure we did some typical first-grade activities in the course of our October school days, but the only thing I remember from going to school that month was talking about the Brewers. We listened to sappy Brewers-themed songs recorded off the radio on cassettes, watched the local news coverage of the team, and learned a really weird baseball-themed Brewer dance in PE class (I wish I was making this up). For Halloween at least a couple of us had homemade Brewer uniform costumes (white t-shirts with pinstripes, jersey numbers, and “BREWERS” written across the chest in blue magic marker).
That fall I fell in love with baseball, and along with that, the idea that sports can matter to large groups of people in ways that don’t appear to be all that logical. The Brewers ended up losing the 1982 World Series in seven games, but my six-year-old brain figured they had a great chance to be back often. My brain was quite mistaken.
It took 44 years, but this fall the Brewers made it back to the World Series. Although I haven’t lived in Wisconsin since moving away in 1985, I’ve followed the team every year. That includes a 26-year playoff drought that lasted until 2008 and, more recently, a run of playoff appearances in eight of the past nine seasons. There have been some spectacularly painful disappointments along the way. So even when the Brewers entered this year’s playoffs with 103 wins and the best record in baseball, my fifty-year-old brain wasn’t willing to get its hopes up. My brain was, as before, quite mistaken.
Here’s where the story gets fun. Not only did the Brewers win the first two games of the series, but my amazing wife convinced me to drive to Florida, where games 3, 4, and 5 were being played. Flights were either too pricey or too inconvenient, and ticket prices in Milwaukee were too rich for my blood. Long story short(ish), my oldest son (26) and I bought tickets to game 5 online, then got in the car after work on Tuesday. We drove through the night to get to my brother’s house in Northern Florida early Wednesday afternoon, and went to what wound up being the series-clinching victory Wednesday night with him and his three sons. So six of us, all with Wisconsin ties, showed up in St. Petersburg hoping to see something I never figured would happen. And if it did happen, I certainly never figured I’d be there to witness it in person. But that’s exactly what we got. A 4-1 victory in game 5, coincidentally making the final count in the series 4 games to 1. The night before, as my son and I followed game 4 on his phone on our drive, knowing a Brewer win would end the series before we got to see a game, our feelings were mixed. A Brewer win meant celebration for a city that will appreciate this like few others can, and a Brewer loss meant we’d get to go to the game the following night.
In my mind, I know a baseball game doesn’t really matter. But sharing moments like that with people in our lives — that matters. Our world has so much heartbreak. A good friend lives near an elementary school in Bend, Oregon that suffered tragedy a couple of weeks ago. Two days later, a few hours south of here in Wichita, there was an unthinkable accident at a youth soccer event. My heart breaks for those communities, especially for those who lost loved ones. I can’t wrap my mind around much of that. So when we see something sweet, something good, I want to savor it. The time with my son, my brother, and my nephews — that was sweet. Watching Milwaukee come together and celebrate, that’s sweet.
Let’s Coach With Purpose…