MILWAUKEE – The last time the Brewers made the World Series was in 1982, back when they were led by Paul Molitor, Robin Yount and Cecil Cooper, back when Craig Counsell was a 12-year-old kid growing up in Whitefish Bay, Wis., dreaming of one day bringing a championship to Milwaukee.
The Brewers played in County Stadium then, in the parking lot of what is now Miller Park, and Counsell attended every game because his father worked in community relations. Well, almost every game. He once stayed home because he thought he was bad luck. He was superstitious like that.
Those Brewers finished one game short of a title, closer than any other in franchise history — successful enough that the team, champion or not, was embraced by the city forever.
"I don't think players always understand or always kind of relate to the legacy part of things," said Counsell, now the Brewers' 48-year-old manager, on Saturday evening as he remembered the past and thought ahead to the future, all to explain what his 2018 team could not know until it reflects on its season with fresh eyes. "We know we're doing something that's cool and this has been fun, and we want it to continue. But how it's going to look when people look back on it, it's hard to think about that right now."
The season finished later that night, in Game 7 of the National League Championship Series, far deeper into the calendar than anyone would have thought when these Brewers first started playing back in spring training.
There will be time to dissect what went wrong, to look in the mirror before addressing their offseason needs at catcher and rotation depth. Some blame could trace back to MVP front-runner Christian Yelich, who showed up with a first-inning home run in Game 7 but came into it hitting .167 (4-for-29) in the series. Some of it could go back to the cracks in an otherwise dominant bullpen, the go-ahead home run Jeremy Jeffress gave up to Justin Turner in Game 2, or the game-sealing homer he yielded to Yasiel Puig on Saturday night. A lot of it can rest on the offense, a deep group of bats that went dead across Games 4 and 5, scoring only two total runs when the Brewers had a chance to take full control of their fate.
But if that is all put aside, for just a moment, the improbability of the Brewers' run can come into focus. They did it their way.
In Game 5 of the NLCS, Counsell started Wade Miley for one hitter before he hooked him for reliever Brandon Woodruff. The move was designed to force Dodgers manager Dave Roberts into stacking his lineup with righties who would not have the matchup advantage against the righthanded Woodruff. There were a lot of moves like that, if not as extreme, as Counsell went to any pitcher at any time, called all of his arms "out-getters," and did not let labels like "starter" or "closer" confine him to a certain plan.
