‘Wisconsin nice?’ Booing Counsell was questionable
Do you think you know Wisconsin?
Well sure, probably. What's there to know?
Most of us have been there dozens of times, whether it's to attend sporting events, visit Lake Geneva, SummerFest, shopping, whatever.
My only notable observation is Wisconsinites like to pat themselves on the back by referring to something they call, “Wisconsin Nice.”
It's a myth. I've never once left the Dairy State thinking, “Boy, they sure were nice up here.”
Wisconsin people are fine. So are most Chicagoans. There's not a huge difference.
There was an exception last week, however. Milwaukee fans not only weren't nice, they were outright jerks when Cubs manager Craig Counsell returned to his hometown.
Not sure if the television broadcast did it justice. The boos were loud and consistent from Games 1 through 4. At the beginning, there were a few boos when pitching coach Tommy Hottovy strolled out to the mound, but the Brewer backers seemed to figure it out pretty quickly.
Why did they boo Counsell? Good question. The Brewers have touched the postseason nine times in team history. Counsell was a player or manager for seven of those. The other two, in 1981 and '82, he was cheering from the stands as a preteen.
So Counsell helped bring the greatest era of Brewer baseball to Milwaukee. Vince Lombardi would have had a hard time managing the Brewers to the postseason four years in a row like Counsell did.
Even while departing, he left the program in good hands. Milwaukee has played extremely well this season. Pat Murphy is an early front-runner for NL manager of the year, and may have never gotten the chance at a head job if Counsell hadn't left.
You probably know the background story by now — Murphy was Counsell's college coach at Notre Dame, and Counsell hired Murphy to be his bench coach with the Brewers.
So why were people at AmFam Field so angry? The Brewers' broadcast partner even published a story congratulating fans for letting Counsell have it. “Everyone handled Counsell's return to Milwaukee perfectly,” it read.
Apparently, it would have been OK if he'd chosen to join the Mets, but it's not OK to join the Cubs. So maybe this display was not so much a hatred of Counsell as it was a hatred of Chicago.
We could dive into the weird inferiority complex that seems to be at work in Milwaukee. The truth is, you don't have to go back very far to find inexplicable booing at Wrigley Field.
I'm talking about the Willson Contreras return with the Cardinals last season. Sure, Contreras egged on fans and had nice things to say about St. Louis. But come on now, Contreras begged to stay with the Cubs — multiple times, voice cracking with emotion — and the team told him to take a hike. Of course there were going to be some hard feelings from his side.
As of today, the decision not to re-sign Contreras looks horrendous. He was top 10 in OPS before suffering a broken arm a few weeks ago. The Cubs' best hitters currently rank No. 46 in OPS. But that's a different column.
The point is, any discussion of the ridiculousness of Brewer fans booing Counsell is also true of Cubs fans booing Contreras.
Let's just chalk this up as a case of “fans will be fans.” Both sides of the state border will get distracted by new villains soon enough.
Twitter: @McGrawDHSports