O'Donnell: The wrong October cannonball is headed for Wrigley Field
Amtrak’s Hiawatha, for one day redubbed “The Brewers Express,” will leave downtown Milwaukee Wednesday at 8:05 a.m.
It'll be festooned in blue and yellow and filled with brats, giveaways and rabid baseball fans bound for Chicago's Union Station.
There will even be a deejay onboard. “Go, Cubs, Go” is extremely unlikely to be on the playlist. That is, unless “Weird Al” Yankovic has risen from the spoof hill of pop parody to record “Lose, Bruins, Lose.”
The interstate revelers will arrive in plenty of time to Uber on up to Wrigleyville for Game 3 of the lopsided Cubs-Brewers NLDS (4:08 p.m., TBS, truTV, AM-670; northern suburbs also AM-620).
Their favorites will be trying to make it “Sweep Home Chicago.”
Craig Counsell and his strugglers will be attempting to reclaim their competitive resilience, defensive integrity and ability to avoid both inert and swinging “Ks.”
Their extended weekend in Milwaukee was more lost than a snowmobiler in a Wisconsin greenhouse.
Counsell is learning a hard, public lesson about the difference in managing a successful small-market team in the money moments against the fatted calves of one of MLB's bright lights, big city.
Small-market players are generally hungrier. The younger in their ranks want to advance to the big money of major markets (unless it's the Chicago White Sox, off on their own weird McGreedy Island.)
The older want to prove they can still trip the post-season fantastic. The oddball superstar like Christian Yelich stays because the found money is right (9 years, $215M, covering 2020-28) and the cozier civic ambience a quality of life thing.
Most importantly, just about all involved want to “be managed.”
Sure they can be derailed by superior talent walls. But boppin' the big guys remains the greatest salve for that underdog itch.
Counsell, as all the world that cares now knows, bolted his hometown Brewers after nine seasons as their manager in late 2023 to become Jed Hoyer's fair-haired boy.
Milwaukee fans took it quite personally — and they should have.
The Cubs' $40M man was booed heartily throughout his outfit's two losses in plain sight of the Famous Racing Sausages.
That’s the way the gods of baseball wanted it to be. The quick KOs could also be attributed by diamond spiritualists to some kind of fermented karma, the same natural train that turns wort into beer.
Brewers manager Pat Murphy — both mentor and steadying bench coach during separate turns of Counsell's career — has suggested the auto-razz directed toward his liege in Milwaukee will one day go away.
Maybe.
But if game 3 matches the dual disasters at American Family Field, a rumble of Wrigley Field boos might be directed at Counsell and coming from some of the most fervent in the pricy seats.
That's because “Lose, Bruins, Lose” isn't what the admission-entitled are coming to sing.
Wherever the accelerating “Brewers Express” is bound.
STREET-BEATIN':
Turner's Ron Darling and Alex Faust have been welcome oxygen to the Cubs-Brewers series after the suffocating turgidity of ESPN's Cubs-Padres coverage. That despite the fact they have called roughly six total innings of engaging baseball and the rest mere swill fill. With his insightful arrogance, Darling has also managed to irk both CHI and MIL fan bases, which is just bonus MLB theater. …
Bret Bielema, QB Luke Altmyer and all are positioned to deliver one of the greatest wins in the history of University of Illinois football when No. 1 Ohio State (minus-14 ½) comes calling Saturday (11 a.m., Fox). Some say it's the biggest thing to hit Champaign-Urbana since the old Garcia's introduced individual slices of deep-dish pizza. The No. 17 Illini have to figure a way to score. …
The Blackhawks are back and icing with both local broadcast crews intact — Darren Pang and Rick Ball on CHSN and John Wiedeman and Troy Murray airing on WGN-AM (720). Biggest misconduct is when a WGN gamecast delays the start of a “Hamp and O'B Show” after a Bears loss. …
Brady Quinn fire-poled to help save the Fox regional telecast of Raiders-Colts Sunday following the Mark Sanchez incident in Indianapolis early Saturday morning. On zero notice, Quinn Lyfted from Ann Arbor following Saturday's “Big Noon Kickoff” to his home near Columbus. He picked up a change of clothes and then snagged another ride to Indy to work the 40-6 IND win alongside Chris Myers. …
And the learned Taylor Bell is insisting that the pitcher-or-hitter career moment for the Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani is rapidly approaching: “Babe Ruth had to make the same decision, remember?”
Jim O'Donnell's Sports and Media column appears each week on Sunday and Wednesday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com. All communications may be considered for publication.