Craig Counsell talks Brewers-Cubs rivalry ahead of playoff series
Craig Counsell knows what it’s like to be on both sides of the Cubs-Brewers rivalry. The Cubs manager discusses what makes it “fun.”
Craig Counsell, now manager of the Chicago Cubs, is facing his former team, the Milwaukee Brewers, in the NLDS.The playoff series marks the first-ever postseason meeting between the two rival franchises.Despite the rivalry, both managers downplay the personal aspect, stating the focus is on their teams competing for a World Series chance.
Taking a seat at the table in the media interview room in the service level of American Family Field on Friday afternoon, Oct. 3, Craig Counsell was asked if it felt weird doing so – the inference being he was now doing so as manager of the Chicago Cubs rather than the Milwaukee Brewers.
“No, I think we’ve been over that part. I think we’re over that part,” he said in the lead-up to the National League Central Division rivals’ NLDS matchup. “We’re getting ready for a playoff series and trying to advance to have a chance to play in the World Series.
“That’s the job at hand right now, and that’s the focus right now. We’ve already done the other stuff. That’s how I’m looking at it.”
Indeed, the two teams have squared off in eight total regular-season series over the past two seasons since Counsell switched sides. There’s been plenty of booing aimed at Counsell each time he’s returned, and the Brewers and Cubs continue to play entertaining games.
Even still, it was a mind-bending visual – the Whitefish Bay native and all-time-winningest Brewers manager wearing his Cubs uniform in the exact same spot he’d spent hours and hours over the years breaking down the games he’d presided over for his former team.
“Oh, I guess I did spend a lot of time in here, yeah, that’s right,” he said. “Weren’t that many people in the room usually.
“Maybe three of you.”
Indeed, now there’s a throng of national media alongside the usual suspects from Milwaukee and Chicago on hand to chronicle arguably the most compelling of the four Division Series matchups with the usual storylines of small market versus big market, Wisconsin versus Illinois and so on with the relationship between Brewers manager Pat Murphy and Counsell the one with the most meat on the bone.
After all, the two have known each other for going on four decades – first as teacher and pupil when Murphy brought Counsell aboard at the University of Notre Dame when Murphy was at his first Division I coaching stop and Counsell just beginning a baseball journey that would later take him to the major leagues as a longtime player, then front-office member and finally manager of his hometown Brewers.
It was a season into Counsell’s tenure with Milwaukee that he then brought his mentor Murphy aboard as his bench coach, a role he filled from 2016-23 when Counsell shocked the baseball world by choosing not to re-up with the Brewers and instead heading south to manage the Cubs.
After a short search the Brewers announced Murphy as Counsell’s replacement on Nov. 16, 2023, and in the time since, Murphy has not only led Milwaukee to consecutive NL Central titles – blowing past the Cubs each time – but also was named the 2024 NL manager of the year while seeming a lock to repeat the honor after his team set a new franchise mark in 2025 with an MLB-best 97 wins.
And now the two will match wits on the biggest stage with the two franchises meeting for the first time ever in the playoffs.
“I don’t really think it’s about us at all,” said Murphy. “I mean, I’ve got a huge staff around me and a great bunch of ballplayers that I’ve been through six months with or eight months with if you count spring, and I think he probably feels the same way. This isn’t about us.
“We’ll compete, and hopefully our teams will compete. I don’t think it’ll change us. It’s nothing about what he’s doing or whatever. We’ve kind of revealed ourselves over the years what we’re capable of.
“I don’t think it’s about us at all.”
But Murphy is as competitive and as fiery as they come, with Counsell certainly not taking a back seat in either aspect.
Which means Murphy is aiming to crush Counsell’s hopes and dreams beginning with Game 1, no?
“It wouldn’t matter who was over there. That kind of goes without saying,” Murphy said. “This happens all the time in sports, right? Player to player is different than manager to manager.”
In 2024, Murphy’s Brewers went 8-5 against the Cubs and won the Central by 10 games. This season, Chicago took the season series, 7-6, with Milwaukee taking the division by five games.
“At least from my perspective of being on both sides of it, I think the regular-season matchups are awesome,” Counsell said. “It’s a lot of fun. A lot of times there’s extra energy from fans and there’s fans from both teams in the building. That’s always made it a lot of fun.
“These are two cities that are close together – very close. I think each city’s residents have thoughts about each other’s residents. Harmless, obviously.
“The proximity of the cities makes it fun, no doubt about it, and the proximity makes rivalries, too, and teams being good makes rivalries.”
Christian Yelich, who knows both men as well as anybody, made a good point when asked if he thought having Counsell in the opposing dugout in the teams’ biggest series to date would have any additional effect or bring any more spice to the matchup.
“A lot of our team – probably half of our guys, maybe more than half – didn’t play for Couns. There’s only a few guys left,” he said, and indeed, a cursory check of Milwaukee’s projected roster reveals that number to be 10.
“It’s still baseball. Managers put players in positions that they think they’re going to be successful in, and that’s it. It’s not like it’s different than other sports. It’s not like Couns has exotic blitz packages or has a good play-action pass game or anything like that that’s going to make it difficult on us.
“I have a lot of respect for him. I think he’s great at what he does. But we’re not going to have to worry about the two-high-safety look from Couns.”
After Murphy took over for Counsell he acknowledged that their relationship would have to change at some level just based on the nature of their new positions and what comes along with them and that their phone calls and text exchanges would taper off.
On Friday, he was asked to characterize where their communications stand these days.
“I talk to his wife (Michelle) probably as much as I talk to him,” Murphy said. “But yeah, we’ll chat here and there. I don’t know the frequency. Once a month maybe, something like that. I don’t know. We don’t usually talk about our clubs very much, like ‘Hey, I see that (Matt) Shaw is really hitting for some power; how did you unlock that?’ We don’t do that.
“You can’t take away the relationship, guys. You can do whatever you want. We could even fight out there; it doesn’t matter. We’re going to still be friends. We’ve been through too much together. I love his family, and he’s great to my kids.
“It’s what it is.”