The Bucks have done a lot
to transform themselves in the last two weeks, but their effort to change their
starting point guard hit a roadblock when the Atlanta Hawks matched Milwaukee’s
offer to Jeff Teague. At the Observers’ deadline Monday the situation was murky
but someone’s strong preference was quite clear…
Artie: When I saw the paper Sunday my spirits sank. Now I
can only keep my fingers crossed that there’s still some possibility of a “sign
and trade” deal that can still get Teague here, where he wants to be.
Frank: No one really knows if Brandon Jennings wants to be
in Atlanta, but the Bucks’ offer to Teague sure can’t make him want to stay
here.
A: The new NBA labor agreement gave teams only three
days to match offers to their restricted free agents, down from seven. I read
somewhere that the Bucks and Hawks were trying to work something out but ran
out of time, so the Hawks felt they had to match. But I can keep hoping.
F: Meanwhile, there doesn’t seem to be any “buzz” about
Jennings getting a big-money offer from another team.
A: It’s like the guy has disappeared from the face of
the Earth! But if he reappears still wearing a Bucks uniform, I doubt he’ll be
the happiest of young Buckeroos.
F: Right now he’ll be a Buck for one year at the $4.3
million “qualifying offer” the team made. So how about this theory: At least
Jennings will be highly motivated next season, if only to earn himself a big
payday as an unrestricted free agent next summer?
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A: But what will he be motivated to do? Become the
well-rounded point guard the Bucks have wanted all along, or just jack up more
shots to pad his scoring stats? We’ve seen what success the Bucks have had with
a free-shooting Jennings, namely not much. I see him trying for 55 shots a
game, to match that point total from his rookie year.
F: That 55-point explosion in his seventh NBA game was
the worst thing that could have happened. I think it helped give him a “score
first” mind-set.
A: Which has resulted in crummy 39.4% shooting over four
seasons.
F: Compared to 45.1% for Teague, although their
three-point marks are virtually the same at just under 36%.
A: But Teague is a true point guard; he shares the ball.
He got a much better background in fundamentals by playing two years at Wake
Forest. If Jennings had even played one year of college ball I think it would
have really helped him out. But no, he knew better and went off to Europe. He
still got the opportunity here, but he just hasn’t improved.
F: How about another scenario at the point: Jennings
gets an offer but the Bucks don’t match and turn the job over to Luke
Ridnour. He was solid as Jennings’ backup during the 2010 run to the playoffs.
A: I could see that. I was glad to see them get Ridnour
back in a deal with Minnesota. They could sign someone to back him up and help
the rookie, Nate Wolters, learn the ropes. But I’m still hoping that somehow
they can get Teague!
F: Besides landing Ridnour, the Bucks have brought back
Carlos Delfino, another contributor to the 2010 success. And they replaced
Monta Ellis’ scoring by signing O.J. Mayo.
A: And I liked the move to get another familiar face,
Zaza Pachulia, as the backup center. I remember watching him in one of the
Bucks’ games against Atlanta and wishing he was back here.
F: One of my buddies at Paddy’s Pub, who’s a
longtime Bucks fan, said he was pretty excited about the way the team has been
reshaped.
A: I am too! I think back to the fourth game in the
sweep by Miami, and how I looked at that roster and said, “Oh God, are they
gonna still be like this next year?” But with these newcomers joining the
frontcourt core of Larry Sanders, John Henson and Ersan Ilyasova, this bunch
can be pretty competitive—and more so if Teague can get here.
F: It sure didn’t take GM John Hammond long to change
his tune on Jennings. On June 28, at the introduction of the first-round draft
pick…
A: Whom we’ll jut keep calling “G.A.”…
F: Hammond said, “It’s our intention for Brandon
Jennings to remain a Milwaukee Buck.” Twelve days later came the offer to
Teague.
A: But even an unwanted Jennings will get a hefty raise
if he stays here. He made about $3.2 million last year; an extra million next
season could buy an awful lot of tattoos.
F: But maybe not one that says, “I Love Milwaukee.”
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BROKEN AT THE BREAK
F: What is there, really, to say at the all-star break
about the Brewers?
A: About the who? The name vaguely rings a bell. A
baseball team, ain’a?
F: Not a very good one, according to the record. They’re
38-56, six games worse than last year and a whopping 19 1/2 games out of first
place in the NL Central.
A: To say nothing of 14 1/2 back in the wild-card race.
And 4 1/2 games behind the Cubs—the Cubs!—for fourth place in the division.
F: They’re just 2 1/2 games ahead of Miami, which brings
the worst record in the NL to Miller Park this weekend.
A: Meanwhile, I can understand why Ryan Braun went on
“bereavement leave.” Major League Baseball is in the process of administering
the last rites to his Hall of Fame aspirations.
F: That may be a bit extreme, but it looks like something
will be coming down on Braun, Alex Rodriguez and others, maybe by the end of
this week.
A: By the way, I just got a tip from an anonymous source
that MLB is planning to revise the appeal process for the players it suspends
for dealing with that Biogenesis lowlife in Florida. Each guy will have a
50-pound concrete block tied to his ankles and get tossed into the Hudson
River.
F: Why 50 pounds?
A: Each one represents one of the games a first-time
offender gets docked. If the guy floats, he’s innocent. If he sinks…
F: The process accelerates right to a permanent ban.
A: Call it streamlining.
F: Back to the Brewers. Their record in games I’ve
attended this year is 7-14, so I guess I’m acting as “the Cooler” again.
A: No one has to act very well to become a cooler for
that team. Someone else must be helping produce a 31-42 record when you’re not
around.
F: Tom Gorzelanny’s first two July starts were typical
of how things have been going. Against the Mets at home and then in Arizona, he
goes six solid innings, gives up only two unearned runs thanks to errors
and loses 2-1. The only difference was that against the D-Backs one of the
errors was his own.
A: He may be thinking his biggest error was signing
here. But at least he’s making himself more attractive as the trading deadline
approaches and so many teams look for pitching help. But the Brewers have a
bunch of guys who seem to be doing their best to sabotage their chances
of going to a contender!
F: Jim Henderson and John Axford in the Arizona series,
Michael Gonzalez, Burke Badenhop… Their value is dropping.
A: And Yovani Gallardo must just love Milwaukee.
I saw one rumor that Doug Melvin is talking with Texas—imagine that!—about
Gallardo and Norichika Aoki, because Texas is supposed to have a real solid,
even superior farm system. Gallardo should be trying to get there; I
think he has his off-season home in Fort Worth. But he keeps having starts that
range all the way from mediocre to terrible.
F: Still, it could be a very busy next couple of weeks
for Mr. Melvin.
OH, THAT WHACKY NIGHT
F: Last time we noted a couple of interesting sports
anniversaries, but another passed by on July 9 without the fanfare it deserved.
And it marked a major event in Brewers history.
A: What, the only time Jeff Suppan got past the fourth
inning?
F: Nice guess, but no. This one involved the immortal
Randall Simon.
A: I know that name!
F: Yes, it’s been 10 years since Simon immortalized
himself and the Brewers’ sausage race with a little flick of his bat.
A: The ol’ Wiener Whacker himself.
F: Simon, a Pirates first baseman, was at the dugout
rail when the four sausages—remember, this was the pre-Chorizo era—ran by that
Wednesday night. He hit the top of the Italian costume, causing the runner to
go off-balance and fall, and the Hot Dog tripped over the Italian.
A: But both of them toughed it out and finished the
race, ain’a?
F: Yup. The Polish helped the Italian get up and the
Bratwurst won the race. As it happened, the two fallen racers were young women
who were members of the “Super Team” entertainment squad—Mandy Block, 19, was
the Italian and Veronica Piech, 21, was the Hot Dog.
A: And their injuries?
F: Skinned and bruised knees, nothing serious. But that
didn’t save Simon from punishment.
A: As I recall, the Brewers wanted him tarred and
feathered.
F: Rick Schlesinger, then the vice president of business
operations and now the team’s chief operating officer, called Simon’s action
“an insane act” and “one of the most outrageous things I’ve ever seen inside a
ballpark or outside a ballpark.” Now, it’s true the injuries could have been
worse, but it’s also true that Simon never actually hit Block.
A: He obviously wasn’t the brightest bulb in the pack,
but not exactly Aaron Hernandez either.
F: Just a goofy guy from Curacao. But he was taken
downtown on a misdemeanor battery charge, later reduced to disorderly conduct,
and fined $432.
A: Did they fingerprint the bat to be absolutely sure?
F: Two days later Major League Baseball added a
three-game suspension and a $2,000 fine. Simon apologized to Block and she
took the whole thing in good nature, saying it was “funny to me.” All she asked
for was an autographed bat from Simon, which she got on July 11. But the Curacao
Tourist Board offered her a vacation on the Caribbean island, and I found a Web
photo showing her getting nuzzled by a dolphin during that visit the next
winter.
A: And she got her 15 minutes of fame out of the way
early.
F: Yeah, for a couple of days she was a national
mini-celebrity. Which seemed to make the Brewers a little annoyed—possibly
because Schlesinger’s initial comments turned out to be a little, um,
excessive. I was covering the July 11 game, against Cincinnati, and the Brewers
refused to make Block available to the media for interviews, or allow photos of
her receiving the bat.
A: As Barney Fife would say, “Nip it! Nip it in the
bud!”
F: Block and Piech were back in the race that Friday
night—but holding the tape at the finish line. Block was invited to a mall
event where she would have signed “Don’t Whack Our Wiener” T-shirts, but a
Brewers spokesman told me, “We told her that as a Brewers employee we’d prefer
that she not do it, and she agreed to that.”
A: Hey, why not let the kid make a buck or two?
F: Simon wound up getting traded to the Cubs in August,
and in September he returned to Miller Park. I had the game that night too, and
Simon told me he and Block had talked by phone a week after the incident. “She
said she knew I didn’t try to hurt her and I said I appreciated the way she
handled it,” he said. Oh, and Simon also bought Italian sausages for an entire
section near first base.
A: The Brewers should have enjoyed the whole thing more.
God knows it was the highlight of that ’03 season!
F: Well, the team didn’t lose 106 games as it had the
year before.
A: Not for lack of trying! Let’s go to
baseball-reference.com… The ’03 team went 68-94 with an ERA of 5.02 and 219
homers allowed. How about some of these stats: Glendon Rusch, 1-12 and a 6.42…
F: Ooh, it was that year. Rusch wound up getting
sent to the minors.
A: Ben Sheets, 11-13 and 4.45 with 29 homers allowed.
Matt Kinney, 10-13 and 5.19 with 27 homers. Wayne Franklin, 10-13 and 5.50 with
thirty-six homers. The Brewers gave up 873 runs for the season while
scoring 714.
F: Ouch. A run differential of minus-159. You’re right;
Simon was doing ’em a favor.
YOU CALL THIS A GAME?
F: Imagine my surprise when I turned to your column last
week and saw the illustration of you not only playing soccer, but making
a rather bold tackle with your cleats dangerously close to a player’s, um, man
zone.
A: That’s how I play the game. Hey, you want to flop? I’ll
give you something to flop about!
F: It was just such a shock to see you involved in soccer,
even in a photo-shopped way.
A: Well, I sure got interested in the sport when I saw
that little item in the Journal Sentinel
last week about the mayhem in Brazil.
F: I saw that too. A referee in an amateur match ejected
a player, the two got into a confrontation and the ref pulled a knife and
stabbed the player to death.
A: And then a mob stoned the ref to death, chopped off
his head and quartered his body. I thought, holy cow, maybe there’s more to
this soccer stuff than I thought. Those English hooligans got nothing on
Brazilians!
F: I figured that would catch your eye. Remember the
Colombian player who was murdered after the 1994 World Cup because he
accidentally put the ball into his own net?
A: But soccer’s so big in Brazil that I’m figuring the
killers will get off on “just cause” after about five minutes in court.
F: As you well know, Brazil will host the World Cup next
year. And another item in the JS reported that local restaurateur Mike Eitel
has a plan for a five-acre site along the Park East Strip where fans can watch
the matches and party. Are you up for it?
A: I’m afraid that’s out of my geographic partying
radius. Since I’m a pedestrian, being in that area would increase my chances of
falling into the river when the evening’s over. But I know Mike Eitel is a good
guy and a smart businessman. I’m sure the place would be successful. But
getting back to that Brazil situation, it makes me think of something that
would be perfect for the NBA.
F: I’m worried about where this might be going.
A: If the league is really serious about curtailing all
this flopping by players, it could allow the refs to pack a shiv, and if guys
pulled really egregious flops they could just stab ’em.
F: Fatally?
A: Ref’s option. Or you could widen the policy to
include consistent whining about calls. After, say, the third complaint,
something more painful than a technical foul would be an option.
F: Let me know how the NBA responds to this idea.
Frank Clines covered
sports for The
Milwaukee Journal and the Journal Sentinel. Art Kumbalek keeps his
“tats” under cover.