Brewers vs. Cubs (Jim Gaffigan edition)

Today, the Brewers will head to Chicago for a four game series. For me, this is probably how it feels for Archie Manning to watch his two sons play each other in football. My name is Tommy, and I am a Cubs and Brewers fan.

"What!?" Yes, it is true. I am a huge fan of both teams and this is a very hard time of the year for me to watch baseball. First, Let me explain how this happened to me. I seem to be one of those rare Brewer fans that watched baseball before the year 1998 (I know many of you are also in that group, but I get the feeling there are a lot of current fans that recently jumped on the wagon long after that year). You see, before 1998 the Brewers were an American League team. Back then it made sense to cheer for an American League team and a National League team. When I was a youngster I would come home from school and turn on the Brewers game... unless it wasn't televised. Not televised? Back in the 80's, the Brewers were on channel 6, which was CBS back then, and then moved to channel 24, which was Fox. (In Jim Gaffigan voice, "How old is this guy?") Home games were never televised in Milwaukee so I would turn the trusty Antenna (Jim Gaffigan again, "Antenna, seriously how old is he?") towards the South and tune into WGN for the Cubs. I would pretty much hunt down a baseball game wherever I could find it.

Also, as a child, it was sometimes hard to tell which team you were watching (Gaffigan voice: "Is he mildly retarded?"). The Cubs and Brewers both had the white and blue pin striped uniforms where a normal person could easily tell them apart, but I may have been somewhat on the dumb side. For those of you that are saying, "they are two different teams!"... are they really? Let me show you some interesting facts. There are a total of 71 players and 2 managers that have been a Chicago Cub and Milwaukee Brewer. 43 of those have played for both teams since the mid 80's. Here's a few of those players that you may recognize: Damian Miller, Dan Plesac, Chuck Crim, Jamie Navarro, Eric Young, Matt Stairs, Matt Mieske, Candy Maldonado, Derrick May, Jeromi Burnitz, Chad Fox, and Henry Blanco. Two of your favorite Brewers on this years team were also Cubs.... Jason Kendall and Casey McGehee. One of your least favorite, Jody Gerut was a Cub too. Let's not forget that Don Baylor and Tom Trebelhorn were both either coaches or managers with both teams. Ever listen to a Cubs radio broadcast? If you can get past how bad Ron Santo is, you may recognize the voice of Pat Hughes... a former Milwaukee Brewers radio voice. (Gaffigan voice: This guy knows a lot of useless crap!")

I was basically a victim of being a kid who just wanted to watch Baseball 24 hours a day. If the Brewers weren't on TV, then the Cubs were, and vice versa. Being from Racine County, it seemed to be the normal thing to do (Gaffigan voice: "Racine county? Sounds like a bunch of farm children.") During my college years, which is known to many Brewer fans as the dark ages, my time was mostly spent involved in Track and Cross Country. I didn't have that much time for baseball but the time I did have, I would end up watching the Cubs fight for the playoffs and the infamous Sammy Sosa/Mark McGwire homerun chase. When that was over, and I came back to Milwaukee, it was still pretty acceptable to enjoy both teams. It wasn't until 2007 where I noticed that it was unacceptable to cheer for both Cubs and Brewers. I guess sometime while I was in college, I got stuck in the space time continuum and still consider the Brewers an American Leauge team in a way. I worry more about the Cardinals and Reds and can't really think of the Brewers as rivals still. That might explain why I was more passionate about the Brewers playing the Tigers (Gaffigan voice: "I wonder if they make Tiger bacon?")

Now that we have that out in the open, we can talk about the series a bit... but just a little bit. The positive side to this is that I feel I may be the least biased person to discuss the topic without letting my douchebag side come out... and we all know there are a lot of douchebag fans of both teams that come out during this time! (I will save my opinions on the fan situation for later in the series)

So Brewers vs. Cubs (Gaffigan voice: "Finally, I thought he'd never shut up about that other stuff. Where's that tiger bacon?") Seth McClung will go for the Brewers while Ryan Dempster takes the mound for the Cubs. Dempster has had some rough outings recently but has been more successful when at Wrigley (3-1 with a 4.14 era). McClung has been pretty successful against the Cubs in the past so the pitching is pretty much a toss up. Personally, I feel the Brewers bats are going to be more active than the Cubs in this one. It's just a hunch, but I'll give the edge to the Brewers. Sorry I don't have too much to analyze but I figure with this series, anything I could analyze is out the window anyways. Both teams are looking to gain some ground in the division before the All-Star break and I think that says it all. (Gaffigan voice: "Do they make Bear bacon? Beer bacon?")

PS. I can't stand that "Go Cubs Go" song. It makes me feel like I cheer for a cartoon little league team. (Gaffigan voice: "It should be Go Bacon Go. Plus, I don't like this Tommy guy.")

PSS. Don't ever expect me to try this thing out!