Carman: Politics can wait. That was a World Series to remember

We’re two days away from the midterm elections, and while I’m aware the future of humanity rides on the outcome, the big news last week has nothing to do with whether Colorado Springs will elect a, gasp, Democrat or if ICE goons will swarm Adams County in search of an excuse to  seize ballot boxes. 

No, that’s news for another day. Today we have the story of the little media market team that could. 

How ’bout those Milwaukee Brewers. The team with grit and heart instead of star-power and swagger. The team with a payroll one-third the size of the Dodgers’, less than half the size of the Yankees’. The team whose fans just may have outnumbered the Rays’ faithful in the team’s home stadium in St. Pete last week. 

It’s the team that won the World Series, its first in franchise history, and left players on the field in joyful tears.

I realize baseball is a sensitive subject in Denver, where the Rockies compete year after year for the worst record in MLB history and the only time the stadium is reliably full is when the Savannah Bananas come to town.

I realize how many lifelong baseball fans in Denver vow to boycott the games until the team is sold to an organization that cares. 

I know just how sensitive a subject this is.

But for my brothers and me, baseball is still as beautiful as my mother, as much fun as my dad, as reliable as the old AM radio in the garage airing the play-by-play as we bicker over whose turn it is to wash the car or mow the lawn on a Saturday afternoon.

We live in four states now, three time zones. Rob is the last sibling left in Wisconsin, living close enough to the stadium to hear the fireworks that were bigger and better than any Fourth of July celebration last Wednesday night.

All week, we texted about our lucky menus: bratwurst (of course), a Friday night fish fry for Game 1, grilled cheese sandwiches on Mom’s old Happy Day Griddle (a post-World War II artifact from the days when my parents were newlyweds and my dad worked nights as a janitor and went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison on the GI Bill during the day).

My husband and I went to Wally’s Wisconsin Tavern in LoDo for one game, where the crowd was decked out in Brewers jerseys and cheeseheads, and pitchers of Miller were on special. The atmosphere was electric and we would have loved to be there for more games, but the cheers were so loud my watch kept warning me of dangerous decibel levels sure to cause hearing loss.

It was that much fun.

Back at home, in digital contact with my brothers, we texted memories.

At the ballpark, my mother always kept score with her impeccable penmanship on those intricate baseball scorecards. My dad ate peanuts and provided the commentary, always a few seconds before the announcers got around to it. 

We remembered my late brother, Paul, who was a fanatical sports fan. After he died, we found boxes of spiral notebooks containing his childhood logs of batting averages and clippings from the Sporting News. 

He scored tickets to some games the last time the Brewers made it to the Series in 1982 and always planned to be there when they finally won it all. Like the powerful phantasm of the beloved Bob Uecker, Paul’s spirit was thought to be a big part of the Brewers’ success — at least in our family. 

He believed before it was a cliche.

Across the state, the victory celebrations on Wednesday night were jubilant. Stories of local taverns running out of beer were widespread. Schools in Milwaukee closed on Friday so children could attend the Brewers parade through downtown. 

We stayed glued to the TV after the game ended where scenes of the pitcher Jacob Misiorowski wiping tears from his cheeks and players jumping out of the dugout and into each other’s arms reminded us of the warmth and love the games can still evoke despite the greed and cynicism that poisons so much in professional sports worldwide.

This was different, we told each other. This team is special.

Pat Murphy summed it up neatly after the game when Jake Bauers handed him the ball he caught to win the series.

“I’m so proud of you, man,” the Brewers’ manager said, hugging his first baseman. “You’re going to be a rich f—er. Just remember when you’re on that horses — Yankees team and you guys are all playing for yourself, just remember, say ‘This is the way we used to do it.’ ”

Alex Rodriguez called it “an impossible love story. An impossible team not to admire.”

They insist they did it for each other, and I choose to believe them.

Why not? After all, it’s really not just a game. For some of us, it’s a portal to a lifetime of sweet memories.

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