Once upon a time, in the 1980s, there was a high school girl in Salt Lake City who played slow pitch softball and loved baseball. The only problem was, she didn't have a team to call her own. She was ruining her knees playing catcher, but that's a different story.
She loved the home town minor league team, where there was one, but that wasn't enough.
She watched the Cardinals with her dad, and loved how Ozzie Smith threw himself into the game. Her early TV baseball days were full of "The Big Red Machine." That Pete Rose played with a passion, Johnny Bench was a hella catcher and the team was electric.
But that didn't solve her dilemma.
Charlie Hustle had slowed down a step, though he still was an amazing player, and Smith and her dad weren't enough to make her love the Cards. Her inherited love for the Detroit Tigers was important, but, despite their success in 1984 and 1987, not enough.
What was a girl to do?
Fortunately, she had another friend, Mandy, who loved baseball.
Mandy was from Baltimore and an Orioles fan to the core. That team was in her blood and in her heart, and she would talk about them constantly.
In those early 80s days, the Orioles and Milwaukee Brewers spent a lot of time in heated competition in the American League East - even when it was competition for last place. Our heroine became a Brewers fan in self defense, and to tweak her friend.
Well, the Brewers have yet to match their success of 1982. But her love of the Brewers stuck. The switch to the National League in 1998 took the team of her heart out of regular competition with the team of her blood.
And I still love the Brewers. 25 years after their last series, maybe this year will make it happen.
Well...
10 years ago
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