So three months ago, my wife and I were looking ahead at the family schedule and the Brewers’ schedule, trying to decide which game this season we wanted to take the kids to. We decided on Friday night, September 23rd against the Florida Marlins.
Well, in case you’re not a Brewer fan, it was an amazing night! The Brewers entered the game with a magic number of 2. They needed to win, plus they needed the St. Louis Cardinals to lose to the Chicago Cubs. They were mirror games -- 1-1 ties through the 7th innings.
In the Brewers 8th, Ryan MVP Braun hit a three-run homer that put Milwaukee ahead for good. And in the Cubs 8th, Chicago’s Soriano also hit a three-run homer that buried the Cardinals -- at least for the night.
The Brewers game ended earlier than the affair in St. Louis, and so most of the 44,000+ in attendance at Miller Park just stayed there, celebrating Milwaukee’s victory, and watching the end of the Cards’ game on the scoreboard’s big screen. The atmosphere was electric! And when the Cardinals registered their final out, the place erupted again,and turned into one enormous party. Many of the Brewer players came back out of the clubhouse, waving, greeting fans, and spraying champagne. What an atmosphere!
This video captures some of the excitement -- the Braun home run,the final Florida out, and then the scene inside Miller Park as the Cardinals lost. Good stuff.
The other must-see from the game is Ryan Braun’s double play catch and throw. What a stud!
(The Brewers went on to sweep the Marlins on this all-Wisconsin weekend, and now they welcome the Pittsburgh Pirates to Milwaukee for the final three games of the season, as they seek to lock-up the #2 spot in the NL.)
Then, on Saturday, the Wisconsin Badgers hosted lowly South Dakota in Camp Randall in Madison, thrashing their guests 59-10. And get a load of this: South Dakota managed to win the time of possession (30:42 to 29:18), but in that slightly-less-than-half-a-game, the Badgers put up 612 yards of total offense. 612! Awesome.
Madison will be absolutely rocking next Saturday as the Nebraska Cornhuskers and ESPN's College Gameday come to town. This will be Nebraska’s Big Ten debut. And, as though that wasn’t appealing enough, the Cornhuskers come in ranked #8 in the country to face the Badgers, who weigh in at #7. It’s the best game of the day, and it’ll be in Wisconsin.
And, finally, the Wisconsin weekend reached its climax with the latest iteration of the NFL’s oldest rivalry. The Packers and Bears played for the third time in the 2011 calendar year. And the Packers beat the Bears for the third time in the 2011 calendar year.
Jay Cutler managed to play the entire game this time, unlike his infamous early exit in the NFC Championship game last January. Indeed, Cutler was the centerpiece of the Bears’ offense, as Mike Martz dialed up only 12 rushing plays all afternoon against the Packers. Admittedly, the Green Bay DBs’ performances against New Orleans and Carolina should make a guy like Martz drool at the prospect of throwing the ball against them. But there was simply no balance in the Bears. They totaled just 13 yards on the ground, and the Packers’ D sacked Cutler three times while picking him off twice in a 27-17 win at Soldier Field.
Green Bay’s opening drive was a thing of beauty. As the game aged, however, the beauty faded. There was lots of ugliness along the way, including the near-disaster at the end when Green Bay’s entire punt coverage team decided to swarm Hester, even though he didn’t have the ball.
In the end, though, Rodgers had a solid day (first INT of the season notwithstanding), Ryan Grant looked like his old self, and Jermichael Finley was every bit the nightmare for an opposing defense that he was supposed to be.
So the Brewers win the NL Central. The Badgers are one of the best teams in the country. And the Packers are 3-0 on the season, with all three wins coming in the Conference, and one of them coming in the Division.
September has been great. October should be so good!
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