Baseball Trip - August 20 - Minneapolis to Milwaukee

On Friday, August 19, 2010, we drove back across Wisconsin from Minneapolis to Milwaukee where we watched the Brewers beat the San Diego Padres 10-6 at Miller Park.

The Trip. Given the mileage we had been rolling up, this one felt like a trip to the grocery store. While for most of the trip we had cloudy and overcast conditions in which to travel, this day we experienced some fairly severe thunderstorms on I-94 between Madison and Milwaukee in the late afternoon. RVs have an extremely large mass and surface area, so you can imagine that, like any vehicle with that size and profile, they are susceptible to high winds. We were getting pounded with some severe wind and rain (the kind that bends the trees toward a 60 degree angle).

At one particularly nasty stretch in Jefferson County, Rich decided to first pull off and take cover under an overpass and then exit the interstate at the next exit and take refuge at a Park-and-Ride lot until things blew over a bit. I despise driving in rain – it is very stressful. Rich did a great job on this stretch (as he did the whole trip). It rained periodically the rest of the way to Milwaukee.

I had kind of a funny, personal episode on this leg that highlights my more cynical nature. At work, our product was scheduled to released to manufacturing (RTM) the next day, Saturday, August 21. This is a milestone where the product is transferred from the development and test team (me) to the software manufacturing team (which handles the various processes related to making the product available for purchasing by the customers who pay our salary). RTM is a big deal. If the development team does not meet the RTM date that is committed to the business, then there is all sorts of hell to pay.

The last couple of weeks before RTM are sort of characterized by the old adage that "war is long periods of boredom interspersed with short periods of acute terror". (Now don’t go all Kellen Winslow on me). The product is still going through its final regression testing, but things are pretty quiet – until a potential stop-ship problem is found. This is an issue that has to be resolved (via a bug fix or documentation) or the product will not be permitted to be RTMed. On Saturday, August 7, I spent 8 hours of a Saturday on a conference call to resolve a potential stop-ship issue.

So I was a little concerned that I might be pulled into some emergency conference call while I was out riding in an RV all over America during the week. At a couple of the KOAs, I briefly checked work emails, just perusing the subject lines to verify that everything was under control.

Then on Friday afternoon, around 2:30 Central, while on I-94, my cell rang with a caller number of 919-224-____. This is the work exchange and my manager Brian’s number so my heart first sunk and then my head started spinning. We are out in the middle of Wisconsin. Do they even have high-speed internet or a Starbuck’s here? Why can’t I be left alone on my vacation? We have been working on this release since last December. Don’t tell me that the Test Team waited until the Friday before we shipped to find some problem.

I felt really stupid when my manager explained that 1) everything was going fine, 2) the DVDs were being transmitted to manufacturing, and 3) all the team members were being given a day off on Monday in appreciation. He didn’t want me to show up on Monday morning and wonder where everybody was at. Nothing like jumping to conclusions and assuming the worse.

Parking. Unlike the other two downtown stadiums that we visited on the trip, Miller Park is located in an outer neighborhood of Milwaukee and there is plenty of parking – much of the ample parking area is on the site of the old County Stadium. This was a fairly small crowd and we arrived about 70 minutes before first pitch. There was clear signage and plenty of attendants to guide us and the cost to park was only (I think) $10. Two thumbs up on the parking arrangements at Miller Park. We were instructed to pull up to a location parallel to Selig Drive, which made for an easy post-game exit.

View Bird's Eye

Outside the Park. We enjoyed a couple of beers in the RV before the game. Even in the inclement weather, there were more than a few folks with nice tailgate spreads. Those Milwaukee and Green Bay fans do love their tailgating and Miller Park is a nice location that.

Unfortunately, right around the time we commenced to leave for the ballpark, the rain resumed and got pretty heavy. So this reporter wasn’t able to capture any snapshots outside the park. For the last couple of hundred yards or so, we were walking in fairly heavy rain and scrambling with the rest of the fans to get inside the park. Completing the symmetry, after the game the wet stuff picked up again and we arrived back at the RV pretty soaked. Miller Park has a retractable roof, so, fortunately, we were able to still see a ballgame that evening.

Inside the Park. Miller Park had the misfortune of opening the same year as PNC Park at a construction cost of $400 million ($184 million than PNC) and losing out on the aesthetics comparison in almost every review. Certainly the retractable, fan-shaped, roof added to the price tag and the design of that roof has turned out to be quite controversial – a number of parts showing premature deterioration which required replacement. A lawsuit was filed against the designers of the mechanisms that move the roof structure (Mitsubishi).

Still proved to be a perfectly fine venue to watch the game. If I had to be critical, then:

• Watching baseball inside of a dome just feels weird.
• Cheerleaders have no place in baseball (especially in a town with a baseball culture as rich as Milwaukee’s). This is something you’d expect out of the Sun Belt.
• The color scheme felt kind of drab.

Concession and beer prices were significantly lower than in our other two stops. We all enjoyed Miller Lites and brats (of course). Good stuff. Other highlights that I enjoyed were the playing of the Beer Barrel Polka during the 7th Inning Stretch, the Sausage Race, and the Bernie Brewer Slide in Left Field.

We had really good seats. Sixth row of the second level, just up the first base line (almost directly behind home plate). The second level features a concourse from which you can watch the action. This was nice because when you came back from concessions, you could stand there and watch game play until there was a break in the action, at which time you could return to your seats. Some dude with a glove was hanging out on that concourse all game long – he finally got a foul ball in the later innings and gave it to a youngster.

Here is a Flickr Slideshow of shots taken on August 20, 2010 at Miller Park in Milwaukee, Wisconsin:

The Game. The Padres came in with an NL leading 73-47 record and had leads of 3-0, 5-2, and 6-5 but lost to the Brewers 10-6 as Milwaukee scored in 6 of 8 innings.

I had seen only bits of 2 SD games this year. I don’t follow baseball as closely as I used to and could only recognize 3 of their starting 8 players (Adrian Gonzales, Miguel Tajada, and Yorvit Torrealba. They have been doing it with a bunch of no-names and with the best pitching staff in the NL.

Neither starting pitcher fared well in this one. It is almost impossible to pitch behind in the count against major leaguers and both starters fell behind all game. From our seats, the thing that became obvious was how efficient the hitters are at hitting mistakes. All Star Yovani Gollardo has an awesome curve, but he hung one to Adrian Gonzalez in the first inning and Gonzales must have hit that ball 430 feet to center for a homerun.

Having been the second game in which I watched the Brewers in three days, I came away a bit puzzled for their struggles. There first five in the batting order is really strong and balanced.

There wasn’t a whole lot of drama in this game as Milwaukee pulled slowly away, but it was an entertaining game nonetheless.

ESPN Recap and Box Score.