12/21/24
January 13, 2005
Bud gets out of the ownership business: Selig and family have sold the Brewers to Mark Attanasio, with the selling price in the neighborhood of $200M. The new owner has said in the past that Milwaukee doesn't have to worry about losing the team.
Bud wanted them in the NL for some reason.
posted by Bernreuther at 03:47 PM on January 13, 2005
Some reason that has to do with Cubs fans giving the Brewers a bunch of sellouts every season.
posted by rocketman at 04:10 PM on January 13, 2005
I gotta say that Attanasio is already an owner after my heart. He's not interested in playing Steinbrennerball, but has given Doug Melvin a bigger payroll to work with, which never hurts. The signing of Damian Miller and the Podsednik-for-Lee (which was a total scam!) trade were early signs of his fingerprints in the front office, and frankly, I'm excited about the next several years.
posted by rocketman at 04:13 PM on January 13, 2005
And those Cubs series always end up being midweek. 3 for 3 in the 2005 schedule. Curious.
posted by mbd1 at 04:31 PM on January 13, 2005
It never hurts to have a friend in the Commish's office.
posted by rocketman at 04:40 PM on January 13, 2005
I get the part about the Cubs-Brewers matchups but I kind of liked when the Twins played the Brewers more too. Except when Ben Oglivie would hit a 500 foot blast inot the upper deck at the Metrodome. Attanasio does seem like he's going to be alright...he's talking the right talk so far. I'll probably end up liking him more than Pohlad, huh?
posted by chris2sy at 04:46 PM on January 13, 2005
From what I remember, the reasoning behind moving the Brewers to the NL was that Milwaukee Braves had been an NL team way back when.
posted by hootch at 05:28 PM on January 13, 2005
Milwaukee was moved because Bud gauranteed Arizona a spot in the NL West when they and the Tampa were created. That would have made an uneven number of teams in each league. So, Bud volunteered Milwaukee to switch, since all the other owners who could have bitched and whined about rivalries.
posted by gryphon99 at 02:39 AM on January 14, 2005
Speaking of Ball Four over in the book thread: The franchise began as the Seattle Pilots in 1969 but was bought by Selig in bankruptcy proceedings a year later and moved to Milwaukee before the 1970 season. kind of off topic, but I've always wondered, why take the Twins-Brewers rivalry away? Why not have them in the same division where they can play each other more...those used to be some hateful games...couldn't they have moved the Brewers to the AL central and put KC over in the AL West??