It's been a long summer for the Brewers. These last two months have been especially disappointing, considering their losing record in August despite facing one of the easiest stretches of baseball in all of the majors. It's easy to get disheartened when you see a team with such talent and promise fail to pull it together like the Brewers have this year.

But that doesn't mean you stop going to the games. None of us are baseball fans just because our teams are successful. There's much more to the game than that, and there's no better way to experience it all than by going to the ballpark. Even when your team is all-but-mathematically-eliminated, the game is still important. The crowd still hangs on every pitch, and the excitement of the victory is still riveting. Of course, we all want every game to be meaningful, but that's not going to happen every year. The best we can do is enjoy each game as it comes, and there's no better way to do that than at the ballpark.

Which brings me to the Brewers-Giants game at Miller Park yesterday that I was lucky enough to have attended. The game had much less meaning, in terms of playoff implications, than I expected when I chose the game as part of my season-ticket package at the start of the season, but that doesn't mean it was any less enjoyable or exciting. Especially when the Brewers turned a triple play in the sixth inning (the first one I had ever witnessed) or when Prince Fielder hit a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 12th (and just watch that celebration!). I mean, really, how can you ask for much more than that, even when the playoffs are out of your reach?

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It did get me thinking, though, about triple-plays and walk-offs. After all, these last few weeks here at Wezen-Ball seem to have been focused specifically on baseball's feats and walk-off victories. So I looked it up. Today's game was the 25th time, in the Retrosheet-era, that a triple-play was turned in a game that was later won in walk-off fashion. The last game, before today, was in 2007, when Troy Tulowitzki turned an unassisted triple-play agains the Braves. The Rockies went on to win that game in the bottom of the 11th, when Matt Holliday hit a two-run walk-off home run. Pretty similar to today's Brewers game, actually (minus the unassisted triple play, of course).

The 5-4-3 triple play this afternoon was the first that the Brewers had turned in 10 years, when they tripled up the Cubs on Opening Day 1999. Ten years seemed like a long time for a club to have gone between triple plays, so I checked out this fantastic list kept by the SABR folks. It turns out that, while 10 years is a long time, it's nowhere near the longest. The list of all thirty ball clubs and their most recent triple play is below. Take a look at where the Yankees and Blue Jays sit!

Last Triple Play, by Franchise
Franchise	Year
New York (AL)	1968
Toronto	1979
Boston	1994
Seattle	1995
Cincinnati	1995
Chicago (NL)	1997
San Diego	1997
Anaheim	1997
Los Angeles (NL)	1998
Oakland	2000
Baltimore	2000
Detroit	2001
New York (NL)	2002
Florida	2002
Montreal/Washington	2002
Atlanta	2004
Houston	2004
St. Louis	2005
Minnesota	2006
Kansas City	2006
Tampa Bay	2006
Chicago (AL)	2006
Colorado	2007
Cleveland	2008
San Francisco	2008
Milwaukee	2009 (1999)
Pittsburgh	2009 (1993)
Arizona	2009 (2000)
Texas	2009 (2002)
Philadelphia	2009 (2007)

For the five teams that accomplished the feat this year, I also included the last year that they had turned it before 2009. I find it absolutely amazing, though, that it's been over 40 years since the Yankees have turned a triple play. It just seems impossible. And the Blue Jays - 1979 was only their third year of existence.

It just goes to show you, then, that anything can happen in any game at a major league baseball stadium. And that, no matter how disappointed or disheartened you are by your team, it's never worth skipping out on going to the ballpark. Sure, you're unlikely to see either a triple play or a walk-off home run, but there's always something worth seeing. Plus, it's just plain fun.

Comments (4)

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written by Ryan Gainer, September 07, 2009

Too Bad the whole celebration showed no class. But hey, moral victories for a team 15 games under .500 is good right? Tell Prince to watch his head next time he's up against the Giants.

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I hate the Brewers.
written by Hey, Blue!, September 08, 2009

As you know, I'm no Giants fan, but I'm with Ryan on this one. That celebration was classless and unprofessional.

Hey Milwaukee: Act like you've been there, Meat.

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I just don't get all this sensitivity
written by lar @ wezen-ball, September 08, 2009

Or, get a thicker skin and realize that a group of guys who like each other can celebrate an exciting win together without it being some kind of attack on the sport or the opposing team.

I guess I just don't understand how rational people who root for the Barry Bonds' and Manny Ramirez's and Albert Pujols' of the world can so easily get their panties in a bunch when another team celebrates as a team (sure, this particular celebration was over the top, but it's not degrees worse than what the Yankees do or any other team does). If the Dodgers or Giants showed that kind of comradeship, I'd be hearing all kinds of crap about how they're such a great group of guys.

Oh, and let's not forget the poster *and* bobblehead that came out of Manny's game-winning grandslam in July...

I just don't get why this bothers people so much and, you know me, I'm the biggest proponent there is of the "How did the other team feel?" mindset. (Now I'm afraid I just opened the floodgates on a topic that I just don't care about as much as some other people...)

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It has nothing to do with sensitivity
written by Hey, Blue!, September 09, 2009

You're missing the point. As far as I'm concerned it has nothing to do with sensitivity to the other team. I couldn't care less about how the losing team feels. It has to do with being a professional. These are not children playing a children's game. These are professionals in their place of business being paid millions of dollars to perform their jobs. Winning baseball games is their job. It is not a juvenile endeavor. If the Brewers want to behave like a bunch of jackass fratboys instead of professionals, that's fine, but I don't have to appreciate it. Fielder is the same player who tried to start a fight in an opponent's clubhouse after a game this year. He's a meathead and he's classless. Professionalism earns respect and the Brewers deserve no respect from me.

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