Milwaukee, I\u2019ll keep this short. Better I think to be short. Of course, it\u2019s a tremendous season for us. 97 wins. It\u2019s a lot of wins. Wow!!! But if you know me, you know I\u2019m a man of few words. And I think, few words \u2014 actually it\u2019s how it should be for our team. We are not one of those teams who\u2019s saying this and that, or making so much noise. We are not a team in the bright lights. We are another kind of team.<\/p>\n
I won a World Series with the Braves, a long time ago. I was so young. No one said we could do it \u2014\u00a0so now they want to know the secret for that group. Here\u2019s the secret: unidad. We only won 88. Acu\u00f1a is hurt. But we all were united. We had belief together. \u201cWhat are we playing for???\u201d Ask everyone on that team, it\u2019s all the same answer. Ask most other teams, it\u2019s a lot of guys with different answers. That\u2019s why not a lot of guys have rings.<\/p>\n
Three years ago, my agent calls and tells me, \u201cAtlanta traded you.\u201d I told him: \u201cTrade me back.\u201d I\u2019m like, \u201cMILWAUKEE?! OK. Nobody talk to me.\u201d Nah \u2014 it\u2019s just crazy to be traded like that. Crazy. I barely understood what a trade means. But what choice do you have? So I try to accept it. I try to think, William. Be honest. What you KNOW about Milwaukee? Yes, for a Venezuelan kid, and even just coming from Atlanta, it\u2019s a different world, a different culture. But then I get here, and I get to know things.\u2026 It\u2019s an amazing place. The organization, the fans, it\u2019s such a great baseball city. Funny how it changes. Now if I think about that trade, I got lucky.<\/p>\n
My first season with the Brewers, it was kind of a lesson. We played well. 92 wins. Champions of the division. I\u2019m playing a lot. I\u2019m hitting. One thing with Milwaukee, though, it\u2019s very calm. And if you\u2019re a guy like me who\u2019s giving 200% to win, always intense, you have to kill me dead to beat me, the calm can be helpful. It\u2019s balance. But I think we had some guys in 2023 where \u2026 OK \u2026 maybe it\u2019s too calm. Because if they lose, it\u2019s not killing them. I remember Arizona beat us two straight in those playoffs \u2014\u00a0so we\u2019re out. I left the field, I\u2019m actually crying tears. I\u2019m feeling so responsible. But then I\u2019m seeing guys who are leaving, it\u2019s five minutes after the game, and they almost look happy. One guy, he\u2019s even saying to me, \u201cYeah. Now I\u2019ll go fishing.\u201d I\u2019m like, What is this??? We had to move on from that type of mindset. Something was missing, to be great.<\/p>\n
And then before my second year with the Brewers, last season, our manager Craig Counsell left for Chicago. I have a lot of love for Craig. He cared so much about our Latino players, and always treated us with respect. And it\u2019s an excellent contract he got. But it hurts to lose your leader after you win the division, especially to a rival like the Cubs. When we found out, that was tough. But it\u2019s still love, and I\u2019ll always wish Craig success (until he plays the Brewers). Sadly, we also lost our ace Corbin in that offseason. And I won\u2019t lie, it can disappoint you when this stuff happens. All these teams adding guys and you think, Wow, we\u2019ll miss him. Or, We could\u2019ve used him. But I\u2019m always going to feel happy for anyone when they get their money \u2014 they earned it!!! And of course I\u2019m happy they can buy expensive TVs to watch the playoffs on \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Everything else about last season \u2026 for us it was all about Bob Uecker. What a legend. Someone who defined this organization and this city. And a real supporter of us as players. You know how some people, they just have a way of talking to you, where it can be only for a short time but you feel like their closest friend in that moment? That was Bob. He\u2019d always come down to the locker room, chat with guys, and he\u2019d look at them and say, \u201cNo one better than you. Keep doing what you\u2019re doing. No one better than you.\u201d Those words honestly meant everything to me. Then in the playoffs, we knew it\u2019s going to be the last for Bob before he passed. He told us he didn\u2019t have much left. So we wanted to win it for him really bad \u2014 54 years with the Brewers, he never got a ring. And when we lost to the Mets, out in the first round, what can you say? It\u2019s heartbreaking. We had this goal and couldn\u2019t achieve it.<\/p>\n
And then the last thing I want to speak about is our current season. \u201cYou can\u2019t explain it,\u201d people will say. No one was picking us, we started so slow. Yet we did what we did. Three long winning streaks. Most wins in Brewers history. It\u2019s historic. But I actually think I can explain it. OK \u2014 so there is this saying in football (\u201csoccer\u201d here). It goes: The ball is round. And what it means is: The game is unpredictable. For example, say it\u2019s the offseason. Teams are making moves. Huge trades, huge signings. Sure. But here\u2019s the thing. It\u2019s only the offseason. Once the real season starts, once the ball starts bouncing? ANYTHING can happen. Most times, it bounces in favor of the big cities. Teams with the biggest investments, the biggest talent. But sometimes it doesn\u2019t. Sometimes, the ball just bounces another way. You can\u2019t explain it, can\u2019t predict it, can\u2019t pay for it \u2026 you can only go out there and play. It\u2019s just a ball, you know what I\u2019m saying?? The ball is round.<\/p>\n
Alright, so maybe I\u2019m a man of few words \u2026 plus a few more. Haha. But I wanted to say these things for Brewers fans, because the journey of this team has meant so much. This team, it\u2019s so special. And for the first time since I won a ring, I\u2019m really feeling that feeling again. I\u2019m really looking around our locker room, our ballpark, and it\u2019s that same unidad. It\u2019s funny \u2026 I still have a little regret, years later, for being rude to my agent about the trade. \u201cMILWAUKEE?!\u201d Wow. What a wrong way to react. Now, I hope I spend my whole career here \u2014\u00a0and I hope to be on the first World Series winner in Brewers history. It\u2019ll happen, I bet. It\u2019s like Bob always said: \u201cNo one better than you.\u201d Well actually, Bob, probably some are better than me! I\u2019m not the best. None of our group is. But if you\u2019re telling me another team is the best??? Man, I swear. I haven\u2019t seen them. No one better than Milwaukee right now. No one better than US.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Milwaukee, I\u2019ll keep this short. Better I think to be short. Of course, it\u2019s a tremendous season for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":648416,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,99],"class_list":["post-648415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=648415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/648416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=648415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=648415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=648415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}