Just Crown Pat Murphy NL Manager Of The Year And Be Done With It

 Sunday's wild come-from-behind 10-9 win over Arizona just showed once again that this group of Milwaukee Brewers has no quit in them.

This is the only team in Major League Baseball that has not lost four games in a row. That streak could have ended yesterday when the team was down 8-0 after three innings. And with the playoffs sown up, the Brewers could have shrugged and said "it's not our day, fellas, let's head home."

But quit? Not in Milwaukee.

That attitude starts from the top with manager Pat Murphy.

And let's just end the suspense and name Murph the NL Manager Of The Year today. With all the injuries, with all the pitching changes, Murphy has the Brewers in the playoffs for the sixth time in seven season. The team is 89-67 and clinched it's third NL Central title in four years early. Craig Counsell and his Chicago Cubs have had sore necks all season, looking up at Milwaukee in the standings.

This, by the way, is the first back-to-back division titles since the 1981 & 1982 seasons. Let's not forget that from 1983 to 2017, the Brewers only made the playoffs TWICE.

Green Bay gets a much-needed 30-14 win in Tennessee behind back-up quarterback Malik Willis. Not sure if Jordan Love will be ready for Minnesota this week, but Willis has done a stand-up job in back-to-back wins.

Lot of good things to focus on in the win, highlighted by the defense getting eight quarterback sacks and three turnovers, including a pick six interception.

But let's not overlook the 10 penalties the team had, and the continued struggles (and penalties) from left tackle Rasheed Walker. Dude is in danger of playing himself out of a job. Every time a penalty flag was dropped Sunday, I fully expected it to be on Walker -- and it often was.

And the Red Zone offense has got to get better. Settling for short field goals instead of touchdowns will not get you many wins. 

Have to feel a bit for Chicago White Sox fans. The club has matched the post-1900 record of 120 losses (those expansion New York Mets of 1962). May be time for new ownership on the south side of Chicago.

They have six games remaining, so the Sox won't catch the 1899 Cleveland Spiders who lost 139 games, and have already surpassed the 2003 Detroit Tigers (119) with the most losses in American League history

Peaks And Valleys For Wisconsin Sports Teams

The last two weeks have not been kind, all in all, to Wisconsin sports fans. The beloved Green Bay Packers lose a game, and their 220 Million Dollar Man quarterback, in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The Wisconsin Badgers, in the friendly confines of Camp Randall, get slapped around by an uber-talented Alabama football team.

Things got a little bit better when Malik "Been In Town Three Weeks" Willis played about as good a game as he could at quarterback on Sunday, leading the Packers to a 16-10 win. Shouldn't have been that close, folks, as by and large, the other 52 guys on the Green Bay roster played their hearts out before the home crowd.

The collective sign of relief around Wisconsin was long and loud.

Let's digress a bit to that season-opening game in Sao Paulo, a 34-29 loss to Philadelphia. Could well have been a win there for GB. But, for certain, this game was NOT a shining moment for the National Football League. Start with the slippery field that befuddled both teams. Go to the REALLY terrible effort by Peacock to broadcast the game.

Speaking of Peacock, my BFF, Charlie, is tech savvy as all get-out. That was the career he built on with 25 years in the Navy (yes, it was OURS) and later at Jacksonville University, running their IT department. Not spending the extra for Peacock, he figured a way around it -- says he watched it via a Canadian television feed. So, to break that down, here's a guy in Jacksonville, Florida, using Canadian TV to watch American football from Brazil.

If The Shield, as the NFL is often called, wanted to put it's best foot forward and grow the international game, it failed.

And by the way, announcers, the stadium where the Packers and Eagles met was already a football stadium one where soccer (football as it is known to the rest of the world) is played. Nit-picking, yes, but how many others caught that?

You can blame Ol' 61 for all this. Recently met up with Ol' 61 who said I should be blogging more. Be careful what you wish for!

Gotta love the season the Milwaukee Brewers are putting together. As this is written, the team is 23 games above .500 and hold a double-digit lead in the Central Division. The Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals both have sore necks from looking up at Milwaukee.

The Brewers' 87 wins passes what I predicted (86) for them back in late March. Will be happy to see them north of 90 wins -- though today starts a big series with Philadelphia, the team with the best record in the National League.

Had the opportunity to attend festivities last week in Oshkosh at Titan Stadium (or J.J. Keller Field at Titan Stadium as it is now known). Oshkosh Lourdes Academy honored the 50th anniversary of the school's first, and only to this point, state football championship. The 1974 Lourdes Academy Knights shocked the WISAA world with a junior-heavy squad that knocked off powerhouse Green Bay Premontre 15-14, then repeated the score against Marshfield Columbus. Columbus had beaten the Milwaukee Thomas Moore to reach the finals.

In addition to the players, the game's MVP was on hand -- the right upright, as a potential game-winning Marshfield field goal doinked off of it as time expired, giving Lourdes the win.

A dozen or so players from that squad attended, from all over the Fox Valley, Wisconsin and beyond. When I started college at UW-Oshkosh, working part-time for the Oshkosh Daily Northwestern, I was assigned to Lourdes Academy as my beat, and remained there for five years or so. Met some great people, made some life-long friends and appreciate being included in their "football family" during the festivities.