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On a very cold Saturday afternoon I ventured out to go over to the shopping mall at Brookfield Square to meet our 2004 Milwaukee Brewers. Get to meet them I did, along with about 11,000 other people. It was crazy but it was fun. The fans are staying loyal even with all that has happened to their team within the last three months. First the Brewers split with its president and CEO, Ulice Payne over plans to cut payroll, traded away it’s most popular and productive player, Richie Sexson and then announced that the group of owners had planned to sell the team. I know I personally was confused and upset and losing all faith in a game I’ve loved since I was a kid. The tour and event at Brookfield Square is the best thing the Brewers could have done to bring the fans back to Miller Park. It’s made believers of the Brewer fans again and has created an atmosphere of excitement.

I talked to Brewer director of media relations, Jon Greenberg earlier in the week about doing some promotion for the Brewers and he suggested either going over to Central High School for the Old Timers Baseball Club Banquet or going over to the mall and doing some interviews. There wasn’t enough notice to pull a crew together for the banquet so I thought going over to the mall was more realistic, although I probably would have gotten more interviews at Central. They set aside an hour before the banquet for the press and I’m sure that would have been a little more ideal than what we experienced.

My camera crew and I arrived at the mall around eleven-thirty in the morning and entered by the food court area where the Miller Park organist, Dean Rosko, was already warming up. As we were walking towards center stage I looked up and there was this very tall man walking next to me and it turned out to be Daron Sutton the Brewers television announcer. After introducing myself and a little small talk he agreed to do an interview with me for my TV Show. Other noticeably tall people walking around were the famous Klement’s Racing Sausages and of course Bernie Brewer; they were all having fun shaking hands and posing for photos.

When we reached the stage area we immediately looked for Mr. Greenberg, but since he was unavailable we met Jason Perry who is Assistant Director of Media Relations and he told us to hang around the stage and they would send the players to us when they were on breaks. At this particular time the fans were still acting fairly civil. The “Talking Brewers” radio show hosted by Jim Powell and aired on WTMJ Radio was still in process on stage, so it was hurry up and wait situation. I figured this would be a good time to interview Daron Sutton since he was also hanging around and waiting. We went in the back of the stage to do the interview.

If you had the fun of going to a Brewers game last year or watched it on TV, you can’t help but know about the seating section that TV announcers Bill Schroeder and Darron call their special little group; The Bucket Heads. It’s a special cheering section and whenever I attended they were loud in support of their team and had a great time doing it. Bill and Daron would each take turns during the game and go over and visit the section and sometimes even taking a pizza over to share. Everyone that participated also received a Bucket Head t-shirt. The section got so popular it sold-out every Bucket Head night, which was on Tuesdays.

I was curious so my first question to Daron was if the Bucket Head seating section would be back again this year?

His reply was: “We will be doing it again this year. We learned in spite of losing seasons and attendance that is down, people still love baseball, people still want to have fun and it kind of had a college pep rally atmosphere, it lifted everybody’s spirits in the whole ballpark, so you bet we’re going to bring it back.”

I then asked him if they would extend the Bucket Head section being it was so popular?

He responded with: “I don’t know my attitude is not to get too greedy with our success.

I think let’s keep it on an intimate gathering, then there are those that sell the tickets that think maybe we can sell another section. I’ll let my boss decide that one; I’ll stay out of it.

My next question was what he thought about the Brewers for this season?

“I’m optimistic about the Brewers, I’m optimistic because of Ned Yost and the values he instills in his players and what he expects from them as far as work ethics from them. As much as the people are going to miss super star Richie Sexson we received five major leaguers in return who are going to be on the roster this year, one good minor leaguer as well. I think the Brewers lacked depth last year, they had a super star in Richie but they didn’t have anyone to support him and I like this team better with more supporting role type players filling the roster rather than one big supper star.”

After the interview with Daron we waited around to get some more, but now the crowds were getting packed in and pushy. Tables were set up for autograph and photo sessions but some people felt they were more privileged and shoved there way toward the players. The young kids were more polite than the adults. Not everyone acted this way, it was a small majority, and most of the crowd was patient and waited in long lines to get their photos and autographs. I guess you’re always going to get that small percentage of jerks.

One of the Brewer publicist sent centerfielder Scott Podsednik over to us for an interview and after fighting the crowd I asked Scott how he liked our Wisconsin weather and he smiled and jokingly said: “I am freezing my tail off, a Texas man just doesn’t belong up here in this weather. We’ve been traveling all week to different schools, different cities, and different communities interacting with the kids and the fans all week so we’ve had a real fun time. We had Gorman Thomas and Jim Ganter along to provide some excitement through out the week. It’s been a real fun time and what I noticed is that the fans are anticipating this season as much as the players.”

I loved Scott’s Texas draw and I can see why all the girls think he’s so hot. Another hot Brewer was pitcher Ben Sheets and he was our next interview. It was a short one because of all the shoving and fans sticking baseballs into Ben to be autographed. He was the last one I was going to attempt to interview because of having to fight the crowd.

I guess I’m getting to old and losing patience but the whole event was exciting. Besides meeting the Brewers there was a children’s interactive area, clowns, face painting, magicians and music by the Banjo Barons. Fans also had the opportunity to sign a large card to congratulate Paul Molitor the newest Hall of Famer. The Card will be presented to him on Paul Molitor Night June 16 at Miller Park.

There were sixteen players in all attending this event, plus I spotted former Brewers Gorman Thomas and Don Money. It really was an exceptional day for the fans and what a great way to get to know the players and put some excitement into the upcoming season.

Watch for the complete interviews and all the activities that took place at this event on the Viewers Voice Special, “Meet Your 2004 Brewers,” on Channel 14 in West Allis. Until my next column, let your voice be heard.