Miller Park

Miller Park
1 Brewers Way
Milwaukee, WI 53214-3652

May 27, 2011: We took Bus 10 from downtown Milwaukee to the general area surrounding Miller Park. Apparently 45th Street is the closest stop that Google Maps could give us to get us to Miller Park. We present you photograph #1 chronicling our walk from the bus stop to Miller Park:

As you can see, Miller Park isn’t even in sight from where we’re walking. Mind you, stadiums aren’t exactly small buildings. You should be able to spot one from a good distance away. “Should” being the operative word here. We reached the corner of the block, turned left and saw this:

Still no stadium. We reach the corner of this street and what do we find? Lookie loo! It’s Miller Park:

Unfortunately, we have to cross what appears to be a freeway to get there. Notice the angry driver who nearly killed us as we attempted this (we’d like to point out that there is no crosswalk):

After crossing the busy highway, we’re still nowhere near the stadium, but the good news is that the it’s now in sight (by the way, this is apparently the VIP parking lot…10 miles away from the stadium. This prompts us to ask the question: where do non-VIP people park? In Minnesota?):

We felt assured that we were most definitely going the right way because of this crooked sign hanging on a lamp post:

LOOK! Humans! We’re NOT alone!

Oh, what do we have here? A junk yard. Sexy stuff. It seems that you can purchase an old scoreboard (left side of the photo). Be warned though. It’s final sale.

Finally, we managed to reach the stadium in the midst of a heavy wind storm. The brick work of the park was lovely, but Serena was pretty sure that the metal roof was a Decepticon.

Near the main entrance is a bronze statue of Hank Aaron.

On the grounds near one of the parking lots closest to the main entrance is a playground for children to play on. Just beyond the playground is Helfaer Field, a little league stadium that can accommodate 500 fans and is built on the former site of Milwaukee County Stadium. It has restrooms, a concession stand, and a 1,400 square-foot atrium that can be used to host a party or event. Pretty cool, huh? Lisa’s going to have her wedding there. Serena can’t wait to plan it. She’s going to try to incorporate Miller Park by having a Transformers theme for the bridal shower.

We purchased our merchandise at the team store near the main entrance. Serena’s hat cost $30 and Lisa’s Bernie Brewer cost $12. For a brief moment, Serena found Lisa walking around the store, clutching 5 Sausage stuffed animals (The Italian Sausage, The Chorizo, The Polish Sausage, The Bratwurst, and The Hot Dog), each $12. After realizing that she’d be spending $60 on toys, she dejectedly put them back and bought a magnet with them on it for $3.

Once inside the stadium, we noticed that the dome roof was closed. Probably because the wind was pretty intense outside and the sky looked like it could rain at any minute. The atmosphere reminded us of Safeco Field.

While watching Giants’ batting practice, Lisa snapped a few photos of some of the field’s highlights like the scoreboard…

…Tim Lincecum and Dave Righetti…

…and the sausage clock.

Before the game started, we decided to wander the area to find the nearest restrooms, concession stands, etc. and ended up finding this gem:

Taking this picture made us feel slightly accomplished because we knew that it was unlikely we’d get a picture with the actual Bernie Brewer since he spends 98.5% of the game in his dugout waiting for a Brewer home run:

The game’s pitching matchup was the Brewers’ Shaun Marcum against the Giants’ Tim Lincecum.

For only $50/each, we got pretty amazing seats on the thirdbase side behind the Giants’ dugout.

Prior to game time, the Brewers paraded onto the field what looked to be a pack of prostitutes in matching outfits. Turns out that the prostitutes are actually the “Miller Diamond Dancers.” Since when do MLB teams get cheerleaders? Isn’t this something only football does? To make matters worse, no one cheered for them and they were awful. They were off beat to the music and they didn’t even dance in unison. If they wanted a-holes in matching outfits to dance like jack-a-loons, they could’ve just asked us for a favor. We would’ve done it for a picture with the real Bernie Brewer and The Sausages. Maybe throw in a ride down Bernie’s slide and we’d do an encore performance on the dugout.

The game remained scoreless until the bottom of the 3rd when Ricky Weeks hit a 2-run home run to left field. Bernie slid down his slide into the Splash Zone…

…and fireworks exploded from behind the scoreboard.

At this point, we feel it important to tell you a little bit about the fans sitting in our section. We shall begin by discussing the delightfully trashy and drunk trio sitting in the row in front of us to our right. We’ll call them the junkie version of Three’s Company. The two women sloppily made out with one another while the drunk man in his dirty Ryan Braun t-shirt and Wrangler jeans with his beer gut hanging over his belt took pictures of them on his phone. Then the women would giggle and borderline make out with him too. Bear in mind, none of these individuals were attractive. They did, however, do a lot of standing, shouting, and falling over. At one point, one of the women disappeared and her buddies didn’t notice her absence until the bottom of the 8th inning (she returned in the top of the 9th even more intoxicated than she started if that’s possible). When Serena lost Lisa at The W Hotel in Minneapolis, it only took her 15 minutes to realize that she was missing and she found her in the bathroom, so everything was fine.
Their antics prompted the man sitting behind Lisa to become incensed. Not only did he scream and curse at them, but he also reported them via text message to the Brewers’ Fan Misconduct Hotline because “he paid to sit in his seats, not stand.” Wow, sir. We think you might need some anger management sessions…or prescription drugs.

The large Polish man sitting in front of Lisa kept eating sunflower seeds and spewing them at his girlfriend at a rapid rate quite similar to a machine gun.

At the top of the 5th, we got hungry and decided to go in search of food. We waited for the bottom of the 4th to end before standing because we didn’t want to be crucified by the Seat Nazi sitting behind us because it’s quite apparent that he pays the mortgage on Miller Park. In the process of seeking a bratwurst stand, we found Mecca. The Associate Bank Kids’ Zone is located near the right field corner on Field Level and to date it is THE best Kids’ Zone we’ve ever experienced. First, we found The Italian Sausage and The Bratwurst:

It was basically downhill from there:

Look! It’s Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun (who looks like he might have suffered a stroke)!

The Polish Sausage, The Chorizo, The Hot Dog, and 2 A-holes:

Lisa for some reason batting as Serena:

After behaving like jack wagons, we finally bought our Polish sausage (Lisa) and Bratwurst (Serena) for $4.50/each. While standing on line at the concession stand, Lisa asked an employee when The Sausages race and he assured us that it would be in the 7th. We returned to our seats in the bottom of the 6th, thinking we had plenty of time to spare. What did we discover? 1) The score was now 3-1 in favor of the Brewers (does time cease to exist in the Kids’ Zone??) and 2) The F*cking Sausages were preparing to race. Lisa had to shove her sausage into Serena’s hands so that she could document the occasion.

At the close of the race, we sat back, relaxed, and devoured our food. They were pretty yummy, but not as good as Target Field’s. They’re also much smaller than Target Field’s, but keep in mind that the cost of the ones at Target Field were $7.00 as opposed to $4.50. Therefore, Miller Park’s are definitely worth the price. Serena put sauerkraut on her brat while Lisa put sauerkraut and relish on her sausage.

In the bottom of the 6th Marcum loaded the bases with no outs for Brandon Crawford, who hit a grand slam on his second career at bat. Prior to the grand slam, Crawford had a .000 batting average. The grand slam prompted a pitching change and Marco Estrada relieved Marcum. The Brewers managed to get out of the inning without further damage, but the score was now 5-3 in favor of the Giants.

Onward to the 7th inning stretch. The Prancing Prostitutes emerged yet again to provide the entertainment. Literally the worst 7th inning stretch in history.

In the bottom of the 8th, things got pretty interesting. Timmy was replaced in favor of Sergio Romo, who has awful, awful facial hair. It’s worse than anything Jayson Werth could’ve done. Romo recorded 2 outs before walking Braun, and prompting yet another pitching change. Javier Lopez immediately walked Fielder and was replaced with Ramon Ramirez. Casey McGehee hit a ground ball single to Miguel Tejada, who really should’ve earned an E5 for that play, and loaded the bases. In the midst of this exciting rally, a fan nearby heckled our entire section for not standing and cheering. Little did he know that we sat in close proximity to the Seat Nazi. It’s not that we didn’t WANT to stand and cheer. We were frightened to. Lisa made Serena leave her protective shank back at the hotel so we had no weapons on us with which to defend ourselves against Hitler. Jonathan Lucroy followed up this play with a line drive to left field that scored Braun. Fielder attempted to score from second, but Slow Chubby A$$ was thrown out at the plate by Cody Ross.

Brian Wilson entered the game in the bottom of the 9th and easily closed the door on the Brewers. Final score: 5-4. So far this season, we’re 0-2 on the road.

“As we walk through the valley of Miller Park, we take a look at our lives and realize there’s not much left. Cos’ we’ve been blasting and laughing so long that even our Freds think that our minds are gone.”