Greetings from Milwaukee! Recent blog posts have been short on baseball, but we'll remedy that with the next couple of cities.
On Friday, August 25, we drove from Eden Prairie, MN to Milwaukee. On Saturday, August 26, we had the day free before the Brewers night game. We decided to get our culture on and visit the Milwaukee Art Museum which is located downtown right on the shores of Lake Michigan. The museum has been around for years, but in 2001 they added Windover Hall designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. This hall is Calatrava's modern interpretation of a gothic cathedral with flying buttresses, ribbed vaults and a 90 foot high glass roof. It's topped off by its signature wings (see picture to the left) which are a moveable sunscreen with a 217 foot wingspan. We were able to catch the wings coming down while we were there. Very remarkable.
We are hardly art snobs, but we thought the collection was very good - ranging from works by Monet to those of Andy Warhol. We spent more than two hours viewing the collection with the exception of the more modern pieces - which we just don't get. Melinda found that there was one piece of work by Dale Chihuly - his glass works are her favorites. The picture on the right shows the Chihuly with Windover Hall in the background (with the wings down). After we left the museum, based on the recommendation of blog reader George Kaufman, we drove by the Allen-Bradley clock tower - which was once the largest four clock tower in the world.
We were able to walk from our hotel to the game between the Brewers and the San Diego Padres. One thing we found is that Brewers fans arrive early and are known to have the largest tailgates of any MLB park. It sure seemed like it to us. On the exterior of the stadium were two walls of fame - one for the Milwaukee (now Atlanta) Braves and one for the Brewers. On this night, Ben Sheets was inducted into the Brewer's wall of fame. In addition, there were some statues outside the stadium. The one pictured on the left is Robin Yount, the Hall of Fame player who played for the Brewers from 1974 - 1993. Robin Yount started playing for the Brewers in 1974 - when he was 18 years old and I was a 16 year old high school junior. I followed him all of his great career, so it was fun to get a picture in front of his statue
The Brewer's stadium - formerly Miller Field but not American Home Life Field - was opened in 2001 and has a retractable roof, Unfortunately for us, the roof was closed for our game even though the temperature was in the low 70's. Presumably, that was because it was a very windy day, but strangely, they also left the giant windows in the center field open. Anyway, the Brewers beat the Padres 5-4 with all 5 of their runs coming in the 5th inning highlighted by William Contreas' two run double. The crowd of 40,000 was loud and it was even louder because the roof was closed.
A final highlight - as pictured at left, there is a slightly creepy statue of Bob Uecker at the top of section 422. For those that don't know, Uecker was a below average player who became the radio voice of the Brewers for years. He was also hilarious - whether appearing on TV or on Miller Lite beer commercials. Rather than explain the joke regarding the seat in the picture, here's the video of the Miller Beer commercial - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPh4iF76LbU
And, as a Cleveland fan, I'll always love Uecker's portrayal of Indians announcer Harry Doyle in the artistic masterpiece "Major League" with all-time great line - "JUST a bit outside."
Now, off to Chicago for games on the South Side and the North Side.
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