>>>Some minor league teams actually draw pretty well, especially if they have a flair for marketing. If I were coming out of college today I would seriously consider taking a marketing job with a minor league baseball team and seeing how things turned out. Explore my inner Bill Veeck. They say do what you're passionate about, right?
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>>>This Monday, Memorial Day, I got a little lucky. My daughters were here for the three day weekend and one of the events I planned was a Brewers game. Miller Park is a great place to go to a game and we have been going to one or two a year there. I got tickets for Monday's game. Lo and behold, it turned out to be the home debut of their new phenom. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_Braun). The Brewers called him up on their West Coast trip last week and immediately announced he would be their everyday third baseman and would bat third. I do not remember a rookie being placed in the #3 slot so quickly.
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>>>So here's how it went. Traffic was all snarled between ordinary holiday traffic and I-94 being closed just west of downtown Milwaukee. The game was already underway when we entered the park in the bottom of the first. Before walking up to our nosebleed seats we found a spot right next to the TV camera on the right side of home plate to watch Braun's first home at-bat as a Brewer. When his name was announced there was a huge ovation, as there always is when a new player makes his first appearance. In this case there was more than the usual excitement. Were we witnessing the debut of the next Mays, the next Clemente, the next Mantle?
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>>>He struck out.
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>>>He came up again in the third and popped out to shallow right.
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>>>In the 5th, with the Braves leading 2-1, he came up with runners at second and third and two out. It was storybook. Except he struck out again.
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>>>In the 7th it was the same deal. Two on, two out, game on the line. Now's your moment, rook.
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>>>He struck out again. This time there were some boos. A short honeymoon. That's baseball.
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>>>The kid is going to hit. He's still batting third. He has hit, emphatically, everywhere he has been. He has done some hitting already as a Brewer in a major league uniform. How does this story turn out? Good, I hope.
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>>That's ok. Troy Aikman was 0-11 in his first year and look where he wound up.
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>So true. John Elway looked even more awful as a rookie.

I wonder how he would have done if he stayed a Colt?

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>The reason this Brewers rookie has reignited my sports enthusiasm is that some of them make it and some of them don't. Most of them don't. And every time we want to believe.

Having lived in Dallas, TX I gave up on baseball long long ago. I did get a little interested when Nolan Ryan was playing for the Rangers.