Today, Tomorrow, Next Year

Craig Counsell's decision to leave the Milwaukee Brewers feels like an ending to a story we all know too well

There is a duality that comes with being a fan of the Milwaukee Brewers. On one hand, it means being fiercely loyal to a team, a city, and a state. One doesn't typically become a fan of the Brewers without having ties to all of the above (although, I can think of two people. LISTEN TO CREWSING FOR A BREWSING, PEOPLE). The people and players that break through and adopt Milwaukee as their home eventually become legends, whether that's Hank Aaron, Robin Yount, Paul Molitor and so on. To be among the rare few to be from Wisconsin that wear blue and gold, well, that's a different class entirely.

On the other hand, being provincial about the Brewers comes with the caveat that you always be the small fish in a big pond. To know the Brewers is to know the Milwaukee Braves, the team that gave the city its first taste of Major League Baseball and its lone World Series title back in 1957. And to know the Braves means knowing what was loved and what was then lost when the team changed ownership to a Chicago-based syndicate led by Bill Bartholomay and spearheaded a long dragged out move to Atlanta in 1966.

At the core of every issue facing the Brewers lies those facts until proven otherwise. What is good here will always be perceived to be better elsewhere. The Brewers are defined by their small market success, for better or for worse, and eventually, you start to feel out the lines of an inevitable fence that serves as the limitations facing the franchise. Whether that’s maintaining a championship-caliber roster or maintaining a ballpark that is showing early signs of its age.

Craig Counsell lived the dream of every Milwaukeean and Wisconsinite who wished of playing and managing for their hometown team. He linked the Brewers to the past, back to the days of Bambi’s Bombers and Harvey's Wallbangers, to the present and an era that has been an unmitigated success. At almost every turn as the Brewers have enjoyed this extended period of relevance, Counsell has played a part. First, as a player, and then becoming the team's all-time leader in wins as a manager.

He is not the sole reason why the Brewers have largely been in the hunt for the last half-decade. Having an MVP and eventually a dominant pitching staff headlined by a Cy Young award winner is a good indication of player development, talent evaluation and a strong front office to make shrewd moves to make it all go. And if the timing is right, maybe it can all come together for a World Series push as it nearly did in 2018 under Counsell.

Counsell's standing as a hometown hero within the organization may not vault him over Bud Selig, who fought the powers that be and brought Major League Baseball back to Milwaukee after the Braves left. But what the best skipper in Brewers history did do was serve as the team's cultural leader and leading them to more playoff berths in an eight-year span (5) than the team's previous 45 years (4).

His departure to Chicago and to the Cubs, the forever big brother to Milwaukee and the Brewers, ties together all sorts of emotions that go beyond just leaving the Brewers for an iconic baseball organization. At its crux, it's an emotional decision and one that was ultimately made without any emotion at all. He sought to be the highest-paid manager in all of baseball. He got it from a team where any sort of money is no condition. The Brewers, while willing to make him the highest-paid manager, did not know he would go to great lengths to a paradigm shifting payday.

Counsell is the prodigal son whose Brewers tenure embodied the little city's values, making do with what you have, and still producing to what was being asked of him. He leaves for the big city where expectations come with winning pennants, winning the World Series is the desired goal. Anything less is considered a failure and they have endless resources to make good on their mission year in, year out. Shipping out a manager who helped end a 108-year World Series drought only shows the lack of emotion we are seeing here on both sides.

It's why Counsell’s decision to leave Milwaukee strikes a cord in ways that easily draw battle lines within Brewers fandom. It's very easy to feel it as a repudiation of what the Brewers and Milwaukee represent when one of their homegrown heroes turn its back to it. The family, organizational and generational ties to the Brewers will still stand as he heads for the Windy City in spite of flared up emotions.

But in the end, Counsell decided that he no longer wanted to make do with what we had and what he had built. And the end always ends the same way around here. Whether it’s seeing a team leave town or seeing the golden boy don another pair of pinstripes.