This is the first time the Cards and Brewers have met in the postseason since the 1982 "Suds Series" (MLB.com has some good archival footage up), back when Milwaukee was a member of the AL. That year was rife with booze references, as the Brew Crew - itself named for the beer-making profession - was affectionately known as Harvey's Wallbangers (after manager Harvey Kuehn). I guess you can take that one another way too.
Lest you let your inferiority complex grow too large in the face of the two teams that finished ahead of the Reds in the Central standings contending for the pennant, this series should at least validate to a degree the quality and competitiveness of the division. At the very least, the Cards-Brewers-Reds "hate angle" - with St. Louis as the vertex - has been un-boring. To recap the simmering STL-MIL feud:
- Chris Carpenter said a cuss
- Nyjer Morgan threw tobacco
- A lot of petulance
- Zach "Holden" Greinke called Carp a phony
- Prince Fielder delivered a pun-based, probably unintentional, diss: "It happens, and you move on, go try and win a ballgame. We're here to win, man. All that fighting stuff, that's for the birds."
STL @ MIL
4:05pm, Miller Park
Jaime Garcia vs. Zach Greinke
TBS Postseason.tv
DET @ TEX
7:45pm, Arlington
Max Scherzer vs. Derek Holland
FOX