The Last Time We Were Here
With the Cubs preparing for a possibly-decisive three-game series against the Milwaukee Brewers, so much feels awfully familiar.
It’s July 2008. The United States is suffering a crippling economic recession, leading many to rally behind an Illinois senator promising hope and change in his run for president, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight is redefining the superhero film genre and shattering box office records, and Rihanna’s “Disturbia” is reverberating in cars everywhere.
The Chicago Cubs and Milwaukee Brewers are also fighting for first place.
It’s hard to commit to the Cubs and Brewers as a “rivalry” beyond the 90-mile proximity on I-94 between Wrigley Field and Miller Park; after all, the Brewers were an American League team until expansion sent them to the National League in 1998. With interleague play introduced one year prior, the teams had only played one meaningful regular season series against each other: June 13–15, 1997 at Wrigley. The Cubs took two of three.
After joining the NL Central, the Brewers posted a woeful .437 winning percentage between 1998 and 2006, never enjoying a season over .500 and suffering a dreadful 56–106 campaign in 2002. The tides began to turn in 2007 when they were 49–39 at the All-Star Break, but a second half stumble saw them finishing at just 83–79, two games behind the Cubs.
The closest the Cubs and Brewers were to a rivalry was in 2008, when both teams battled over NL Central supremacy for the first two-thirds of the regular season. The Cubs were having their best season since 1984 under Lou Piniella, led by veterans Alfonso Soriano, Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez, while the Brewers were a young, up-and-coming team managed by Ned Yost with sluggers Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun beside each other in the lineup.
On Sunday, July 26, the Cubs defeated the visiting Florida Marlins 9–6, while the Brewers fell at home to the Houston Astros 11–6, giving the Cubs a one-game advantage in the Central. This was significant, given the Cubs and Brewers would end July in a potentially decisive four-game series at Miller Park.
It would, in fact, tip the scales of the division for the rest of the 2008 season.
The Cubs won all four games, with their high-powered offense outscoring the Brewers 31–11 en route to a five-game division lead to start the month of August. The Cubs would finish the year with 97 wins and take the division seven-and-a-half ahead of the Brewers; Milwaukee, to their credit, won 90 games and clinched their first playoff berth since 1982 as the NL Wild Card.
Fast forward exactly nine years from the first game of that series (July 28). The United States is led by President Donald Trump, embroiled in a scandal with Russia that he can’t blame away on leakers or his election opponent, Hillary Clinton, another Christopher Nolan film (Dunkirk) is captivating audiences at the box office, and people can’t stop streaming “Despacito.”
The Chicago Cubs and Milwaukee Brewers are also fighting for first place.
The construct of time is such an odd thing. Familiarities of a long lost past can revive almost entirely at another completely random time in the future. The streets don’t change, but some of the names might, they say. Whether it’s an energetic period in American political discourse, or one director adding another success to his resume or the song of the summer, history has an odd way of repeating itself, perhaps not entirely in its sameness but in its familiarity.
Which is where we find ourselves on the weekend of July 28, Year of our Lord 2017. The Cubs have a newfound game-and-a-half lead over the spiraling Brewers in the Central, similar to the one-game lead they had in 2008. The Brewers had monopolized first place for several weeks in May and June, and even held a commanding four-and-a-half game lead over the second place Cubs entering the All-Star break. That lead feels like an eternity ago.
These two teams will play a three-game series at Miller Park this weekend.
How quickly baseball can change during a 162-game season, but the stakes remain the very same they did on this precise day in 2008: were either team to come through with a sweep, it could easily define the rest of the 2017 season.
An argument could be made that there’s far less pressure for both teams in 2017 than in 2008; the Cubs reached the century mark in World Series futility, but finally broke that last season, whereas the Brewers weren’t really supposed to be this good anyway and last appeared in the playoffs in 2011, a far cry from their 26-year playoff absence in 2008. But that doesn’t make the series any less important, or exciting.
2016 was the perfect year to be a Cubs fan. The regular season was a cakewalk and it all led to the club’s first World Series title in 108 years. Now that generations of demons have been exorcised, it’s been kind of fun to be in a division race and have incentive to watch scoreboards around the league. It doesn’t hurt that the Cubs are 11–2 since the All-Star break.
On the flip side, I’ve always enjoyed the Milwaukee Brewers; my uncle and I used to take an Amtrak trip 90 miles north from Chicago and enjoy a few games at Miller Park a year, and I’ve always felt attached to them in a way. It surely helps that I’ve never defined them as a “rival” necessarily, and it’s been fun watching this unassuming crop of youngsters do well.
But maybe both teams, as well as baseball on the whole, can embrace what could be a rivalry in the making this weekend at Miller Park. The Cubs are the best team in the division and will likely take it in 2017; after all, they did win the World Series and are projected as a powerhouse for years to come. Two, three years from now (Hell, maybe one, I was wrong about the Astros and Cubs), the Brewers will still be right where they are now.
Forget the St. Louis Cardinals. Okay, keep hating them, but stop fearing them, at least until they develop any sense of identity and direction. This group of players in Milwaukee… they look to be a thorn in the Cubs’ side for quite a long time. It’s fun to have friendly competition so close to your home park.
As familiar as our world feels — chaos and the well-timed entertainment to allow us an escape — things will always be different. The Cubs/Brewers battle in 2008 was a fleeting, one-time thing. In 2017, it has the potential to be the start of a beautiful, long-term, actual rivalry.
The weekend should be fun.
