Tuesday was another hot one, but I survived. I think the game itself had more adverse effects on my well being than the near 100 degree temperatures. I left my parents’ place at 12:10 and was parked an hour and three minutes later. I walked around for about an hour and told people my story and encouraged them to join the registry. I also got a free Spotted Cow (it’s a beer) and water from two different groups. Freebies are always nice, thanks guys!

I headed inside at 2:15 and went right to section 214 to get the game number photo taken. If you’re not familiar with what I’m doing; I am slowly working my way around the loge level, getting a game number picture in most sections along the way. Today was the 80th game of the year, thus the sign with the number 80 on it.

I then went up into the concourse and stood under the giant fans that they have in the loge level. After a few minutes I decided it was time for another Polish sausage with caramelized onions. One word: magnifilicious. If you haven’t had a Polish sausage with caramelized onions yet… Arnold voice: “WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR!?!?”

I met up with Zach before the game started, and we chilled under the press box for the first inning or so. Zach is a twitter follower who replied to my announcement Monday night that my ticket for Tuesday was up for grabs. He made a $40 donation to Be The Match in exchange, and he’s a swell fella. He had a nasty ankle injury back in May, so both of us were sporting ASO ankle braces.

The Marlins started things with a bang, and took a 2-0 lead on a Logan Morrison home run in the first. Estrada pitched well for the Brewers, and he deserves a mention. He only gave up the two runs in the first, and he deserved the win. Here he is after letting go of a pitch in the second inning. It resulted in a strikeout on a foul bunt by the Marlins pitcher.

In the third the Brewers got one back on an Aoki RBI single. After a Braun single Aramis Ramirez stepped to the plate looking to give the Brewers the lead. Going clockwise from top left:

1) Ramirez as he’s sending a drive deep to center field. The ball wound up going off the wall, but Aoki got deked by the Marlins center fielder, and thought it might be caught. Braun saw past the fake and was almost to second before Aoki took off from the same base.

2) Braun right on Aoki’s heals as they race past third. You can see in the upper right hand corner that the second baseman has the ball and is gathering himself to make the throw home. The shortstop is ducking so he’s not beheaded.

3) Aoki about to touch home with the tying run, the catcher grabbing the off-target throw, and Braun about to go into his slide. Whew.

4) Braun barely beating the tag. Brewers lead 3-2.

It stayed 3-2 heading into the bottom of the sixth, and that’s when things got interesting. To lead off the inning Corey Hart hit the first pitch he saw into the Brewers bullpen to up the lead to 4-2. Here’s Corey getting some love from third base coach Ed Sedar.

Weeks followed Hart with a double, Ransom walked, Maldonado laid down a sacrifice bunt, and the Marlins intentionally walked pinch hitting Travis Ishikawa. Gomez then grounded one to second baseman Omar Infante, who threw to Jose Reyes covering second. Reyes missed the catch and all hands were safe. I think he was trying to hurry because he knew it would be tough to turn a double play with the speedy Gomez running to first. Aoki followed with a sacrifice fly to right and Braun came to the plate with two outs. I told Zach that I was looking for an exclamation point from Braun and two pitches later he did just that. Clockwise from top left:

1) Braun making contact. He hit a bomb to centerfield, his 23rd home run of the season. “Must be all those steroids.” HA!!!

2) Braun rounding second base.

3) Ed Sedar giving Braun a low five as they cross paths.

4) Brauny touching home plate, preparing to get a high five from Ishikawa. Braun’s 3-run home run capped a six-run sixth, and gave the Brewers a 9-2 lead.

The Marlins chipped away and got three runs in the top of the seventh. The Brewers answered with two runs of their own in the bottom half. Weeks’ single drove in Hart, who slid home for the Brewers 10th run of the game.

Maldonado followed Rickie with an RBI single of his own, and the Brewers had a six run lead heading to the eighth inning (11-5). I was feeling pretty confident with the six run lead, but that all changed rather quickly. This is how the Marlins’ eighth inning went: double, double, single, groundout, home run, home run, double, walk, sacrifice fly, fly out. That’s a six-run eighth inning and it was all square at eleven apiece. And on top of that it could’ve been worse. Carlos Gomez made what could be the catch of the year for the Crew when he crashed into the wall as he caught Morrison’s fly out to end the inning. Another run would’ve scored but Go-Go said no-no to Lo-Mo. Ha! Lo-Mo is actually Logan Morrison’s nickname. I’m so witty…

The Brewers failed to score in the eighth, and neither team scored in the ninth, setting the stage for bonus baseball. Livan Hernandez came in to pitch the tenth for the Brewers, and he gave up a two-out solo home run to Jose Reyes. It gave the Marlins a one run lead going into the bottom of the tenth. Carlos Gomez led off the inning with a walk, Aoki flew out and Braun struck out. Ramirez came to the plate representing the winning run and on the 0-1 pitch he swung away.

I’ll let the pictures do the talking…

This is why you don’t leave a baseball game early. Yes, you might get thoroughly disappointed in the teams’ performance, but when anything is possible, why risk missing out? Final Score: Brewers 13 – Marlins 12. I meant to take a picture of the scoreboard to help illustrate how crazy the game was. I’ll give you the linescore from ESPN.com. What. A. Game.

Before the dreadful eighth inning I had a lady a few rows in front of us take a picture of me and Zach. I’m on the left, Zach is on the right. Zach is a cool guy, and I’m glad he came down from Sheboygan to watch the 4 hour 28 minute game with yours truly. At times I wanted to pull my hair out because the Crew almost blew out, but it all worked out in the end. If you’re wondering; I don’t always wear hats, but when I do it’s because the hair underneath is such a sweaty mess that it needs to be hidden. If I could’ve been wearing a beard hat I would have done that as well.

I got back to my car after the game, only to find this on my bumper:

I believe that is the “gay symbol” (two male gender symbols intertwined). Now, I have nothing wrong with same sex couples, but I also absolutely HATE bumper stickers. It’s on there pretty good, so I’ll have to find the right substance to get it off of there. Whoever stuck that on there needs to check themselves. If they are homosexual, I hope that they wouldn’t go around putting stickers on everything. If it was some stupid teenager that thinks this type of stuff is funny, someone needs to lay the smack down. Luckily the Brewers won, because otherwise I would’ve been über-pissed.

One more thing. At some point in the game Zach pointed out that a guy in front of us changed his Hardy (7) jersey into a Hart (1) jersey. That’s how you do it!!! It’s too bad that you can clearly see that it was once a Hardy jersey, but it’s still cool/funny.

Tomorrow is our Nation’s birthday, and in the spirit of Independence Day I will celebrate by watching glorious baseball, and perhaps consuming four or five $1 hot dogs.

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