Back in the old days — you know, 2006 — the Milwaukee Brewers were the miserable company that Pittsburgh Pirates fans could love.
The two cities might as well be cloned, with the Germans in Milwaukee and their beer and bratwurst and Pittsburgh's hunkies and their beer and kielbasa.
The two teams also were linked, both in the past and present. Two of the biggest home runs in major league history, Henry Aaron's 755th and Bill Mazeroski's walk-off dinger in Game 7 of the 1960 World Series, are associated, respectively, with the Brewers and Pirates.
Today, they share the commonality of Taj Mahal ballparks, small market challenges and the year 1992, which is the last time both franchises finished a season with a winning record.
This year though, something is different. The Brew Crew started off the season 22-11 — with the last three wins coming in a four-game series against the Pirates.
After that, Milwaukee lost 13 of their next 20 games, but that doesn't really matter, because the Brewers are still the class of the National League Central Division, which admittedly is like being the wealthiest man in the homeless shelter.
And Pittsburgh fans aren't happy, because Milwaukee is succeeding where the Pirates have been failed, and spectacularly so.
Prince Fielder, son of Cecil, has lived up to his billing and is above the league leaders in home runs and on-base plus slugging percentage, and J.J. Hardy, who had 12 home runs in his best season (including the minor leagues) heading into 2007, had 15 by mid-May.
Meanwhile, across the division Jason Bay, the Pirates' all-star outfielder, has gotten off to one of the worst starts of his career.
And Adam LaRoche, acquired in a trade with Atlanta over the winter, has been striking out so much you'd think that the pitchers are treating baseballs with the same wood repellent that Ray Milland used in the movie "It Happens Every Spring."
The question echoing off the riverbanks in western Pennsylvania has been thunderous — how can Milwaukee do it when we can't?
Part of the answer is money. For the last three years, the Pirates have been slashing payroll, while the Brewers have been investing in themselves.
This season, the Pirates have a payroll of $38.5 million, while Milwaukee checks in at $70.9 million, almost double that amount.
But the raw dollar figures are only part of the story. On the rare occasions when Pittsburgh management has spent money, it has done it badly. While settling for second-tier free agents and tying up their own farm products, the Pirates have wasted big money on Pat Meares and Derek Bell while letting Aramis Ramirez slip away.
On this year's roster, Pittsburgh's five highest-paid players are Jack Wilson, a good-field, light-hitting shortstop; Shawn Chacon, who couldn't earn a spot in the starting rotation out of training camp; Bay; LaRoche; and Tony Armas, who pitched himself out of the starting rotation.
Milwaukee, meanwhile, has made a long-term investment in Ben Sheets, who is scheduled to earn more than $11 million this year and has a respectable ERA in the high threes, and didn't settle for a second-tier free agent and signed Jeff Suppan, who also is a high-three ERA man.
The Brewers' three highest-paid players are Sheets, Geoff Jenkins, and Jeff Suppan. Jenkins has a respectable 10 home runs, which puts him third on the team behind Fielder and Hardy, but is more than any of the Pirates.
Admittedly, Milwaukee has fattened up by playing 26 of its first 32 games against the rest of the Comedy Central Division. But there's a good reason the Brewers were able to beat up the rest of that field.
They're spending the money and they're giving it to the right people.
The Brewers might not make waves in the playoffs. They might not even get to the playoffs — does anybody really think the Chicago Cubs and world champion St. Louis Cardinals are going to play this badly this season?
But they have a good young nucleus that stands to improve, which bodes well for 2008, if not 2007.
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