If you ever find yourself in Milwaukee, and you probably won’t, you might as well go pay homage the Bud Selig statue at Miller Park.
Look, I’ll lay it out fresh right here and now, I have never much cared for statues. They always seem either too large, too dated, or like a second but not final draft. Kind of like this essay here.
And I feel the same way about statues as I do about headstones, park names and street names: you should probably die first before you get one. Otherwise, what if they fire the coach a few years after they name a street after him? That kind of awkwardness would be so difficult to process. I can’t think of any examples of this, but I’m certain this has happened somewhere.
That brings me to the former commish of baseball, Bud Selig. He has a towering statue in the front of Miller Park the looks just over your head, staring above you with his 70’s glasses so he can’t actually see you, just like you were a report on steroid use. So, yeah, a statue of an administrator is another thing I would shy away from as well.
But yet, I had to go see him and pay my respects to his bronze likeness- for talking to the unions, for holding a grudge against both Pete Rose and A-Rod, and mostly for the wild card in the post season. I do it on behalf of the Giants. The Royals. The Pirates. The concession stand workers in Oakland.
But yeah, i went to Milwaukee, saw a great game where a new pitcher named Jungman (Carl Jung meets Henny Yougman) pitched the best game of his career. Where the weather, the top-down convertible stadium, the seats, the vibe all came together in just the right way.
How can you be relaxed and excited at the same time? Baseball, that’s how.
But my real hero was the stiff in the last row. And in bronze out front. And live in the radio booth. I saw all three, and I could have stood a fourth Bob Uecker.
And this, ladies and gents, is why I am a confused hypocrite.
Berm's Eye View: A baseball outsider looks out 