Ignoring doctor’s orders Attanasio didn’t let injury stop him from celebrating
It’s not easy to celebrate when you have a torn Achilles tendon.
Milwaukee Brewers principal owner Mark Attanasio discovered that cruel fact of life Wednesday night when his baseball team clinched a playoff berth with a tense 2-1 victory in St. Louis.
Attanasio had strict orders from the doctor for complete non-weight bearing on his left leg, which he ignored in the excitement of the moment while watching on TV in his mother’s home outside of Los Angeles.
When the Brewers tagged out the potential tying run at the plate on a crazy play in the eighth inning, Attanasio couldn’t help himself.
“I jumped up off the couch and landed on my feet, which the doctor wasn’t too happy about,” Attanasio said with a smile Friday afternoon during a media session at Miller Park before the Brewers played the Detroit Tigers.
“He said, ‘Don’t do that again.’ I said, ‘Well, if we do that again, I’m doing it again.’”
Anyone who knows Attanasio understands how agonizing it was for him to be away from his team as it closed in on the third playoff berth since he became owner in 2005. But life changed for him on Sept. 1 when he and wife Debbie were walking with Charlie, their labradoodle, on the beach outside of their Malibu, Calif., home.
A much bigger dog came after Charlie, and Debbie began screaming and trying to kick it away. Mark Attanasio, who was several yards away, charged in to help and during the successful rescue, tore his left Achilles tendon.
That severe injury and subsequent surgery prevented Attanasio from joining the Brewers in St. Louis as they closed in on their first playoff berth since 2011. But, after thinking about it, he decided that might not have been a bad thing.
“Last year, I was in St. Louis when we were eliminated (from the wild-card
race) in Game 161,” Attanasio said. “I was in St. Louis in 2011 when a ball skipped under Jerry Hairston’s glove and we lost (Game 5 of the NLCS).
“So, maybe it was good I wasn’t there. But it was really hard to not be there when all the celebrating was going on.”
While Attanasio watched the game play out on TV, Debbie couldn’t take the anxiety of watching in real time and eventually went out to dinner with a friend.
“I don’t think I’ve seen Ryan Braun drop a ball in 11 years, and he drops a ball (for a two-base error in the sixth inning),” Attanasio said. “Boom, she’s out (the door).”
There was no keeping Attanasio away from the final weekend of the season, however. It remains to be seen if the Brewers can overtake Chicago in the final days to win the NL Central crown but at the very least there will be a wild-card game Tuesday night at Miller Park against a yet-to-be-determined opponent.
Much like his ballplayers, Attanasio has adopted many superstitions and rituals over the years. One has been to wait to don an MLB playoff baseball cap until the appropriate time, which he did at the outset of his media session.
“Nothing feels better than that,” Attanasio said, beaming.
When the Brewers began a massive rebuilding process in 2015, there was no way to predict the team would be back in the playoffs in only three years. Such plans often take many more years before reaching that level of success.
Attanasio, who has expressed supreme confidence in young general manager David Stearns from the very beginning, recalled one of their initial conversations three years ago during the interview process.
“We talked about, ‘How do we get from where we were, which at that point was pretty low, to today,’” Attanasio said. “We never talked about a timeline. We talked about process and methodology. I told David it was quite an accomplishment to achieve it in whatever timeline.
“There are 30 teams that want to get in this spot. And at any one time, there’s any number of teams in the process of trying to put things back together. We had two losing seasons, and that was it. That’s pretty incredible.
“The longer I’ve owned the team, the more I recognize how special (making the playoffs) is. David Stearns still thinks this is all fun, and that’s great. I speak to (manager) Craig (Counsell) after games, and I can see in intense moments he is smiling. I like to see that, because this game is supposed to be fun.
“As I get older, I’m finding that I’m feeling more of the tension and pressure, and not being able to enjoy it until the very end.”
Attanasio talked about how the outlook for 2018 changed on Jan. 25 when the Brewers acquired outfielders Lorenzo Cain and Christian Yelich, who have transformed the team with their many talents. With an incredible second half, Yelich has emerged as perhaps the leading candidate for National League most valuable player.
Before those deals were done, however, Attanasio said he asked Stearns a business question.
“I said, ‘If you get one, do you really need to get both?’” Attanasio said. “His answer, which was immediate, was, ‘Well if I can get one, it just makes me want to get the other one even more.’
“That took a while to process. But what I liked about it was that it was really out-of-the-box thinking. And he really got criticized. ‘The Brewers have 10 outfielders.’ When we traded for Mike Moustakas (in late July), it was, ‘Oh, the Brewers have three third basemen.’ We’re in the position we’re in because of some of this creative thinking.
“If David’s not (MLB) executive of the year, I don’t know who is.”