Five grand openers
A look back at the Brewers’ best season-starting games.
In the original 2020 major-league baseball schedule, Thursday would have been opening day for the Milwaukee Brewers, who were scheduled to play a 1:10 p.m. game against the rival Chicago Cubs at Miller Park.
The COVID-19 pandemic put the season on hold, however, with hopes there will be an alternate opening day. Brewers fans often have considered the home opener a state holiday, so it's understandable if they are experiencing severe separation anxiety with the original opener postponed.
With that in mind, perhaps a bit of Brewers opening day history will help fill that void. Here's a look at memorable openers from the team's
first 50 seasons (we’ll skip the 12-0 loss to the California Angels in Milwaukee’s first game in 1970, which was memorable only because major-league baseball returned to the city).
These openers are brought to you in chronological order:
A grand (slam) ending
April 10, 1980, County Stadium The season began on a somewhat somber note for the Brewers, with manager George Bamberger suffering a heart attack during spring training and undergoing bypass surgery, with coach Buck Rodgers taking over as interim skipper. Before the start of the opener against Boston, a video message from “Bambi” was played on the scoreboard in which he implored fans to “sit back, enjoy the game and have a beer on me!” (As if Brewers fans needed to be coaxed.)
Things looked pretty good for the Brewers when Jim Slaton took a 5-3 lead into the ninth inning, working toward a complete-game victory. But Carl Yastrzemski and Butch Hobson had other ideas, smacking home runs to tie the game and bring the Brewers to bat in the bottom of the inning against veteran reliever Dick Drago, who allowed the 755th and final home run of Hank Aaron’s illustrious career four years earlier at County Stadium.
With Paul Molitor on second and two down, Drago intentionally walked leftyhitting Ben Oglivie and then issued an unintentional pass to Gorman Thomas to load the bases. Sixto Lezcano, who blasted a two-run homer earlier in the game off Dennis Eckersley, stepped to the plate and delivered his second opening-day grand slam in three seasons to give the Brewers a thrilling 9-5 victory that sent the crowd of 53,313 into a frenzy.
After becoming the first player in bigleague history to hit two season-opening slams, Lezcano raised a can of beer in the joyous clubhouse and said, “This is for Bambi! He told us to have a beer on him, so I’m having it.”
It would be the last Brewers opener for Lezcano, who was included in the huge trade that December with St. Louis that brought Pete Vuckovich, Rollie Fingers
and Ted Simmons to Milwaukee.
Brewers take the fifth
April 5, 1999, Busch Stadium
We should have known to expect the unexpected when the Brewers opened the season with left-hander Rafael Roque, their supposed No. 5 starter, on the mound after a spate of injuries decimated the rotation in spring camp. The jittery Roque lasted only two innings, issuing five walks but only one run.
Cardinals lefty Donovan Osborne also covered just two innings but it was the St. Louis bullpen that absorbed most of the damage in what became a 10-8 victory for the Brewers. It got very interesting in the late going when St. Louis scored three runs in the eighth off Chad Fox to pull within 7-5. Sean Berry responded with a three-run homer in the top of the ninth off Juan Acevedo to give the Brewers a five-run lead but the Cardinals didn’t roll over.
Wickman found huge trouble in the bottom of the inning as Eli Marrero doubled in a run and Placido Polanco singled home two to make it a 2-run game. Wickman finally ended the nonsense by getting Willie McGee, the potential tying run, on a come-backer to end the game.
Roque would go 0-5 with a 6.00 ERA in nine starts that season before manager