Rejoice!
The Milwaukee Brewers are baseball champions of the world. They fought their way to the top, bringing us along, to a diamond that sparkles in the heavens.
I am among the Brewers fans who grew up following our team, more penance than pennants. Not too long ago, just making the playoffs was our World Series.
So, how did Sisyphus, a mythical Greek character known for cyclical suffering, pushing a boulder up a mountainside everyday before it rolls back down, finally get to the summit?
He invited his friends to help, and after a chat, they decided to leave the boulder at the bottom.
This is a story about the reality of friendship, in general and among men, especially between two Milwaukee kids growing up together.
Friendship is a language
Buddies, besties, cliques and crews! Together again, together at last, and everything in between.
Strolling in the Brewers parking lot, scrolling on a screen, snaking through the stadium crowd — I could hear, see and feel it.
Laughter. Cheers. High jinks. Friends!
Given this moment in the world and in the city, it’s not an overstatement to say we needed a reason to get in touch with friends, old and new. And you know who may have needed it most? Our men and boys.
I’m going to offer an opinion I’ve heard from others — contemporary men are struggling, internally and with friendships. Not every man, of course, but I’m drawing from a wide body of experience out in the world and within my own.
In the past week, I’ve been texted by more male family and friends from throughout my life than I have in the last 10 years combined. Sports fandom can be an invitation to connect, and I’m grateful for it.
My best friend Bryant
Bryant Andrew Sanders and I met on the first day of third grade at Golda Meir School. As Milwaukee kids, baseball has been a nucleus of our relationship.
He played for Beckum Stapleton Little League, I played for Lake Park. We both played for our league’s respective all-star teams during our fourth-grade year.
My favorite memory from the tournament wasn’t the game that I pitched and won, a rarity for Lake Park Little League in my era, but getting to watch Bryant play.
Dang, was Beckum Stapleton good.
I wasn’t bragging in the last paragraph. It felt great to get the W, but Bryant is special. Growing up, we were partners in crime, justice, jurisprudence and everything in between.
We’ve become chosen brothers. Bryant is quick with infinite wit or a generous spirit. Effortlessly smart and thoughtful, I can be my purest self with him. His fingerprints are all over my sensibilities and taste.
In the ‘90s, he had every video game system, which were forbidden in my home. So, we formed a forever bond playing games like Golden Eye, Mario Party and Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball. We shared the secrets of our universe with each other, walkthroughs, cheat codes, easter eggs, whatever.
Before Game 3 of the World Series, I wore my Rufus King marching band jacket to the parking lot so I could type about it in this essay, just to impress Bryant — we were in marching band together, among many other things.
Bryant was the best man at my wedding, and for my bachelor party, we started with a perfectly imperfect kickball game on our home diamond back at Golda Meir.
Afterwards, we headed to the stadium for a game. In the bleachers, with my friends and family, including my sister Eileen, we were together on hallowed ground, watching the Crew play the Philadelphia Phillies.
Rufus King graduates of 2003, our class ceremony was at a freshly christened Miller Park. Our orchestra played on the infield grass and we received our diplomas at home plate. My mom printed a photo of us beaming in our caps and gowns by a concession stand, a photo that was on our refrigerator until the house was sold.
Suffering and pain
My father died in 2003, during our last semester of high school. Bryant was sitting next to me at a band festival when I learned the news and he stood with me as I waited for my Uncle Mike to pick me up.
Bryant’s mother Gail passed two years later in 2005, while Bryant was at UW-Madison and I was doing a semester abroad with Carleton College studying math in Budapest. My mother came to the Danube River to tell me the news in person.
It took my heart.
Bryant’s mom, Gail Sanders, welcomed me into her home and treated me like I was her son, a frequent visitor to her kitchen (and refrigerator). She was the living embodiment of sweetness, and just a moment ago, 30-some years later, I realized that it was her vinyl copy of A Taste of Honey’s “Boogie Oogie Oogie” that I fell in love with as a child.
Her pound cake was divine, earning me the nickname “Sweet Bread” among the Sanders family.
I wasn’t there for Bryant when he most needed someone.
I felt helpless, unable to find a bond with him over our shared loss. I’m still not sure what got in the way, aside from knowing I was overwhelmed and struggling with my own grief.
This still makes me feel like a failure, something I told him in a long conversation we had on the Sunday before Game 1 of the World Series.
He was more than understanding. We can’t travel in time, and we’re having the conversations I think we both wanted, so we’re making progress.
Rowdy ritual
In the years after college, we fell out of touch. My professional life tends to be a maelstrom and Bryant was getting his life started in Madison. I wish we were there for each other consistently, but we pay attention to each other like brothers, not sisters.
The Brewers, eventually, brought us back together.
When Bryant got his own car, he got the vanity plate “BEAHEA,” a reference to the distinctive way the guys selling beer at our stadium yell “Beer here!” to announce themselves to the crowd.
He loved baseball deeply, as did I, so his invitation to join him and his friends on Opening Day felt perfect — on paper.
I had just gotten sober, and while being around alcohol wasn’t an issue, Opening Day is intense in Milwaukee. After living a smaller life during the cold weather months, being with a sea of boisterous, drunk revelers is what it is.
I genuinely appreciated the environment and shared catharsis, but I remember my shoes smelling like beer after those games.
What I loved most is just being with Bryant. He has great taste and people skills, so I always dug his friends and sitting next to him in the stands. I was at home. Of course, I never found the courage to express my regret for being absent in his life.
What I initially thought might be a forever ritual for us ended after a few years. Each Opening Day was a seed, though, whose roots have grown deep into the dark.
Without baseball or Opening Day to lean on, year by year, we found reasons to have the conversations we need to have. They are hard to start, but it feels so good to get through them together.
Baseball is life
Born in Florida and raised in Mississippi, Cooper Pratt is just 22 years old — a kid. Seen as an elite infield glove coming up in the Brewers farm system, turns out to have a bat, too.
During the World Series, he recorded six consecutive hits, a rookie record. In his post-game interview after winning the big game, what did he talk about during a surreal moment unfolding on national television?
First the fans and his rocket-ship ascent, then his mistakes, including a base running error earlier in the evening.
He knocked in Brice Turang for the game’s first run, then got caught in a rundown trying to stretch a single into a double.
“I messed up a lot of times this postseason, but the guys picked me up. We’re here and we’re world champions,” he said.
How do we transform the doubt and fatalism that sometimes comes with failure?
I don’t know, exactly, but I think Pratt may have shared some divinely wise thoughts on the topic.
You know what the hard part is about doing simple and worthy things? Slowing down and actually doing them.
Thank you, Pat Murphy. May we study how he led a team to 114 wins.
When he speaks, I hear much of the same “live in the moment, play for your guys” prevalent in locker rooms, no matter the sport, no matter the age.
I suspect if you asked him how he walked the walk, he wouldn’t tell you how, but would invite you to watch the guys.
Who needs individualized ego when the community is right in front of our faces?
Shoot the moon
I’m no builder, but the Brewers may have shown us a blueprint.
Men need other men. In fact, I listened to the first episode of a podcast by that name a few years ago because a good buddy told me to.
He was right.
In the past few years, I’ve become committed to therapy, a major step in untangling my mental and spiritual health reality.
As two friends pointed out, our Brewers took the championship under a beautiful moon — the Hunter’s Moon, in fact. This moment will pass, but I hope the spirit that visited remains, as we move into our lives after the crops are reaped.
In November, I pray each delirious, “LET’S GOOOO!” text between male friends in the afterglow of the World Series leads to a follow-up and “How are you doing?” conversation.
Bryant, remember when we used to play two part piano duets in the coat room in 4th grade and it felt like we could play forever? I’d like you to teach my daughter Ella my part someday soon.
Also, I’m sorry that I haven’t yet mailed the scale-model replica of County Stadium sitting in my office that I bought you for your birthday.
Fellas — it requires effort, but I think we can do this.
Writer and former NNS staffer Adam Carr was inspired by the Milwaukee Brewers World Series victory to reflect on friendship, in community and among men. He offers a lifelong story of friendship with his childhood best friend, navigating life, death and growing up.
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