Hello, Milwaukee
I woke up in Milwaukee this morning, to 50something-degree weather. The It’s supposed to be a high in the 60s, which is pretty good for March 18. The Chamber of Commerce should make me an honorary citizen.
The single most beautiful day, weather-wise, that I’ve ever experienced came in Milwaukee. On Aug. 1, 1999, me and pal Owen Canfield and his boys woke up in Milwaukee, in an old hotel down off Lake Michigan, part of a baseball tour we made.
We went down to the lake and walked around, then made it over to County Stadium for a 1 p.m. Brewers-Expos game. At first pitch, it was 69 degrees, with a cool breeze. Sublime weather. We had brats with the special sauce, the crowd wasn’t huge, the old ballpark had that old-timey feel. What a day.
Milwaukee is a great old city. Strikes me as a mini-Chicago that is comfortable in its own shoes.
This is my third trip to Milwaukee. I was here in 1999 for the NCAA Tournament, but I went back and forth between here and Indianapolis, so I didn’t see as much of the city.
But it’s a good place for an NCAA regional. Great basketball tradition. The Bucks. The Marquette Warriors. Down the road in Madison, Bo Ryan has turned the Badgers into NCAA Tournament regulars.
Milwaukee was a memorable site for OU back in 1999. Kelvin Sampson got his first NCAA Tournament victory at the Bradley Center, with an upset of Arizona. Then the Sooners beat Charlotte to make the Sweet 16 in St. Louis.
Now OSU is in Milwaukee, with Georgia Tech and Ohio State in its way before a trip to the Sweet 16 in, yes, St. Louis.
That beer capital tour in 1999 got Sampson off the NCAA drought list. Travis Ford didn’t wait nearly as long for his first NCAA win — his Cowboys beat Tennessee last March — but another first-round victory would stamp OSU as an NCAA Tournament force, a program that is following the Eddie Sutton tradition of not being an easy out in March.
-------------Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel. Visit Berry's website here.
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