On The Road With Joey & Iggy: Weekend At Bernie's

Hello again, everyone!  We're Joey and Iggy Beartran and this is the road trip recap you've been waiting for!

Earlier today, we posted a recap of the Chicago part of our road trip, in which we visited U.S. Cellular Field (home of the Chicago White Sox) and Wrigley Field (home of the Chicago Cubs).  But the Mets were not involved in either game.  Instead, they were playing in Milwaukee, which according to the GPS system that got us lost and sent us to a seedy area of Milwaukee (where no Cheesehead would dare enter), was only 82 miles north of our hotel room in Rosemont, IL.  (Note to selves:  We might need a new GPS.  Just sayin'.)

After a winless week at Citi Field, the Mets tried to get back on the winning track at Miller Park.  Jonathon Niese was on the hill for the Mets, although the scoreboard crew in Milwaukee wanted us to think otherwise.

Spell Check, people!  It's Jonathon, not Jonathan!

The Mets scored two runs in the first and second innings, taking an early 4-0 lead over the Brewers.  The four runs scored by the Mets before we had gotten our first whiff of the bratwurst were completely unexpected, especially considering that the Mets had gone over a month since the last time they had scored four runs in a home game.  The road seemed to agree with them on Friday.

We almost missed the early outburst, as we were enjoying our dinner for the evening.  A Food Network cart had found its way into the ballpark, serving up buffalo chicken mac and cheese and a bacon sloppy joe sandwich with Fritos corn chips.  We only had two words for that.  Yes, please.

A cupful of buffalo chicken mac and cheese goes beautifully with a bacon sloppy joe sandwich.

After emptying Miller Park of all its napkins (the sandwich was a little messy but dang, was it exquisite), we returned to our seats for a few innings.  We got to see two things we hadn't seen in a while - a home run by Lucas Duda and an RBI by Josh Thole (on an extra-base hit, no less).

Once the Mets had a comfortable five-run lead, we decided to hit the Brewers Team Store, where you could buy the T-shirt of any Brewers player on the team.  No, seriously.  Any player.  They're all on the racks and on the walls, as seen in the photo below.

Yes, that's Bob Uecker's No. 9 T-shirt at the top right of the photo.  As always, he's got the furthest seat in the house.

Before we could start mumbling and grumbling about how the Mets took a million years to get a Jonathon (not Jonathan) Niese T-shirt in the Mets Team Store, we noticed a subsection of the Brewers Team Store called The Meat Locker, which is dedicated to the competitors in the daily Sausage Race.  In case you aren't familiar with the speedy sausages, they're in the photos below.

The top photo features the meaty racers and the bottom photo features our travel companion and sometimes correspondent, Ballapeño, with a stuffed version of his favorite sausage, Chorizo, whom he spotted in The Meat Locker.

After our pit stop in the team store, we finally made it back to our seats just in time for the ninth inning and another shaky effort by Ramon Ramirez.  With one out in the ninth, Ramirez walked shortstop Jean Segura and allowed an RBI triple to Tony Plush himself, Nyjer Morgan.  But faster than you can take out the Rolaids (which must be popular at Miller Park due to the artery-clogging ballpark fare), Ramirez retired the next two batters, preserving the victory for Jonathon (not Jonathan) Niese.

It was time to celebrate for the dozen or so Mets fans in attendance at Miller Park, so we whooped it up near the Mets dugout and fooled around on a lifesize replica of the Brewers' primary mascot, Bernie Brewer.  We then went back to the Brewers Team Store to let the Brewers bears have it as well.

The Mets went on to lose the next two games of the series to the Brewers, but at least we got to see their only victory of the weekend series at Miller Park.

We (including Ballapeño) totally enjoyed our Milwaukee experience, and we were very happy that the Brewers bears had no hard feelings because of our playful ribbing at their expense.  We had great seats, great food, great company (okay, so maybe there were a baker's dozen of Mets fans in attendance) and even got to see a rare Mets offensive outburst.  It was a perfect night if you were a Mets fan in Milwaukee.

Now about that Bob Uecker T-shirt in the team store, I wonder if it would fit this statue of him, located outside the ballpark.  He's got to get cold standing out there in the cold Milwaukee winters, don't you think?  (Thanks for reading our road trip recap!  See you on the road!)

Bob Uecker finally made it to the front row.