MILWAUKEE — Hot take: The White Sox-Brewers rivalry in the early days of the American League Central was much hotter than the Cubs-Brewers rivalry of today.
And those Sox-Brewers games in the mid-1990s never meant anything close to what Cubs-Brewers games have meant for the last decade. The Sox and Brewers never battled each other for first place or even a playoff spot.
But Sox manager Terry Bevington and Brewers manager Phil Garner, aka “Scrap Iron,” seemed to detest each other. Their feelings boiled over in 1995 when they wrestled in the middle of a benches-clearing brawl that ignited when Sox legend Ozzie Guillen got tangled with Jeff Cirillo after sliding into third base.
The Cubs and Brewers haven’t even given each other a side-eyed look, despite playing so many hotly contested games in the regular season and postseason.
Where’s the fun in that?
“It’s interesting that there can be both intensity, but not like it turns into other stuff too much,” Cubs infielder Nico Hoerner told the Sun-Times. “Both teams play the game pretty hard, but I don’t feel like either team is dirty.”
The Cubs are going to finish second to the Brewers in the National League Central for the fourth consecutive year and the third straight under manager Craig Counsell, whom they poached from the Brewers to beat them. Doesn’t that irritate anyone in the Cubs’ clubhouse?
“I know a lot of the guys on that team,” Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson told us. “It’s hard to have animosity toward good people.”
Maybe that’s why. There’s no one on either team who gets under the skin of the other team.
“There hasn’t been a moment of pettiness or bad blood,” Hoerner said.
There could have been Monday. Cubs superstar Pete Crow-Armstrong led off the game with a bouncer to first baseman Andrew Vaughn, who bobbled the ball, stepped on the bag and got bowled over by Crow-Armstrong, who had nowhere to go.
But instead of igniting an all-out melee, Crow-Armstrong tried to soften Vaughn’s fall, put his arm around him and made sure he was OK.
What are these, the Friendship Games?
“There was no extra shove or anything like that,” Cubs pitcher Colin Rea, who has been on both sides of the rivalry — or whatever this is — told us. “It was an accident. If that was 20 years ago, he would have tried to take him out. But it’s just not the way the game is played right now.”
“Vaughn’s a great dude,” Swanson said. “I signed a bat for something he’s doing at his house.”
Maybe it stems from the managers, who have a decadeslong relationship. Brewers manager Pat Murphy was Cubs manager Craig Counsell’s coach at Notre Dame. When Counsell managed the Brewers, Murphy was his bench coach — for all nine seasons.
“They have a long history with each other. They have a good relationship,” Rea said. “Yeah, I think it could stem from that. If they didn’t get along, maybe that would trickle down to the players.”
Like it did for the Bears and Packers under former coaches Mike Ditka and Forrest Gregg, respectively, in the 1980s. Their relationship — or whatever it was — more closely resembled Bevington-Garner, without the fisticuffs. Though they did get into a shouting match — during a preseason game.
This is all to say that, while the Cubs and Brewers compete to the hilt against each other, they don’t dislike each other. At all.
Pity.
“There’s definitely competitiveness, talk amongst the team as far as how badly we want to win,” Rea said. “Being around that side, all those guys are great guys, and I see the same thing in this clubhouse. We have two very similar teams, so it’s hard to dislike guys on that team.”
“It’s not like animosity towards them as much as it is a great challenge for us to rise to the occasion,” Swanson said.