In what be one of the more original, yet seemingly obvious, ideas to come along in some time, Miller Park, the home of the Milwaukee Brewers, has announced that they will have a pair of weekend film showings in their otherwise empty parking lot on the weekends of June 5-6 and August 7-8.

The films that have been announced are Anchorman and Jaws on Friday June 5th, followed up with a baseball themed night with The Sandlot and Major League (which stars Brewers Hall of Fame broadcaster Bob Uecker and was filmed at the Brewers former home, County Stadium)  screening on Saturday June 6th. Films for the August weekend are yet to be announced and tickets for that weekend will be sold at a later date.

Tickets go on sale for this event starting today, and can be ordered on Brewers.com, by calling 414-902-4000 or on the night of the event. Though space is limited to 400 cars. Tickets will be $20 per vehicle, which includes a parking pass and two admissions, with an additional $5 charge for each additional occupant.

Now admittedly the price point seems a bit high, but bringing in your own grill to cookout has not be either confirmed or denied at this point. And while the Klement’s Sausage Haus will be open for concessions, the chance to partake in the best tailgating in the country while watching a movie would make the rather high ticket price worthwhile. And while I would wish for a bit “riskier” booking schedule for a drive-in style event, I can understand taking a bit more reserved approach to help build it.  Even still, I’m excited to see such a great idea being done, and here’s to hoping that other places model this novel twist on an old idea.

As spring approaches yet another of my major, and possibly unhealthy, obsessions begins to rear its ugly head. This obsession is America’s pastime, baseball; specifically the Milwaukee Brewers. The smell of the grass, the crack of the bat and I am off to a perfect blending of sports and statistics that makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.

While I grew up in the Midwest I didn’t have really any close major sports teams that I could follow as a kid. But I soon discovered that I could rather easily pick up the radio broadcasts for Milwaukee and either of the Chicago teams. And on especially clear evenings I could even pickup Kansas City, Minneapolis, or even Cincinnati. During a childhood that had a mere three network television stations it was unbelievable to me that I could have contact with these towns hundreds of miles away.

But while I had my pick of professional teams to listen too, their were few options in terms of games I could attend. The only game in town was the Cedar Rapids Reds, a minor league franchise of the Cincinnati Reds. And while this was a dream come true for my father who grew up a Reds fan, I didn’t exactly love the idea of watching players for a year only to leave me at the end of the season for another team.

But a few years later my chance of finally watching a Major League game was fulfilled when we moved to a suburb of Milwaukee, WI. With Wisconsin my new home the Brewers became my official team, and with that years of miserable failures and untapped potential would be witnessed by my eyes and ears. But while the Brewers struggled to find altogether new ways of not reaching the postseason I still continued to listen on the radio, content that one day they would finally be worth my years of heartache.

As I grew older I eventually left for college in Minnesota, quite happy to find another team I was able to attend regular games of, and still get to occasionally watch my Brewers when they came to town. And as the years passed by a new invention by Al Gore called the Internet began to redefine what it meant to be a Milwaukee Brewers fan. I soon discovered their were dozens of us out there who loved Milwaukee Brewer baseball. And not just the Major League roster, but the prospects, and the draft and some of us drooled over on base percentage while others coveted “tools”. And as we continued to talk we began wistfully thinking about what it would be like to have our very own place to meet and discuss the nuances, beauty and inherent nerdiness needed to be a Milwaukee Brewers fan. And soon after, Brewerfan.net was born.

But while we finally had a place to sit online and talk Brewers baseball, we began to notice something else. Interest in the Brewers was building. New stadium was erected in Milwaukee, prospects started to pan out, they even started to actually win. And as this happened people began coming out to watch baseball, but rather then the play on the field what to this day still garners the most interest among fans and visitors alike? The Sausage Race.

What is the Sausage Race? It is an event held during the 6^th inning of every game at Miller Park, in which 5 sausages (bratwurst, polish, Italian, hot dog, and chorizo) race around the bases to see who wins. Fans get to “bet” on who wins, but in reality it doesn’t mean anything other then being one giant ad for Klement sausages. Well, and that people are obsessed with watching enormous phalices race around for seemingly no reason what so ever, which surreptitiously brings us to Zardoz.

(continue reading…)