As Wisconsin families and Packers fans fondly look forward to gathering every fourth Thursday in November to observe the tradition of catching up with relatives and overeating, the Green Bay Packers will revisit a long-standing tradition of playing a football game on Thanksgiving Day. The NFC North battle, set for Thursday, November 23, in Detroit against the Lions, will be Green Bay’s 37th Thanksgiving game, 3rd-most by an NFL team, and they will enter that contest with an all-time 14-20-2 record on the holiday. This will also mark the 22nd Thanksgiving game between the Packers and the Lions, and Detroit…
Author: Jon Stillman
Jon Stillman
Jon was born and raised in Waukesha. He currently resides in New Berlin and works as a middle school English teacher in Mukwonago, which he has done for 25 years. A lifelong sports fan of all things Wisconsin, Jon will spread his stories out over the Packers, Brewers, Badgers, and other niche state-related topics.
Jordan Love was absolutely phenomenal in his Packers debut, and when witnessing a football game at any level live, one quickly realizes that the wave of emotions brought on by the ebbs and flows of the contest feels like a three-hour rollercoaster ride. Certain situations, such as 3rd-down plays, evoke more loop-de-loop drama and suspense, while others allow us spectators to catch our breaths before the next hairpin turn sets us on the edges of our seats. In Sunday’s 38-20 victory over the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field, Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love expertly guided his offense on those…
The MLB trade deadline on August 1st is fast approaching, and this time of the year never fails to rekindle memories and banter of past dealings made by the Milwaukee Brewers. Some were ridiculously successful (see CC Sabathia, 2008), while others have not quite panned out as planned (Josh Hader?). However, one deadline trade 17 years ago sparked a chain of further transactions that eventually garnered the Brew Crew arguably one of the most popular players in their history. Remember Milwaukee Brewers Prospect Nelson Cruz? Most people forget that Nelson Cruz, yes, THAT Nelson Cruz, began his illustrious big-league career…
The Milwaukee Brewers have had a plethora of great players come through their organization. None, however, carry the same mystique as the legendary Robin Yount. However, what turned into a Hall of Fame career almost did not happen. For all of us, seemingly small events and experiences, when pieced together throughout our existence, dictate our standing in life. We make choices and meet others, and when such incidents occur all have a say in who we are today and sets us on a fate accordingly; the slightest tweak in our timelines could set us on a far different course that…
Most true blue Milwaukee Brewers fans remember fondly and vividly the magical runs of Christian Yelich and their favorite team during the 2018 baseball season. Over the span of his MVP season, Yelich provided clutch hit after clutch hit, ultimately willing the Brewers to the NL Central division title and a berth in that year’s National League Championship Series. Although 2018 ended with a seven-game series loss to the eventual World Champions Los Angeles Dodgers, Yelich cemented his place in Brewers lore, earning the NL MVP honor by hitting 36 home runs, driving in 110 runs, and batting a robust…
Hitting a home run in the major leagues is one of the most challenging feats in all of sports. Squaring up a 95-mph fastball and being on time with the swing requires much skill and athleticism. To that, Jarred Kelenic, a Seattle Mariners outfielder and Waukesha native, said, “That’s cute; hold my beer.” A Historic Long Ball On Wednesday, April 12, in a game against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field, Kelenic tattooed a Julian Merryweather fastball and recorded one of the most prolific home runs in recent history. His 482-ft blast to the second level of Wrigley’s centerfield bleachers…
While one extremely high-profile Wisconsin athlete and former league MVP has captured most of the February headlines by gathering his innermost thoughts and planning for his future via a “darkness retreat,” another face-of-the-franchise from our state went about a similar soul-searching process in a very dissimilar fashion. Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Christian Yelich, bound and determined to rinse the taste of a very pedestrian last two seasons out of his mouth, prepared for a rebound season in 2023 in a peculiar way: he ignored baseball and focused on himself. Yelich needs a “bounce back” season. Ever since breaking his kneecap fouling…
For the past 147 years, the National League has survived and thrived to become the oldest professional league of any sport. The American League began play in 1901, and the two circuits have coexisted under the umbrella of major league baseball. Over the past century and a half, rules have been created, altered, and eliminated, but for the most part, the game today still resembles what baseball’s founding fathers envisioned long ago. However, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred is seemingly fixated on revising the national pastime into an unrecognizable product to attract more fans, one that has baseball purists, old and…
If followers, beat writers, and, heck, actual members of the 2023 Milwaukee Brewers were allowed to voice and/or address just one concern regarding the fate of their season, the vast majority would undoubtedly ponder and theorize on how the bullpen could either make or break their destiny. It is not hyperbole to say the 2022 version of the Brewers’ bullpen fizzled and limped to the October finish line; Milwaukee’s relievers blew 29 saves last season, the third-highest in baseball. Furthermore, according to Brew Crew Ball’s Jack Stern in his December 22, 2022 article, eighteen of those blown saves came after…
To call the tenure of Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Tyrone Taylor a rollercoaster ride would be a vast understatement; in fact, those carnival rides seem like a tame merry-go-round compared to the tumultuous ups and downs of Taylor’s career. One week he looks like an irreplaceable all-star, the next he resembles a minor leaguer struggling to rationalize his station as a professional. The ups and downs exhibited by Taylor that Brewers fans endured last season were legendary; over the course of 2022, his OPS marks, by month, were .574 in April, .872 in May, .573 in June, .849 in July, .588…
