Brewers Leap Day Flashback – 02/29/2008

Leap Day is one of the silliest days in our society.  The day only exists because our fore fathers were worse at making calendars than the Mayans.  Sad but true…sad but f-ing true.

Be that as it may, I thought it might be fun to take a look back at what happened in Brewers history the last time the calendar landed on February 29th.  When I saw what we were watching that day, I immediately regretted my decision to write this little piece.

Truth was, I had already come so far.  The research was done, so I had to forge ahead.  The names that graced this roster made my heart hurt a little bit, but I also got excited because this was, of course, the season that the Brewers returned to the postseason.  So, without further adieu, let’s see where we all were on 02/29/2008.

At this time in 2009 the team was already playing ST games!  I was surprised too.  On that fateful day they played the Oakland A’s and got absolutely pummeled.  Since it is ST, no one should be alarmed by this news (besides, there is nothing you can do about it).  The A’s won 11-4 on that fateful Leap Day.

On that glorious fake day, Derrick Turnbow and Eric Gagne…(I gave this a dot, dot, dot because I hate Eric Gagne so very much.  Even thinking about him in a Brewers uniform infuriates me.) gave up 5 runs in 2 combined innings of work.  Manny Parra, Dave Bush, and Mitch Stetter also joined in the fun of giving up runs.  What was strange is that the only Brewers pitcher to not allow an earned run was a non-roster invitee named Stephen Bray.  On a side note, he was the only guy who did not make the 2008 roster.  Steve Bray was last seen in Tacoma, playing for the Mariners Triple-A affiliate in 2010.  Last season he was…not around.  But hey, at least we had Turnbow and Gagne right? 

Rickie Weeks led the way with 3 strikeouts.  Ouch.  Not as painful as the 10 runners they left on base that fateful made up day.  Gabe Gross and Bill Hall each drove in a run, while Corey Hart was the king of the day with 2 RBI’s.  Other than that it was a pretty pathetic display. 

Here is my favorite part of this research, all of the players who are no longer on the roster.  Each of these players played that day, but are now elsewhere:

Mike Cameron, Laynce Nix, Prince Fielder, Vinny Rottino, Gabe Kapler, Bill Hall, Craig Counsell, JJ Hardy, Jason Kendall, Dave Bush, Derrick Turnbow, Eric Gagne, Steve Bray, and Mitch Stetter

Wow!  That is a lot of X-Brewers.  Things have really changed in only 4 years.

One side note that I happened to notice while going over the box score of this meaningless game…on that meaningless day, Brooks Conrad played on that game as a member of the Oakland A’s.  This Leap Day, he is in Brewers camp….coincidence?

Probably.

Go Brewers!!!

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