Brewers: “Beast Mode 2.0” Adds To Recent History Of Base Hit Celebrations

2018-19: Show Me Some Love

The 2017 team had a fun Gauntlet celebration, and that continued into 2018 and 2019 as well. But that was only for home runs. What about singles, doubles, and triples? What about everything else?

This celebration is believed to be have been started by Lorenzo Cain, one of the big offseason additions that year.

It was quite simple. Players would put their arms up, wiggle their fingers, and look skyward as if to say, “show me some love”.

“Show Me Some Love” took on a life of its own. After each base hit, players would do the celebration, and the fans would do it back. Fans would raise their arms, wiggle their fingers, and do the celebration back to, in effect, show them some love.

The more love that was shown, especially down the stretch, the better the Brewers started to play.

2019: Double Deuce

The 2019 season primarily was the carryover of “show me some love” and the Gauntlet was still being run as well.

But later in the season, Christian Yelich, the team’s MVP, went down with a broken kneecap after he fouled a pitch off it. Yelich was done for the season just as the Brewers were heating up in September and making a push for the postseason.

This was obviously a devastating blow to the team.

To “honor” Yelich and try to keep him with the team as they pushed forward without him, Ryan Braun started the “double deuce” on home runs and some base hits, in homage to Yelich’s jersey number, 22. Braun and others would make 22 with their fingers as a way to keep him involved with their success on the field.

Braun even wore Yelich’s jersey under his own for a few games.

2020: Positivity Train

Things were not going super well for the 2020 Brewers, as a lot of offensive players were in deep slumps. It’s difficult to stay positive when everybody is slumping. But then Daniel Vogelbach was brought in off waivers and helped start the “positivity train”.

A little arm pump and a reminder to keep things positive and keep things moving. Fans didn’t get much of a chance to enjoy this one as there were no fans allowed during the 2020 season and there wasn’t even that much time to see it in action. The Brewers offense stayed stagnant, even after adding the positivity train.

It didn’t gain that much popularity, but it helped the Brewers limp their way to a third straight postseason appearance.

Now, in 2021, we have “The Tiger”, which looks similar to the Brewers original Beast Mode a decade ago.

It’s hard to believe that the 2011 Brewers season happened a decade ago. The Tiger has a completely different origin story and isn’t related at all to Beast Mode 1.0, but perhaps the similarity will bring in some magic.

Previously, when the Brewers have had base hit celebrations like this, they perform better, have more fun, and are a more enjoyable team.