10 Players You Might Have Forgotten Were Milwaukee Brewers

Brewers player you might have forgotten: Brady Clark

Brady Clark was signed by the Reds as an undrafted player in 1996 after college. He started in Single A, before making his MLB debut on September 3rd, 2000.

He was originally claimed off of waivers in 2003 by the Brewers. He would play for Milwaukee for four seasons. He played in 549 games for the team and ended with a .280 batting average. In 2005, he batted .305, had 13 home runs and 53 RBIs along with several other career highs.

For a team who had just traded most of the bigger named players like Scott Podsednik and Carlos Lee, Clark stepped in and was a solid player for the team during a severe drought for the team. In March of 2007, Brady was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers. After helping the team during a rough patch, he unfortunately didn’t get to see the success that would come in just a few years.

Brady Clark will be forever engrained in my mind. During those seasons, whenever we would go to Miller Park, there’s always an inning where a little kid gets to announce the hitters for the Brewers. More often than not, the kid would say “Bwady Cwahk”, and it was never not funny to my group of friends. It’s a memory and player cemented in my brain.

Brewers player you might have forgotten: Gabe Gross

Gabe Gross, besides having one of the greatest names of all time, was a two-sport athlete at Auburn before being drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays in 2001 as the firth overall pick. He made his MLB debut in September 2004.

The Milwaukee Brewers landed him in December of 2005, being traded in the offseason along with Dave Bush and Zach Jackson for Lyle Overbay and Ty Taubenheim. In his debut for the Crew, he hit a pinch-hit home run to give the Brewers a lead in the sixth inning. Brady Clark would also score that inning. The Brewers would end up winning 7-5, and start 3-0 that year. Clark would hit .274 in 2006 with seven home runs and 24 RBIs.

He would play 93 games in 2007 and only 16 in 2008. On April 22nd, he was traded to the Tampa Bay Rays for prospect Josh Butler. Like Brady Clark, he would miss out on the 2008 team success, and retired in 2011. It’s hard to forget the name though, and another cornerstone of the rebuilding in the mid-2000s before the emergence of players like Braun, Fielder, Weeks, Hart and Hardy.

Brewers player you might have forgotten: Scott Podsednik

After bouncing around the minors for a while and debuting in 2001 with the Seattle Mariners, Scott Podsednik was acquired by the Brewers for $20K before the 2003 season.

During his full rookie season, Podsednik played in 154 games. He hit .314 with nine home runs, 58 RBIs and a season OPS of .822. He also had 43 stolen bases and finished second in the Rookie of the Year balloting. In 2004, he had 70 stolen bases and was the NL stolen base leader. He came close to breaking Tommy Harper‘s franchise record for stolen bases in a season, but fell just short. His production went down a bit, but was still a solid player for the team.

After the 2004 season, Podsednik was traded to the Chicago White Sox with two other prospects for Carlos Lee. The Brewers were known for trading their biggest players during this time, and Podsednik was no exception. During the 2005 season, he would be an All-Star because of his base-running and the White Sox would win the World Series.

Posednik would play for the Colorado Rockies, the White Sox again, Kansas City Royals, Los Angeles Dodgers and Boston Red Sox before retiring after the 2012 season.

If you are looking for a good baseball book to read, Podsednik is featured in the fantastic “Where Nobody Knows Your Name: Life In the Minor Leagues of Baseball” by John Feinstein. It was nice to see him in it after growing up watching him on the Brewers and being a memorable player in that era.