Hello Wisconsin!

Programming note: We are in Milwaukee and will offer the same live updates during tonight’s game from Miller Park. MILWAUKEE – The first thing one notices about a domed stadium is that the view from the floor is very similar to that of a basketball or hockey arena. The stands feel very close to surface and pushed forward for great sight lines. Yet at the same time the coziness is also offset by wide corridors plenty of elbow room and a ceiling that seems vaster than it actually is.

Perhaps that’s because when a person looks up into an open air arena he is looking into infinity. It’s unknown and never ending so therefore the mere human mind struggles to come to grips with that vastness. He simply ignores it.

But slap a roof up there and there is context. Everyone can figure out how high the ceiling is… why it’s all the way up there, of course. It’s a really long way away.

Yet because it’s a basketball arena with a baseball diamond laid out on it, the dimensions seem tighter than they really are. Actually, the closeness of the stands and the roof up top make the place feel like the quirky wiffle ball stadium you probably built in the backyard when you were a kid.

That’s exactly what Miller Park feels like.

Better yet, it has a feel. It’s unique in a sense because the place is completely fabricated, which is a paradox. That’s it – Miller Park is a paradox. Dropped into a wide parkland section just west of downtown Milwaukee, the stadium looks as if it was dropped down from outer space. From the outside it looks like a futuristic clam with its folding retractable roof, and on the inside it looks like a scene from a snow globe.

So that’s where the Phillies will try to win their first playoff series since beating the Atlanta Braves in the 1993 NLCS. The consensus around the ballpark is that the Phillies will sew it up on Saturday to quickly turn their attention to the Los Angeles Dodgers, a team in a similar position.

It won’t be easy for the Phillies. Oh sure, they seemingly cruised through the first two games of the series, but they did so despite themselves. In the 16 innings in which they came to bat, the Phillies have only scored in two of them. Moreover, they left the bases loaded twice in Game 2, once more in Game 1 and have stranded 17, including 11 runners in scoring position.

Worse, the heart of the order – Chase Utley, Ryan Howard and Pat Burrell – is a combined 1-for-17 with eight strikeouts. If Brewers’ centerfielder Mike Cameron had gotten a better bead on a fly ball hit by Utley with two outs in the third inning of Game 1, it would be 0-for-17.

Meanwhile, the Brewers are hoping to repeat the same path from the last time they were in the playoffs back in 1982 when they dropped the first two games of the ALCS only to come back and sweep the last three games from the California Angels.

So here we are in Milwaukee waiting to see where we’ll go next.

Fifth inning: Break up the Brewers?

In a sense, the Brewers’ playoff run looks a lot like the one the Phillies had last year. They snuck in on the last day of the season thanks to a loss by the Mets, celebrated like crazy and are poised to be bounced out very quickly. Like in Philly, Milwaukee fans waited even longer for their team to make the playoffs. The Phillies ended a 14-year drought last season, while the Brewers knocked off a 26-year absence in ’08. Better yet, the Brewers switched leagues so this is their first trip to the National League playoffs.

But unlike the Phillies last year, the Brewers don’t seem to be regrouping for another run in 2009. That’s part of the reason why the club went after CC Sabathia at the deadline and fired manager Ned Yost two weeks ago even though they were tied for first in the wild-card race.

The Brewers are a flawed club that will have to make a bunch of moves this winter if they want to challenge the Cubs in the NL Central. That’s easy to say, but hard to do. More than likely Sabathia will be pitching for big money somewhere else next season. Heck, it could even be for the Phillies, who will have some cash to spend after a few big salaries come off the payroll.

Needless to say, the Phillies will have a spot for a lefty starter who throws around 250 innings per season.

In the meantime it will be interesting to see how the Brewers respond in Game 2 if they are down 2-0. That’s especially the case considering their best pitcher was beaten like a drum as they turn to Dave Bush.

Meanwhile, Myers appears to be in cruise control. After giving up a hit and a run in a shaky first inning, Myers has not allowed a hit since and has retired 13 of the last 14 he faced.

End of 5: Phillies 5, Brewers 1

Brewers set starting lineup for Game 1

Approximately 24-hours prior to the first pitch of Game 1 of the NLDS, manager Dale Sveum not only named his 25-man playoff roster, but also came up with a starting lineup to face the Phillies and Cole Hamels. Here it is:

Brewers playoff roster pitchers 31- Bush 38 - Gagne 49 - Gallardo 73 - McClung 58 - Mota 43 - Parra 52 - Sabathia 51 - Shouse 57 - Stetter 37 - Suppan 16 - Torres 12 - Villanueva

catchers 18 - Kendall 11 - Rivera

Infielders 30 - Counsell 5 - Durham 28 - Fielder 2 - Hall 7 - Hardy 40 - Nelson 23 - Weeks

Outfielders 8 - Braun 25 - Cameron 22 - Gwynn 1 - Hart

Game 1 starting lineup 25 - Cameron, cf 2 - Hall, 3b 8 - Braun, lf 28 - Fielder, 1b 7 - Hardy, ss 1 - Hart, rf 23 - Weeks, 2b 18 - Kendall, c 49 - Gallardo, p

Meanwhile, the Phillies have yet to officially announce their playoff roster.

We're going to Milwaukee... Woo-hoo!

Full plate at the ballpark today. Cole Hamels and Charlie Manuel will hold "official" press conferences this afternoon at 2 p.m. after the Brewers' manager Dale Sveum and Game 1 pitcher Yovani Gallardo gives one in which they will talk about Milwaukee's first appearance in the playoffs since 1982. Man, I remember that 1982 postseason like it was yesterday. Remind me to write all about soon. Cecil Cooper, Paul Molitor, Pete Vukovich, Mike Caldwell, Don Sutton and, of course, Robin Yount and Rollie Fingers - man were those guys good.

Anyway, we'll have a plethora of playoff punditcy (not a word, I know) all week from here in Philadelphia as well as Milwaukee this weekend. We will start with a page of predictions from some really good writers from across the nation and (of course) we will be live during the games, too.

So make sure to check back throughout the playoffs.

Apropos of nothing, I am very excited about traveling to Milwaukee. I've never been close to ever thinking I would go to that city, so I'm fired up about heading there to check out all the cultural sites the city has to offer.

I'm told that when one opens a faucet in Milwaukee, beer flows out.

Hey, that's what I'm told.

Anyway, more later.

Going live: Phillies on the cusp

ANOTHER PROGRAMMING NOTE: Apparently I have been misinformed - tonight's nightcap is, indeed, on television. So tune in and watch all the pageantry from here at Citizens Bank Park. In the meantime, I mentally prepared myself to go live tonight. Since it will take heavy medication in order to bring down the self-induced buzz, I'm just going to go through with it. Why not? I have a Starbucks IV drip in my right arm and I have been chugging diet coke at a steady rate all afternoon so I'm going to be up for a while. What the hell? I might as well be productive. Now off to the demise of Ned Yost...

Play with fire and there is a really good chance that skin grafts could be in your future. Along those lines, people generally slow down to check out a car crash, a barn fire or "American Idol."

Yes, we enjoy watching other people's failure. Actually, we revel in it. Sometimes we even do a little touchdown dance at the end of it. This afternoon, nearly 46,000 people screamed, shimmied and shouted as the Phillies beat the Milwaukee Brewers for the third time in a row. Oh sure, most of those cheers were for the Phillies as they rallied to within a game in the wild-card chase against the Brewers, but a little bit of it was a taunt.

The Brewers are in free-fall mode and it seems as it is all going to end with manager Ned Yost's head on a platter.

Under Yost's watch, the Brewers are poised to ruin another season with a failed playoff march. In this case, the Brewers have lost 10 of their last 13 games and could see a four-game lead in the wild-case race vanish by the time they board the charter bound for Chicago this evening.

The intriguing part - the car-crash part, if you will - is that some of the fault rests squarely on Yost's shoulders. For instance, Yost wasn't too keen on bumping up workhorse ace CC Sabathia to pitch on short rest in the must-win game of tonight's day-night finale. In fact, Yost was adamant about holding the reigning AL Cy Young Award winner to open the series against the Cubs on Tuesday night when the reality is that the Brewers need to win now.

Tomorrow might not matter.

Yost's non-move that directly helped the Phils on Sunday afternoon could be the watershed moment of his demise in Milwaukee - perhaps more so than the scuffles that had occurred in his dugout this year.

In this instance Yost opted to allow lefty reliever Brian Shouse to remain in the game with one out and two on during the bottom of the eighth with the slumping right-handed hitter Pat Burrell digging in. Yost stuck with Shouse despite the fact that hard-throwing righty Eric Gagne was warming up in the bullpen and owned an 0-for-3 mark with a strikeout against Burrell.

Never mind the point that Burrell went to the plate hitting just .138 (4-for-29) during September and a .172 average since the end of July, Yost stuck with the soft-tossing Shouse. The reasoning was that his lefty was a groundball pitcher and Burrell did hit a grounder. The problem was that the ground ball did go at one of his fielders.

"When you're struggling, things never seem to go your way," Yost said.

Conversely it could be said that people make their own breaks. Generally, there is a reason why some teams get lucky - it's because they put themselves in a position to be lucky. That said, there is a definite difference between a ground ball out and a ground ball single. In the case of Burrell it helped him pick up a game-winning RBI and set the table for Shane Victorino's game-breaking three-run homer a few pitches later.

Better yet, it set the table for the Phillies to draw even with the Brewers and then stick them in the rear-view mirror.

It's probably time to forget about the Brewers and keep an eye on the Astros, Cardinals and Mets.

Here are tonight's lineups:

Phillies 11 - Rollins, ss 28 - Werth, rf 26 - Utley, 2b 6 - Howard, 1b 5 - Burrell, lf 8 - Victorino, cf 7 - Feliz, 3b 27 - Coste, c 39 - Myers, p

Brewers 1 - Hart, rf 7 - Hardy, ss 5 - Durham, 2b 28 - Fielder, 1b 8 - Braun, lf 25 - Cameron, cf 30 - Counsell, 3b 18 - Kendall, c 37 - Suppan, p

Stick around... I'll be back closer to game time.

Mimicking the Brew Crew?

The announced attendance is 45,991. That makes it the largest crowd in CBP history and every single one of them booed Jose Mesa. It seems very likely that the Phillies will be down in the series 2-0 heading into Saturday’s Game 3. Jamie Moyer will take the ball at Coors in attempt to keep the series alive.

Meanwhile, the Phils began strolling down the comeback trail when Ryan Howard hit a BOMB into the left-center field seats to make it 10-4.

Too bad it only counted as one run.

Perhaps a good story will be talking to some folks about that 1982 Milwaukee Brewers’ club that overcame a 2-0 deficit in the ALCS to beat the California Angels in three straight to go to the World Series. Here’s an interesting tidbit on the ’82 Brewers – they clinched the AL East on the last day of the season, won the ALCS in the fifth and deciding game, and went to the seventh game of the World Series.

They played everything the whole way out.

Maybe that’s how it will work out for the Phillies.

OK…I’m going to go start writing some stuff now. I’ll check back if something wild, wacky and/or interesting occurs.

Number 162

To me, there has always been way too much aggrandizing about Opening Day in baseball. Opening is just the first of 162 and rarely has any true impact on the season. Better yet, unless it’s totally extraordinary, Opening Day is never memorable. There is no significant action. But the last game of the season – that’s when the memories are made. Game 162 is the time for heroes and for the real pros to step into the spotlight. Even when teams are just playing out the string, the last game of the year is like running that final 385 yards of the marathon.

Anyway can do the first 26 miles, but it’s that last stretch where legacies are defined.

As a kid I also romanticized about the last game of the year and suffered the wide-eyed, Field of Dreams-types during Opening Day. I was more interested in the guts of the action and not the first few easy strides of the race, which meant I spent all summer figuring out what it was going to take for a team to make the last day the most important one.

Sometimes I got lucky, too. I can recall being at the Vet for Game 162 in 1991 when David Cone of the Mets struck out 19 against a Phillies club that featured Doug Lindsey and Braulio Castillo. In fact, Cone had a shot to tie the all-time record for strikeouts in a game after he whiffed the first two hitters to start the ninth inning. But Wes Chamberlain doubled and Dale Murphy – a player who lead the National League in strikeouts three times and ranks 13th on the all-time whiffs list – grounded out to end the season.

The Vet seemed empty that day with most of the crowd holding Walkmen to listen to the Eagles’ early-season loss at Tampa Bay with Brad Goebel at quarterback, but when Cone had a chance to tie the record it was the loudest the fans were all day.

I also was at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore on the final day of the 1982 regular season where the Orioles nearly pulled off a stunning comeback to win the AL East. Trailing the Milwaukee Brewers by three games heading into the final, four-game series, the Orioles won the opener with Dennis and Tippy Martinez on the mound, and swept a Saturday doubleheader by a combined score of 18-4 to make the last game of the year a do-or-die situation.

Any good Milwaukeean can tell you what happened in that Sunday finale.

Ben Oglivie made a sliding catch on the gravel warning track in left, Robin Yount pounded two homers off Jim Palmer by the third inning, and Don Sutton mesmerized the Orioles for eight innings in Earl Weaver’s last game as the Brewers went on from there to an improbable playoff run.

And I was there.

I’ll be there on Sunday when the Phillies attempt to pull off what the Orioles could not in 1982. Trailing the juggernaut New York Mets by seven games just two weeks ago, the Phillies go into Game 162 all tied and with a chance to make it to the playoffs for the first time since 1993. There is no doubt that the day will be filled with craziness of the type that we will discuss for years to come.

This time, though, I won’t be sitting near folks more interested in listening to out-of-town football scores or packed in tight in the left-field bleachers at long since torn down baseball parks. This time I’ll get to see the protective plastic sheeting that had been secured into place late last night when the Phillies took over first place (for less than 24 hours) lowered to stop champagne spray. Or maybe I’ll see ballplayers cry over the missed opportunities of a season stopped too short.

But then again, maybe I’ll see a team prepare for Game 163 on Monday to settle the season in winner-take-all fashion.

Either way, this is a lot more exciting than any Opening Day could ever be.