A Shakespearean ending

“It’s like déjà vu all over again.”

— Baseball Hall of Fame catcher, coach

and manager Yogi Berra (1925-2015)

“It was a tragedy,” conceded Milwaukee Brewers manager Pat Murphy following the team’s Oct. 3 Game 3 loss to the visiting New York Mets in a do-or-die National League Wild Card Series playoff game in the friendly home field confines of American Family Field.

If the famed Bard of Stratford-on-Avon was a fan of America’s national pastime, William Shakespeare would likely have penned something along the lines of the Brewer’s stunning 4-2 ninth-inning collapse, after leading 2-0 with just two outs left to go, to advance to the National League Division Series against the Philadelphia Phillies.

A tragedy indeed. A heartbreaking loss that will sting for years.

Even now, several days removed, I’m still reminded of the opening montage of ABC’s Saturday sports anthology program “Wide World of Sports” back in my childhood, with sportscaster Jim McKay waxing poignantly about “the agony of defeat” as Slovenian ski jumper Vinko Bogataj hurtled out of control off the end of a ski jump at a 1970 ski flying event in Oberstdorf, West Germany, tumbling and flipping wildly before crashing through a retaining fence near a crowd of spectators and coming to a halt with a head concussion and broken ankle.

The Brewers’ 4-2 Game 3 loss after a 2-0 lead with one out in the ninth — just two outs from their first series win in the postseason since 2018 — felt a lot like that.

I, for one, was left slack-jawed in disbelief as the scene unfolded before my eyes on ESPN, the sound on my TV turned off so I could listen to 90-year-old Hall of Fame Brewer broadcaster Bob Uecker call the ninth on the Brewers Radio Network out of Milwaukee-based flagship WTMJ. By the end of the ninth, after the Mets turned a double-play to clinch, the once ebullient Uecker sounded a lot like fictional play-by-play announcer Harry Doyle calling the woeful Cleveland Indians in the early scenes of the 1989 sport comedy film “Major League.”

“Well, you can close the book on Williams. [Covers the microphone with his hand] Thank God! … Just a reminder, fans, comin’ up is our ‘Die-hard Night’ here at the stadium. Free admission to anyone who was actually alive the last time the Brewers won a pennant.”

Or, to quote Morocco in the 1598 Shakespearean play “Merchant of Venice” in Act 2, Scene 7, as Brewers go-to closer Devin Williams gave up a three-run homer to Mets first baseman Pete Alonso as Milwaukee tragically exited the playoffs stage left in the first round for the sixth time in their last eight postseason appearances in 2008, 2011, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2023 and now 2024, including the last five straight — “Oh hell, what have we here? A carrion death, within whose empty eye there is a written scroll. I’ll read the writing. ‘All that glitters is not gold — Often have you heard that told…’”

So much for the glittering gold in the Brewers’ blue and gold.

Keeping true to the early build-up in the Bard’s plot twist tragedy genre, to be sure there was plenty earlier in the story that glittered in Brewer Nation during the 2024 season under new skipper Murphy, following former manager Craig Counsell’s defection to the National League Central arch-rival Chicago Cubs.

Shakespeare would have had a creative field day setting the literary stage for this heart-breaker playoff tragedy, starting with the Brewers’ unlikely 2024 Cinderella season — a first place, fourth-best-in-the-majors 93-69 finish, ten games ahead of the division rival Cubs and Cardinals, that gave the naysaying baseball writers, as “Major League” Indians manager Lou Brown creatively put it, “a nice big burger to eat.”

For the Brewers, in sole possession of first place since April 28, it was their sixth post-season playoff berth in the last seven years, their second consecutive, and with a 5-1 regular season record over the Mets, the odds looked good as the third-seeded Brewers took on the sixth-seeded Mets — with a best-of-three home field advantage Wild Card playoff series in Milwaukee.

The playoff series tied at 1-1 and Game 3 scoreless heading into the bottom of the seventh after the singing of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” and “Roll Out the Barrel,” the stage was set for a feel-good “Major League” Hollywood ending after designated hitter Jake Bauers and right fielder Sal Frelick hit back-to-back homers in the seventh to take a 2-0 lead. 

After Brewers pitcher Freddy Peralta, the Game 1 starter, was called in by Murphy for a 1-2-3 eighth in relief, the Mets had just three baserunners all game entering the top of the ninth, which is when all the actors in the Shakespearean tragedy came onto the stage with the Brewers leading 2-0 and but three outs left to play.

Murphy gave the nod to reliever Devin Williams, who allowed shortstop Francisco Lindor a full-count walk and a one-out single to left fielder Brandon Nimmo before Alonso’s opposite-field homer. Williams then hit designated hitter Jesse Winker with a pitch. Winker then stole second base to put himself in scoring position, giving the Mets a 4–2 lead over Milwaukee after being batted in by right fielder Starling Marte.

Even before Williams threw his first pitch in the ninth, I was already yelling at the TV, armchair managing Murphy for not leaving Peralta in after a stellar 1-2-3 eighth. Too bad Murph didn’t listen.

After the Brewers had this game and playoff series won — almost — they lost it. Holy talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, Batman.

With 20-year-old rookie phenom left fielder Jackson Chourio — who hit two homers in the Brewers’ 5-3 Game Two win — taking practice swings on deck and Frelick on base in a budding comeback, top-of-the-order second baseman Brice Turang hit a looping liner that turned into a game- and season-ending double play.

To quote the Bard, “Oh hell, what have we here?”

A baseball tragedy of Shakespearean proportions.

This one stings. 

Eric Johnson can be reached at eric@fyinorthwoods.com.