I spent Sunday at Buffalo Wild Wings in Bayshore Town Center joining family for the U.S. World Cup soccer match against Portugal and the greatest player in the world, Cristiano Ronaldo.
As my grandson Alex proudly told me after counting them, there were 25 television screens in the area where we sat.
Most of them were tuned to the World Cup, but there were a couple showing the Milwaukee Brewers game against Arizona.
As I kind of divided my attention, I was struck by two teams that were enjoying success and I wondered which one was the most surprising.
Let’s look at the U.S. soccer team first.
Being in the "group of death" nobody gave our team much of a chance. We had Germany, ranked second in the world, Portugal, ranked fifth and Ghana, which has always seemed to have our number. Plus one of our star offensive players, Jozy Altidore, went down early and was probably lost for the entire first round, if not longer.
But we beat Ghana and then led Portugal until the final seconds before settling for a draw. The odds are in favor of this team getting into the next round, which would far exceed the expectations the experts had for them.
I’m no soccer expert, but if I'm a coach and we lead going into the final seconds, I put two or three guys on Ronaldo and tell them to follow him wherever he goes. Everyone else gets in front of the goal, making sure that the goalie has vision.
But the draw almost felt like a victory and being in this position is a huge surprise.
Then there are the Brewers, owners of the second-best record in all of baseball coming off a seven-game road trip with a 6-1 record. This team got off to a fast start and then seemed to forget how to do good things during the merry month of May.
But they bounced back from that brief fade and the roar through the National League continues. Keep this up and they will not only be in the playoffs, but home field advantage could be likely.
The Brewers have five guys hitting over .300 and two of them are incredible surprises. Jonathan Lucroy has the second highest batting average in the league and Scooter Gennett is hitting .311. Nobody ever expected that.
With the exception of the home run factory that is Marco Estrada the pitching has been more than solid. Yovani Gallardo is truly back in the form that an ace has to be. He and Kyle Lohse and Wilt Peralta all have earned run averages in the threes.
I’ve got to admit that I was one of those who, during the May semi-slump thought "well, here we go. Nice start, but it’s over." Shows how much I know.
So who’s the most surprising?
Well, the soccer team is clearly a surprise and the surprises may well not be over.
But the Brewers? Second-best record in baseball. That’s not a surprise. That’s a shock and as the mechanic said as he looked under your car, "hey, these shocks are pretty good."
With a history in Milwaukee stretching back decades, Dave tries to bring a unique perspective to his writing, whether it's sports, politics, theater or any other issue.
He's seen Milwaukee grow, suffer pangs of growth, strive for success and has been involved in many efforts to both shape and re-shape the city. He's a happy man, now that he's quit playing golf, and enjoys music, his children and grandchildren and the myriad of sports in this state. He loves great food and hates bullies and people who think they are smarter than everyone else.
This whole Internet thing continues to baffle him, but he's willing to play the game as long as OnMilwaukee.com keeps lending him a helping hand. He is constantly amazed that just a few dedicated people can provide so much news and information to a hungry public.
Despite some opinions to the contrary, Dave likes most stuff. But he is a skeptic who constantly wonders about the world around him. So many questions, so few answers.
