Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Team

As baseball brawls go, this is almost sure to be a costly one. There were no injuries after Saturday night's battle between the Seattle Mariners and Milwaukee Brewers, in which eight players were ejected, but fines from the American League this week are expected to be sizable. And there could even be a few suspensions. The brawl occurred in the eighth inning when, with the Mariners ahead, 6-2, the Brewers' Bob Sebra intentionally hit Tracy Jones with a pitch.

Randy Wolf said an offer from the Dodgers might have given him pause. But the offer never came, not even in the form of a proposal for arbitration. So on Wednesday, Wolf agreed to the terms of a three-year, $29.75-million deal with the Milwaukee Brewers that includes an option for a fourth year. "I have sentimental ties to L.A., obviously," said Wolf, who grew up in the San Fernando Valley and took a hometown discount to pitch for the Dodgers in 2007. "It made the decision a lot easier because the Dodgers weren't involved."

A 23-year-old male spectator ran onto the field Friday night at County Stadium and attacked Houston Astro right fielder Bill Spiers during the Astros' 9-4 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers. The Astros had taken the field to begin the bottom of the sixth inning when the fan jumped onto the field in the right-field corner and ran up behind an unsuspecting Spiers. The fan jumped on the back of Spiers, who was unable to shake him off.

Thank you, Guillermo Mota. With the Dodgers holding baseball's best record and a widening chasm between sunny Chavez Ravine and the San Francisco Bay, with the Manny Ramirez fiasco turning into a routine fly ball and those trade-bait pitchers remaining on other teams, we've been in danger of slipping into cruise control until the playoffs. Then along comes anger, redemption and a harking back to one of baseball's great traditions: A fastball in the rump for a slider in the elbow.

Stupid? Greedy? The victim of an agent's staggering miscalculation? Jody Reed bristles at each of these characterizations, but he is doomed to ridicule, if not regret. "People are ripping on me because I'm only going to make a million dollars this year," said the former Dodger second baseman, now with the Milwaukee Brewers. "A million dollars. Since when is that nothing? What's going on here?" What's going on is that Reed rejected a three-year, $7.

Ever since he was a boy growing up in the Bronx, Mark L. Attanasio has been immersed in baseball. He spent much of his childhood memorizing trivia from the Baseball Encyclopedia and playing whiffle ball with his brother in a church parking lot. Later in life, while making his fortune in junk bonds, Attanasio relaxed with rotisserie baseball, spending hours carefully picking players and strategies for his fantasy team. Now, at age 47, Attanasio has a real team to run.

For the Milwaukee Brewers, thoughts of a division championship have dwindled to near nil. Subpar pitching and hitting has spelled doom for the Brewers this season. They came into Wednesday's game with Angels at Anaheim Stadium, 8 1/2 games behind the American League East-leading Toronto and four games below .500. It's not been the best of seasons for the Brewers.

Los Angeles investor Mark L. Attanasio appears to be close to an agreement to buy the Milwaukee Brewers from the family of baseball Commissioner Bud Selig. Daniel Gilbert, the founder and chairman of Quicken Loans, said Monday that he was told that the team had selected another buyer, and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported on its website that the team had accepted an offer from Attanasio.

Mike Fetters has a role now. He has purpose. He's the set-up man out of the Milwaukee Brewer bullpen, a job that doesn't bring the glare of the spotlight. Basically, you come in and save some guy's bacon, then give way to the closer. He gets the handshakes and the pat on the rear end from the manager. You get one line in the box score. It's blue-collar pitching all the way. But Fetters has a role. He has purpose. "With the success I'm having now, just leave me alone," Fetters said.

General Manager Mike Port of the Angels recovered from his failure to sign free-agent pitcher Nolan Ryan in time to fill one of his club's needs Wednesday. Port traded reserve infielder Gus Polidor to the Milwaukee Brewers for reserve catcher Bill Schroeder, giving the Angels a backup to Lance Parrish, now that Bob Boone has signed with the Kansas City Royals. Schroeder, 30, batted .246 in parts of 6 major league seasons with the Brewers, and 51 of his 262 hits were home runs.

The brewer voted for the Brewer. She voted by Internet ballot every day using her three e-mail addresses. She filled out manual ballots on visits to Dodger Stadium. And, in hopes of packing a much bigger wallop, she e-mailed her 800 or so co-workers at the Anheuser-Busch plant in Van Nuys with a simple plea to vote for her son, Milwaukee Brewers left fielder Ryan Braun. When the All-Star votes were tallied last month and her son emerged as the leader among all National League outfielders with 3,835,890 votes, Diane Braun received a text message from the first Brewers outfielder to be elected by the fans as a starter: We did it. "I still have it," Diane said Friday evening at Dodger Stadium, nearly choking up at the memory more than a month later.

The picture is in black and white, a snapshot of glory from far too long ago. The camera catches the aftermath of the last playoff game in Milwaukee. Fans linger on the field, celebrating their beloved Brewers, skipping merrily beneath a huge billboard for Winston cigarettes. Long ago, indeed. On the scoreboard, a polite nudge: "The 1982 American League champion Milwaukee Brewers will return for a bow after all fans have returned to the stands." They took their bow, and they left for St.

The stench may finally be lifting from Miller Park. Literally and figuratively. Two weeks ago, workers at the Milwaukee Brewers' ballpark repaired a misconnected sewer line that had been sending waste down river into nearby Lake Michigan for more than six years.

Ever since he was a boy growing up in the Bronx, Mark L. Attanasio has been immersed in baseball. He spent much of his childhood memorizing trivia from the Baseball Encyclopedia and playing whiffle ball with his brother in a church parking lot. Later in life, while making his fortune in junk bonds, Attanasio relaxed with rotisserie baseball, spending hours carefully picking players and strategies for his fantasy team. Now, at age 47, Attanasio has a real team to run.

Los Angeles investor Mark L. Attanasio appears to be close to an agreement to buy the Milwaukee Brewers from the family of baseball Commissioner Bud Selig. Daniel Gilbert, the founder and chairman of Quicken Loans, said Monday that he was told that the team had selected another buyer, and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported on its website that the team had accepted an offer from Attanasio.

The Angels' 1-0, 17-inning loss to the Milwaukee Brewers on Tuesday night might have seemed like little more than a colossal waste of quality pitching, considering that it took the Brewers more than 4 1/2 hours to produce one run off five Angel pitchers.

Outfielder Jeffrey Leonard, the San Francisco Giants' postseason star of 1987 who had been demoted to part-time duty, was traded to the Milwaukee Brewers Wednesday for infielder Ernest Riles. Leonard, 32, a member of the Giants since 1981, was the most valuable player of the National League Championship Series last fall. He was hitting .

It might have taken nearly five years to build, but it took no time for the Milwaukee Brewers to get settled into their new home. After years of playing before sparse crowds and battling the harshest elements in the major leagues at 48-year-old County Stadium, the Brewers welcome Miller Park as a necessary change for saving their franchise and restoring hope to their fans.

Don't count Frank McCourt out of the baseball picture just because billionaire developer and philanthropist Eli Broad has informed News Corp. Chairman Peter Chernin that he is willing to buy the Dodgers, mostly for cash, if the highly leveraged bid of the Boston real estate developer falls through.

The Dodgers' plans to revive the worst offense in the National League suffered another blow Monday when the Arizona Diamondbacks completed a nine-player trade with the Milwaukee Brewers to acquire first baseman Richie Sexson, a player the Dodgers wanted as a cornerstone in their 2004 lineup. The Diamondbacks' acquisition of Sexson comes less than a week after the Chicago Cubs completed a trade for Derrek Lee, another high-profile first baseman targeted by the Dodgers.