It’s Brewin’ : In Milwaukee, Surprising Play by Surprising Players Is Giving Hope That There’s Life After Robin Yount

The Milwaukee Brewers had just finished April with an extra-inning victory at Kansas City and a share of the lead in the American League Central. Their winning pitcher was Jeff Bronkey, an offseason pickup from the Texas Rangers who threw two perfect innings of relief for his first decision with the club. So, Phil Garner, what do you know about Jeff Bronkey?

“I don’t know anything,” the Brewers’ manager responds with a laugh. “I just put him out there and let him pitch. He might be interesting. He’s kind of a quiet guy. I don’t ask him any questions. When I call him in, I just give him the ball and I don’t say anything.”

Bronkey was born in Afghanistan, pitched at Oklahoma State and likes music, golf and fishing, but that’s beside the point. Garner is still getting to know these guys, and the rest of us might have to do the same. Life after Robin Yount was supposed to mean no one on your rotisserie team, no one in your rookie-card collection, no home game worth attending. But as the Chicago White Sox and a few season-ticket holders have noticed, this has been the most surprising team in baseball.

The Brewers are Ricky Bones, finally giving the club a return on that lopsided Gary Sheffield deal; Turner Ward, seizing the opportunity he hadn’t found with the Toronto Blue Jays; Jody Reed, not re-signed by the Dodgers and doing what Delino DeShields has not; and Teddy Higuera, refusing to take the money and run. Despite injuries to projected regulars Darryl Hamilton, Pat Listach, Greg Vaughn and Brian Harper, the club was off to a 13-9 start, its best April since 1987 and only the fourth time in club history that it has won more than 12 games. It is much too early to think about contending, but this has been a big change from 1993, when the Brewers finished 69-93 while escapee Paul Molitor went merrily toward his World Series MVP Award.

“To begin the season like this, after the year we had in ‘93, is a big step,” says Bones, whose last name is pronounced bonus, as in incentive bonus. “It’s built our confidence as a team. I’m in the same position as a lot of guys on this team. I’ve been learning and now it’s time.”

The Brewers finished April with a 3.27 earned-run average, easily the best in the American League, and Bones was the biggest reason. When Bob Hamelin hit a solo home run off him in the fifth inning of a no-decision recently, it ended a streak of 20 scoreless innings by Bones and increased his ERA to a mere 1.11. The second-best ERA entering this week belonged to teammate Bill Wegman, who was at 2.19 and 2-0 after enduring a 4-14 season filled with various ailments. People talked a great deal about the pitching staffs of the White Sox and Cleveland Indians this spring, but attention soon will shift to a rotation that also includes Cal Eldred, Jaime Navarro and Higuera.

Bones came from the San Diego Padres in the 1992 spring-training trade that also brought prospects Jose Valentin and Matt Mieske for Sheffield. It was a trade that had to happen, because Sheffield and the Brewers were a mismatch. Sheffield flourished immediately, threatening to become the National League’s first Triple Crown winner in a half-century and settling for a batting title. In that first full major league season, Bones, then only 23, went 9-10 with a 4.57 ERA in 163 1/3 innings. That Brewer team, in its first year under Garner, just missed the playoffs. But the trade was widely viewed as laughable, a salvage job in Milwaukee.

“At the time of the trade, I wasn’t even thinking about that,” Bones says. “All I wanted to do was prepare to be a big leaguer, to try and get a little better every game. Sheffield was in the big leagues a little longer than I was. I came over with an idea, and the important thing for me was that, at that moment, the Brewers wanted me. It didn’t matter what anyone said, because they brought me here. A lot of people said, ‘Who’s this guy? What’s he gonna do?’ I can’t control what the people are going to say.”

Sheffield has since been traded to the Florida Marlins, for whom he is hitting home runs. It was a failed marriage, and the Brewers evidently will always have to live with it. But Bones has made that deal more palatable. He was 3-1 in April, holding opponents to a .196 average. That was second in the American League for April only to phenom Jason Bere, who was at .194 and suddenly regarded by many people as the No. 1 starter in the White Sox’s rotation.

Bones, like the Brewers, is making a lot of baseball people look foolish. Consider this blunt assessment in STATS Inc.’s well-regarded book, “The Scouting Report: 1994”: “Bones will only be 25 this year, but he has little chance of developing into a good starting pitcher.” Venerable Chicago Cubs scout Hugh Alexander took in Bones’ start last Saturday and says, “Bones is a completely different pitcher than he was three years ago. I saw him then, and he didn’t really know how to pitch yet. Now he has confidence in his other pitches.”

Bones came to Milwaukee as an average fast ball-slider pitcher. Now he has a couple of breaking balls and a changeup, and most important, the ability to throw any of them in any situation. “One thing about Ricky is, he has great aptitude,” pitching coach Don Rowe says. “The only thing he didn’t have was experience. He was dedicated to big league success and not individual-oriented. Last year he threw 200 (203 2/3) innings, so it’s been a matter of getting those innings. He’s going to keep getting better.”

Bones has had a better-ranging defense behind him, and a shining example came recently in right field. Ward had been the only Brewer to start in every game this season, but it was his first start in right. He made a diving catch to rob Kansas City’s Jose Lind in the third inning and on the next play ran down Greg Gagne’s fly for a shoestring catch. Then, an inning later, Ward made the catch that everyone was talking about after the game. Brian McRae pulled a sure double or triple toward the alley, and Ward, angling on a sprint toward the warning track, dived upward and outward like Eric Davis to make the catch. McRae congratulated Ward after the game. “That was the first time I’ve made a catch in the outfield and the guy who hit the ball came and (shook my hand),” Ward says. “Brian came up and told me, ‘Great catch.’ ”

Ward has done just about everything right since the Brewers claimed him off waivers last November. He had hoped to fill the left-field vacancy in Toronto, but 1993 was another partial season there and the club eagerly turned to Rickey Henderson for the pennant race.

Ward won a Milwaukee roster spot with a strong spring (.375), and he opened the season in left because of a rib injury that sidelined Vaughn for most of the month. Ward hit .313 in April with four home runs, 18 walks (fifth in the league), a .439 on-base percentage (10th) and 19 RBI, tying him with Larry Hisle (1978) for third most in club history for April behind Cecil Cooper’s 21 in 1979 and Rob Deer’s 22 in 1987.

Reed’s path to the Brewers was more circuitous. He improved his average 19 points to .276 in 132 games as the Dodgers’ second baseman last season, his first in the National League after a career spent with the Boston Red Sox. But when Reed and the Dodgers couldn’t come to terms on a three-year contract--he wanted a $1 million raise to $10.5 million, the Dodgers’ offer was $8 million--the Dodgers traded pitcher Pedro Martinez to Montreal for DeShields and that was the end of Reed in Los Angeles.

He was invited to the Brewers’ camp as a non-roster player and, despite playing only two spring games because of tendinitis in his right shoulder and a left quadriceps injury, continued to improve: .297 with 16 walks and a .434 on-base percentage in April.

“I’m not concerned about what happened with the Dodgers. I’m concerned about what we’re doing,” Reed says. “We’ve been competitive in just about every game. It’s a long season, but we’re staying focused. This team realizes what it has to do to compete. We know our limitations. We’ve got a pitching staff that is going to open a lot of people’s eyes. This team is going to surprise some people.”

One of the players who used to give Reed his most fits early in his career was Higuera, and the Brewers hope they are seeing that same Higuera now. He was 1-1 with a 3.72 ERA in four April starts, although recently he was hit hard in a loss to the Royals. Anything at this point, however, is welcome, because Higuera underwent shoulder surgery in August 1991 and was told by the medical team that his chances of returning as a quality starter were minimal. Higuera had won at least 15 games in each season from 1985 to ‘88, 20 in 1986.

“They said, ‘You may be back, you may not be back,’ ” says Higuera, 35. “I think, I can come back. And I think I have. Right now it feels good. My concern is staying healthy the whole season (Garner wants 28 starts from him), but my main concern is just keeping the Brewers in a position where they can win.”

If the Brewers took heat for the Sheffield trade, it was nothing compared to the fans’ prolonged reaction to the four-year, $10-million deal they gave Higuera at the December 1990 winter meetings. It was a deal that ultimately facilitated Harry Dalton’s departure as the club’s general manager. Higuera never was the same after that, and now he is in the final year of that contract.

Echoing a sentiment expressed by Garner, Higuera says, “It would have been easy for me to take the money back to Mexico. But I didn’t want that. In my mind, baseball has been very good for me. It’s helped me a lot, helped my family. The Brewer organization has helped me a lot.”

As for the critics, Higuera says, “It’s a part of baseball. You can get hurt with one pitch. That’s it. One pitch, and you’re career is over.”

If Higuera can return to any semblance of his mid-1980s form, and if the Brewers can carry over what they did in April, then life after Robin Yount will be better than anyone in Milwaukee expected. Maybe even better than Garner expected.

“The Indians have done a good job putting together their pitching staff, and they’ve got a solid defensive club,” he says. “Chicago has got great pitching, good hitting, and they’ve got the Big Hurt (Frank Thomas), a dominant player who makes everyone else better. I said all along, ‘Yeah, they may go ahead and win, but the Brewers are going to be pretty good.’ We’re going to surprise some people.”