Roger Grossman on the art of celebrating and selling off

Roger Grossman
News Now Warsaw

I have a couple of thoughts to offer to you today.

The first hurts me to talk about, but I am a realist at heart, and I have to be true to that.

The Brewers won the World Series.

They deserve it. They were the best team in baseball all season and they proved it by winning 11 of the 13 games they played in during their championship run.

They had great starting pitching, including the best starting pitcher.

They were impressive on defense. They were strong up the middle, and they rarely made ball-handling errors.

At the plate, they were a bit of a unicorn. They didn’t hit a lot of home runs and they didn’t try to hit a lot of home runs. I should include a disclaimer to that last statement: The Brewers didn’t hit a lot of home runs…against anyone but the Cubs. The Cubs gave up a lot of homers to everyone in 2026.

They always got what they needed.

If they needed someone to bunt, they asked whoever was up and they put down a good one.

If they needed to execute a hit-and-run play, they started the runner from first base and the batter slapped it through the hole and into right field.

If they were down by 2 in the eighth, they got their closer up and scored 3.

If they needed their bullpen to get 12 outs, they’d use five pitchers and get 12 outs.

I bring that up because as much as it pained me to see the Cubs’ rivals winning the World Series, I did enjoy watching the teams from New York and Los Angeles eat their shorts while a team from middle America dominated the spotlight.

That was quite glorious.

The Brewers winning does cause a problem for owners as they get ready to put padlocks on the gates to spring training sites and baseball parks and stadiums.

Their argument is that the revenue disparity between big city teams like the Dodgers and Yankees and teams from smaller towns like Tampa Bay and Milwaukee makes it almost impossible for the smaller towns to be competitive on the field and stay competitive.

And then the Rays and Brewers mess that all up by making it to the Series this fall.

Let me say one other thing about the Brewers. The moment when some of the Brewers players walked out of the tunnel with the World Series trophy at the Packers game the next night to present the spoils of their victory to their fans at Lambeau Field was pretty spectacular.

Now we go from the thrill of victory of the agony of undeniable defeat.

The dismantling of the Colts started with Deforest Buckner being sent back to the Niners for draft picks, and offensive lineman Quenton Nelson being traded to Seattle for more picks.

Josh Downs said, “Enough of this … I’d like to be traded.”

All-Pro running back Jonathon Taylor likes Indy and wants to stay with the Colts, but it just doesn’t feel like that makes any sense anymore.

Taylor’s value to Indy is as a trade commodity. He’s not helping the offensive product because it can no longer be helped. Every time he carries the ball or catches it out of the backfield, he takes one more step toward the end of his career. That’s the reality of being a running back in the National Football League.

It’s also shameful of the Colts organization to have this kind of talent on your roster and not be able to surround them with people to play winning football.

They are amassing draft picks, which they could use to restock their roster with good players or bundle them in trades to move up and get better players.

Between now and April, a lot of losing will take place in Indy.

A couple of other things to consider today.

I am not at all thrilled with the thought that there will be more teams making March Madness next spring.

With this being the first week of the college hoops season, we are beginning the journey that will whittle down 361 Division I college basketball teams to 76.

We have lost sight of the concept of “less is more” and have given in to “more means more money.”

I’d like to add something that isn’t related to sports.

I will never be president, but if I were, I would make the first Tuesday after the first Monday a federal holiday. Election Day would be a day like Christmas, where only essential workers (police, fire, ambulance, hospitals) would be on duty, and those citizens would have to be given time to vote.

Election polling places would be open from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., which would be plenty of time for everyone to vote, we would get more people working at polling places and we would have results earlier.

Try this sometime: ask the next person in your life who complains about politics and politicians if they voted this week or not.