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SIGNATURE COMEBACK
Brewers 9, Wild Bunch 8
May 8th 1986
"Signature Comeback"
Brewers vs. Wild Bunch at Ryan
During the 11 seasons that the team played in the DVFL, the Brew Crew established themselves as the league's true "Comeback Kids" by staging many a memorable rally. Fueled usually by the confidence of knowing we had the talent to score big at any time, and bolstered by actually doing it a number of times, we always believed that as long as we had another at-bat coming that we could win the game, no matter how far behind. One of the earliest examples was this win in the 1986 regular season.
The Brewers were the defending DVFL Champions after a dreamlike 1985 season that saw the club finish with 13 straight wins, counting the playoffs. The 1986 club started by winning it's first two games before seeing the streak end at 15 in a row when longtime Brewers nemesis pitcher Billy McAfee tossed a 2-hitter at us in a 3-0 Pirates win at 10th & Bigler. So for the first time in a year the Brewers were coming off a loss.
The team had undergone changes from the championship season, the biggest being that MVP shortstop John Kelly had unexpectedly decided not to play at the last minute. Centerfielder Tom Loiacono moved in to takeover shortstop, and a new outfielder named Ron Stein moved into left field, with Greg Nigro sliding into Loiacono's spot in rightcenter. Stein also was given the unenviable task of taking Kelly's spot as the #3 hitter. Over the years Ronnie Stein proved to be a great glove man and hustler, though not really a classic 3-hole type hitter. But on this night in 1986 he played the role of offensive hero against a strong Wild Bunch team.
The Wild Bunch had been one of the league's top offensive club's for years, and 1986 was no exception. But as a whole they were never much with their gloves, and rarely beat you with their pitching. You could often count on a game with the Bunch ending up with both teams having a chance to score in double figures.
The Wild Bunch bats wasted little time doing damage to Brewers ace John Delagrange on this overcast night at Ryan. Future Brewer star Wally Potter started a first inning rally that put the Bunch up 2-0, then 3 infield errors by the usually reliable Brewers defense opened the gates to a 5-run Wild Bunch outburst in the 2nd inning. When the Bunch tacked on a single run in the top of the 4th to take an 8-0 lead the game seemed all but over.
With two outs and nobody on in the 4th, Stein began his offensive heroics with a triple, and Frank Gleason followed with an rbi single that made it an 8-1 deficit. However, that was all the Brewers were able to muster through 5 innings, and went into the final two frames trailing by that 8-1 score.
Frank O'Connell, himself a future Brewer and brother of Brewers 3rd baseman Tom, was tossing a typically tough game against us. While the Brew Crew's patience at the plate was legendary, no team in DVFL history took more walks and put more men on base than us, O'Connell rarely walked anyone, and his pitching style always seemed to induce popups and fly ball outs from the Brewers bats. Through the first 5 innings he had scattered 6 singles, and typically had walked none.
Delagrange had settled down himself after that error filled 2nd inning, and retired 16 of the final 20 batters he would face in the game, allowing the team at least the chance to mount a comeback. Mount a comeback we would, and then some.
With one out in the bottom of the 6th, Joe Gessner and Matt Veasey lined singles. Then with two outs George Rayzis singled to load the bases. Stein came through again, lining an rbi single to make it an 8-2 deficit, and Gleason followed with another rbi single to cut it to 8-3. The Bunch got out of the inning though, and took that 8-3 lead into the bottom of the 7th.
The beginning of the bottom of the 7th was legendary Wild Bunch-bad gloves stuff. The Bunch committed errors on 4 of the first 5 Brewers batters, allowing George Sweeney, Bobby Vanderziel and Ronnie Briggs Jr to score and cut the deficit down to 8-5. Veasey's rbi single made it 8-6, but the Bunch used a pair of fielder's choice outs to close in on a win. Greg Nigro came to the plate with runners at 1st and 2nd, and two outs. Greg worked a walk to load the bases and bring up Stein, who had owned O'Connell thus far on this night.
What followed was one of the great moments in Brewers regular season history. Ronnie drilled a base hit for his 3rd straight clutch hit in the game. Veasey scored the tying run from 3rd, and when Tommy Loiacono came sliding in from 2nd base just ahead of the throw the Brewers had capped a magical comeback for a 9-8 win. The team piled on one another in a heap at homeplate to celebrate the incredible comeback win, while the Bunch were left shaking their heads wondering how it all had come apart.
The win was the springboard to an 11-2 start that would create dreams of a back-to-back title, but ultimately this Brewers team would fall apart under the weight of losing 4 of it's final 5 games, including a 10-1 loss to the Indians on June 25th at 10th & Bigler that caused tremendous friction and would ultimately lead to major changes on the team in the off-season. The team almost overcame it's own troubles before being narrowly swept in 4-3 and 7-6 playoff games by the Indians, who went on to win the 1986 championship.
But for this one magical early season night, all was well with Brewer Ball at Ryan, Ron Stein was an offensive hero, and the Brew Crew had one of our all-time most memorable comeback wins, celebrating with a post-game bash at our 1986 hangout "Flashdance" (that's a whole other story, for a whole other day).
The Lineup
Tom Loiacono, SS
Greg Nigro, RC
Ron Stein, LF
Frank Gleason, LC
Tom O'Connell, RF
George Sweeney, 2B
John Delagrange, P
Bob Vanderziel, EH
Ken Grolsko, 3B
Joe Gessner, 1B
Matt Veasey, C
Others playing: George Rayzis, Ron Briggs Jr, Adrian Kosteleski
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