By the time this post publishes I'll be at Rounding Third celebrating The Night Of 1000 Mugs, and hopefully you will be too. If you're in Milwaukee and somehow this is the first time you're hearing about the event, there's still time to come out: we'll probably be here most of the night.

Meanwhile, having this thread will give the less social among us an excuse to stare at our phones and perhaps interact with you instead of interacting with each other. Enjoy!

BrewHaHeather and I got a little wet, but had a good time at yesterday's playoff rally.

FSWisconsin aired the rally and the full video isn't on their website, but a portion where they interviewed the outfielders, including Nyjer Morgan, is here. Check out below for a slideshow of the pictures I took at the rally.

If you'd rather, here's a direct link to the slideshow

Or a link to the album on Photobucket

Hey folks: I'm still working on the Mug this morning, but while you're waiting I wanted to pass along this opportunity to win some cool stuff via Holiday Inn. Holiday Inn is the Official Road Trip Partner of Major League Baseball. - KL

During the All Star Game tonight, Holiday Inn will be sponsoring the "Ultimate Baseball Road Trip" contest. The winner will receive two tickets to the major league game of their choice, airfare and Holiday Inn accommodations. You could go anywhere: You could follow the Brewers to St. Louis or Cincinnati for a critical playoff chase game. You could visit a park you've never seen before. You could try to be the only fan in attendance when the Marlins and Nationals play in Miami on Monday, September 26. The possibilities are endless.

Entering is pretty easy, too. All you have to do is predict which All Star team ("AL" or "NL") will have more hits tonight, and text that prediction to "88222." I don't think you even have to wait for tonight's game - I'm pretty sure you can do it now.

In addition, Holiday Inn has given me a $75 Dick's Sporting Goods gift card to give away, and I'm going to pass it to one lucky commenter on this post. To enter, all you have to do is tell me where you'd go if you won the Ultimate Road Trip contest. Entries will remain open until 10 am tomorrow, and I'll select a winner from the comments at random at that point.

Thanks to Holiday Inn for making this possible, and good luck!

Full disclosure: Holiday Inn is also giving me a gift card for writing this post. - KL

This post is sponsored by Holiday Inn, the Official Road Trip Partner of Major League Baseball.

Yuniesky Betancourt is going to enter play Friday with a .255 OBP. I shouldn't need to tell you that that's awful. However, I was surprised to discover that there are a few other players who have been that bad this season.

This season there are seven major leaguers who are currently qualified for the batting title with an OBP of .255 or lower. How many can you name in five minutes?

The rules remain the same: Post your score in the comments but do not comment on any specific answer until after 6 pm Central time, so everyone gets a chance to try it out without having it spoiled for them. And, of course, there's no reason to cheat here, because there aren't any prizes.

It's possible someone will get all of these. If it's you, post your time along with your score.

Have fun, and don't forget to post your score in the comments!

This was a tough week for the Brewers, as they've gone 1-6 since last Friday. That makes it pretty hard to come up with five solid candidates for Brewer of the Week. With that said, not everyone has been terrible this week and a couple of Brewers have actually been pretty good. Here are this week's nominees:

Prince Fielder is only batting .192 this week, but three of his five hits have been home runs so he's slugging .577.

Brandon Kintzler made three relief appearances this week, including two multi-inning stints, and allowed just one earned run over four innings for a 2.25 ERA.

Shaun Marcum made two excellent starts this week, allowing just one run on eight hits over 14 innings (0.64 ERA). He's walked just three while striking out 14 over that span.

Rickie Weeks had a hit in six of the Brewers' seven games this week, including the only hit against Tim Hudson on Wednesday. He's hitting .280/.379/.400 on the week.

Randy Wolf allowed one run on just four hits over seven innings against the Astros on Saturday, walking two and striking out four.

I think the choice is pretty easy, but it's up to you.

It's time once again for the Brew Crew Ball Prediction Contest. This year, just like last year, I'm ripping the concept off from Beyond the Box Score. I'm ripping off the directions, too:

Below you will find 40 pairs of numbers. In each case, you tell me which number will be bigger. One point for each correct answer. Most points wins.

Ties (although I've done my best to avoid them) go to the side that had fewer votes. For example, here is a pair of numbers:

Wins by the Yankees
Wins by the Red Sox

Let’s say 41 people take the Yankees and 54 take the Red Sox. If the Yankees and Red Sox end up with the same number of wins, then each Yankee-backer will get a point and each Red Sox-backer will not.

Once again this year, we have prizes. The winner of this year's prediction contest will receive a BCB T-shirt of their choosing, and others who finish near the top may win other prizes that come into my possession as the year goes along. Last year I gave away two books in addition to the t-shirt. If we get to 200 participants, I'll throw in a second prize, and continue to add prizes for each 100 participants, up to 500.

Getting your entry in is easy. The 40 questions are in a Google Form, posted after the jump. Never again will I have to manually calculate contest winners - it's all being fed directly into a spreadsheet, and at the end of the season I should be able to identify our winners in a day or less.

So, follow the jump to add your entry! Entries must be submitted by game time on Opening Day to be eligible. Have fun and good luck!

Continue reading this post »

This is the first Brew Crew Ball Tracking Poll of 2011, and will help set the baseline and provide context for other polls as the season goes along. This week's topics include the fifth starter, Zach Greinke, Shaun Marcum. Nyjer Morgan, Doug Melvin, Ron Roenicke and more.

Please follow the jump to vote in the poll.

Continue reading this post »

By now, you've most likely heard that Jonathan Lucroy is unlikely to be ready for Opening Day after breaking the pinkie finger on his right hand yesterday. Fortunately, even if he has to open the season on the DL he should be ready to go by mid-April.

Sometimes we forget that Lucroy is still pretty young: He won't turn 25 until June. By starting 75 games last season he put himself in some relatively elite company: There are only eight catchers in Brewer history who have caught at least 75 games before the end of their age 25 season. How many can you name in five minutes?

The rules remain the same: Post your score in the comments but do not comment on any specific answer until after 6 pm Central time, so everyone gets a chance to try it out without having it spoiled for them. And, of course, there's no reason to cheat here, because there aren't any prizes.

Someone probably will get all of these. If it's you, post your time along with your score.

Have fun, and don't forget to post your score in the comments!

Side note: At this time a week from now we'll be discussing spring training games, so this is the last Thinker of the 2010-2011 offseason. I hope you've enjoyed them, and they'll likely return next winter.