Let the countdown begin.

March 1st, 2008 is on the horizon, which means one thing to me: St. Patrick's Day in 15 days! Wait, I'm from Wisconsin. I'm not Irish. Oh yeah, 30 (+2) days 'til the Brewers open the regular season at soon to be changed Wrigley Field against the yet again revamped Cubs squad. Most of us cannot maintain our composure. People don't seem to understand that when you wait to be a contender for as long as Brewers' fans have, the more excited you get just for opportunities. As a Green Bay homer, I know the feeling of winning a championship and being in the city as it celebrated. Milwaukee needs that excitement, it needs the revenue, but most importantly, it needs to create its own identity as a professional sports town. But that's a topic for the talk radio hosts.

Nevertheless, the Brewers open their exhibition season today against the Oakland Athletics at 2PM. For those of you who care, you can purchase Gameday Audio at MLB for the entire season for only $14.95. It's been quite nice for me since I can't get out of work for most day games, and in the steel encasing that is my lab, there is absolutely no reception. Gameday is always money.

Speaking of money (how about that transition?), it sounds like Gord Ash and Doug Melvin are working their magic as usual and are in the process of finishing off 2008 contracts for Braun and Fielder, so that's one less thing to have to think about. There's never really any worry about getting guys with 3 years or less of experience because they don't have a leg to stand on in these 'negotiations', but Braun and Fielder are both looking at significant raises. I know for sure that Fielder only made $450,000 last year and Braun probably a third or half of that since he spent some time in the minors. It sounds like when all is said and done, and exempting any long term deals that will be offered to Fielder and Weeks, the Brewers' salary will consist of $86 million dollars, $27 million of which will be eliminated about the potential departures of Ben Sheets, Mike Cameron and Eric Gagne at the end of the season. It's pretty funny to think that 5-6 years ago that $27 mil would have been the whole team.

Other than that, all things are quiet on the Brewers' front, which is good and bad. It's understandable that Doug is reluctant to discuss any deals right now with the injury of Yovani Gallardo, but I imagine he's had some discussions with other GMs if anybody is desparate. The thing is that the Brewers don't need any help at the big league level. Every position is set top to bottom in the lineup, but all I keep hearing is this team needs a left-handed bat. And while that's true, people fail to realize that there's no where to place them in the lineup unless you yank someone out or get rid of them, which I'm not okay with.

This team has straight up chemistry. They've all played in the minor league system together with the exception of Braun, who has Alcides Escobar and Matt LaPorta coming up soon to set up the second clan of homegrown talent. The biggest hole on this team right now is still the bat off Billy Hall at third base, but why? Why would you get rid of a guy that's stood pat and has done everything for you? It's setting the tone for the rest of the team and it may scare some of the young guys that may be willing to take bargain deals for a franchise that takes care of its people. It's called job stability and comfort, and while good pro ballplayers don't have to worry so much about stability, comfort is key.

If you guys want to catch some of the interactions on the team, you should hit up the Journal Sentinel online, where Anthony Witrado and Tom Haudricourt interview some of the guys about their game and the year. While I enjoy reading McCalvey's posts on milwaukeebrewers.com, I just feel like he's always one step behind of the Journal and plays the homer game more because he works for MLB and perhaps the Brewers. Either way the Journal has up some one of a kind video snip-its that I watch every day to see the guys in Arizona, which will have to suffice until the Crew comes home on March 27th to play an exhibition game at Miller Park.

One last thing. Catchers have a tendency to talk a lot about how much they like pitchers and what they're doing, but they're easy to read. If they start saying the cliche statements like, "He's throwing real well. Good location and velocity. He looks good," they're not impressed. But if those comments are strewn with, "The ball explodes out of his hand," or, "I was very impressed," good things are to come. Stay focused TBow. This team may need you more than you expect.