'We did it': After 22-year journey, Attanasio brings World Series back to Milwaukee
This browser does not support the video element.
MILWAUKEE – Mark Attanasio remembers getting a good idea of the challenge ahead of him when he was introduced as the Brewers’ new owner on Oct. 4, 2004.
“Somebody, probably long ago retired,” Attanasio said while the team celebrated their World Series berth on the field at Dodger Stadium, “sat in the front row when I did my first interview in the media scrum. He said, ‘You won’t be so cheery when you lose for another 22 years!’”
At the time, 22 years had passed since the Brewers made it to their first and only World Series in 1982.
And would you believe it?
Twenty-two years later, the Brewers are going to the World Series again.
There were some losing seasons along the way, sure, but not many. The Brewers finished .500 in Attanasio’s first season as principal of the team’s new ownership group, their first non-losing season in 13 years. They posted a winning record two years later, and ended a 26-year postseason drought the year after that. In 2011, they won a division title and played to within two victories of the World Series.
But the good times really got rolling in 2018, when the Brewers played within an NLCS Game 7 loss to the Dodgers of making the World Series, and began the current stretch of qualifying for the postseason eight times in the last nine years. Those nine years alone include six division titles and three trips to the NLCS.
Now, a pennant.
Attanasio would love to find that cynical reporter and tell him he was wrong.
“Here we are, 22 years later,” Attanasio said.
Brewers president of business operations Rick Schlesinger knows as well as anyone how far the franchise has come in that time. He was born and raised in Milwaukee and came home at the end of 2002 to work for the Brewers in the glow of experiencing a World Series triumph with the Angels. The Brewers, meanwhile, were coming off a dubious franchise-record 106 losses in their second season at Miller Park.
Two years later, in the fall of 2004, the Selig family accepted a bid from Attanasio’s group to buy the ballclub. When MLB’s other owners approved Attanasio’s purchase in January 2005, there were about 130 full-time employees in Milwaukee’s front office. Now there are more than 400.
“I would like to say that we had great bones when Mark bought the team,” Schlesinger said. “Fantastic stadium. A top-ranked farm system with Prince Fielder, Corey Hart and the other players in the system. A really supportive fanbase that had been disappointed by the team on the field for several seasons and was maybe starting to lose a little faith and hope, but still loved baseball.
“Mark brought in vision, energy, resources, all the great qualities of a leader who recognized we had great people in the organization led by [then-GM] Doug Melvin, who was really the glue. We had great supporting staff in baseball operations and business operations but just needed a fresh perspective.”
Mike Attanasio was 13 years old at the time. One of Mark’s two sons (Dan Attanasio is Mike’s older brother), Mike remembers the day his father told him he had a new job on top of his investment banking business. Mike was stunned.
“He pulled me into his office and said, ‘Hey, I’m buying the Brewers and it’s going to change our lives,’” Mike said.
And it did. As the boys grew up around the team, they became friends with Ryan Braun and then Christian Yelich, and watched the club build a culture of winning one step at a time. They made their father and mother, Debbie, grandparents, and together they added the English soccer club – or football, if you rather – Norwich City F.C. to the family portfolio.
But the first love has always been baseball. Mark grew up in the Bronx rooting for the Yankees, the World Series champions 27 times over. He lived what it feels like when your favorite team wins it all.
“He wants it so bad for the community, the city and the fans,” Mike Attanasio said. “This year, he’s ‘worn it’ harder than any other year. The burden of expectations. He just wanted it so bad for everyone.”
Said Schlesinger: “You know, being the owner of a team is a special opportunity, but it comes with special burdens. And Mark, as much as any owner I’ve ever seen, recognizes that this is a public trust. He’s the steward of a team that’s really, effectively, owned by the fans.”
This browser does not support the video element.
Mark Attanasio woke up in Los Angeles on the morning of Game 4 feeling anxious. Not that the team was giving him any reason to be. The Brewers went 18-6 in September to clinch baseball’s best record for the second straight year, and set a franchise-record with 103 wins in the regular season. They rolled past the Padres, MLB’s hottest second-half team, in four games in the NLDS. Now, after overcoming deficits in all three games to take a 3-0 lead over the Dodgers, they were a win away from winning the NLCS.
Still, nothing is guaranteed in this crazy game.
“I was more nervous than I have ever been because this could actually happen,” Attanasio said. “I couldn’t imagine this could happen. So in a way, for the responsibility I feel as a steward for the organization, it’s the first time I felt pressure – real pressure. And fortunately, our guys delivered.”
This browser does not support the video element.
In a suite with his wife and friends, Mike Attanasio doubled over with emotion when Brewers left fielder Jackson Chourio ran down the final out. Some day in the not-too-distant future, it will be Mike and Dan running the Brewers, part of a succession plan that Mark Attanasio has spoken of publicly in recent years.
As they all prepared to go onto the field for the presentation of the Warren C. Giles Trophy to the National League champions, Schlesinger and Attanasio hugged.
“I was not really feeling my appendages at that moment,” Schlesinger said. “It was surreal.”
For the first time since 1982, they earned a chance to win the World Series.
“It’s not enough to just make the playoffs,” Attanasio said. “You have to build an exceptional team and have some luck. We got hot, and we did it.”