MILWAUKEE -- Jake Bauers was playing Ocean View Little League in Huntington Beach, Calif., when he first dreamed of playing in Williamsport, Pa., America’s youth baseball mecca. A couple of years later, Ocean View would become the first program from Orange County to win the Little League World Series.
Bauers hoped his team would be the one to get there. And his 11-year-old self -- Bauers played catcher in those days -- believed they really had a shot.
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“We got bounced in the first round,” he said. “You don’t forget that. We got bounced fast.”
Years later, Bauers and the Brewers’ other former Little Leaguers are finally getting their chance. They will spend Sunday in Williamsport for MLB’s Little League Classic, visiting with young ball players in the afternoon before playing the Braves that night at Historic Bowman Field.
It’s a regular-season game between two of the National League’s division leaders, so this is definitely a work trip. But the Brewers are intent on enjoying it at the same time, since it’s a chance to flash back to the days of riding to the field in full uniform and chowing on orange slices between games.
“All of my buddies today from back then, they all came from baseball,” said Christian Yelich, who played Conejo Valley Little League in Thousand Oaks, Calif., until he was 10 years old.
Yelich had moved into other leagues by the time his friends from Thousand Oaks made it all the way to the championship game of the 58th Little League World Series in 2004, falling to the Caribbean island of Curaçao. That team had future big leaguers Jurickson Profar and Jonathan Schoop -- the latter of whom became Yelich’s Brewers teammate in the second half of 2018.
”It’s still cool playing now, it’s just different,” Yelich said. “You’re in the big leagues, getting to do what pretty much all of those kids want to do one day.”
“We’re playing a little kid’s game. That’s really what it is,” said Andrew Vaughn, who played Mark West Little League in Santa Rosa, Calif. “Granted, it’s our job. But sometimes you have to go back to the mindset of ‘It’s a game.’”
A lot of work goes into this particular game, a staple of MLB’s schedule since the Pirates beat the Cardinals in Williamsport in 2017. After they host the Braves in Milwaukee for the first two games of this series, the Brewers will fly to New York (the site of their next series) on Saturday night with all of their equipment, which will be loaded onto a truck and transported the 200 miles or so to Williamsport that evening.
On Sunday morning, the Brewers and necessary support staff will fly from New York to Williamsport, hitting the ground running with a meet-and-greet with the young players who are taking part in this year’s Little League World Series. Then the Brewers will prepare for their own game at a stadium that seats about 2,500 fans, most of them to be Little Leaguers and Williamsport locals.
“Being a kid, your goal is to get to Williamsport,” said Garrett Mitchell, who played Villa Park (Calif.) Little League from age 3 all the way until he was 12. “But what’s really cool is to go there now, in the position we’re in, to get some kid excited. I remember how I thought about it as a kid -- how cool it would be to go there. Now I think, ‘How cool is it that I get to go there as a professional?’”
“Every 12-year-old’s dream is to go to Williamsport, and it’s still cool to do it at 27,” said left-hander Shane Drohan.
Drohan will travel a day early, because he’s scheduled to start the game opposite the Braves’ Tyler Mahle. Drohan was already playing travel ball by the time he was 10 years old but decided with a group of friends to form a North Palm Beach County (Fla.) Little League powerhouse for their 12U season and make a run for Williamsport.
“We had a really good team,” said Drohan, who pitched and played center field. “There were 14 or 15 players on that team, and, like, 10 of them ended up playing Division I college baseball. It was a serious team.”
It also became an early lesson in dealing with disappointment. Drohan’s team lost in the sectionals, shut down by an opposing pitcher who put the nail in the coffin by hitting a walk-off home run.
“When you’re 12, it feels like it’s the worst thing that can possibly happen,” Drohan said. “Then, two weeks later, you’re looking at the playbook for football.”
Kids are resilient at that age.
Arguably no Brewers player has shown more resilience this season than Bauers, who, with his 31st birthday looming in October, is in the middle of a breakout. But the memories of Little League remain fresh, including postgame meals at Lamppost Pizza right across the street from the park.
“I don’t really have childhood memories that don’t revolve around baseball,” Bauers said. “Spending all weekend at a sports complex, playing tournaments, hanging out with your buddies. That kind of makes you fall in love with the game because it brings you and your friends together.
“Now I look back on it as a vehicle for developing yourself as a person. Sharpening your mind. Figuring out what’s what when it comes to the things that matter way more than baseball. I see that now, being a dad. There were life lessons there, if you’re willing to look at it like that.”
Bauers recently met up with some former Little League teammates when the Brewers’ last trip took them through Southern California. Ditto for Vaughn when the previous trip began in San Francisco. Yelich still has friends from Little League, too.
“This is a cool job, and it’s brought me and my family a lot of awesome things. I’ll be grateful for that forever.,” Yelich said. “It all started with Little League -- and we’re still going.”