Brewers playing small ball // Milwaukee defying wisdom by staying in AL Central race

MILWAUKEE Before the White Sox have any large dreams about catchingthe Cleveland Indians, there's another small problem that must beaddressed first.

The problem is the small-market Milwaukee Brewers, whom - forsome reason - the Sox still don't seem to count in the AmericanLeague Central race.

It's almost as if the Brewers are an invisible nightmare, notthere because the Sox don't want them to be. Of course, the Indiansdon't want them hanging around their dreams, either.But what the Brewers are doing is reality.If there is indeed a two-team race in the Central, it is betweenMilwaukee and Cleveland, with the Sox serving as the afterthought.This sort of thing - small-market teams in contention inSeptember - isn't the way it is supposed to be in today's game.At least, that has been the favorite speech of actingcommissioner Bud Selig. Supposedly, Selig spoke from first-handknowledge, also being the owner of a baseball team - the MilwaukeeBrewers.Isn't it ironic that Selig pushed for revenue sharing and aluxury tax, meaning his team will receive some of the Indians' andSox' money at the end of the year?Maybe Selig's team can use the money to purchase some of theIndians' and Sox' free agents, creating the ultimate irony.But that's getting ahead of what is happening now. And what ishappening, for those who haven't looked, is that the Indians and Soxare making the Brewers look good. And smart.Consider that Albert Belle, Frank Thomas and Jaime Navarro makeas much money as the entire Milwaukee payroll.And consider that the Brewers have made their latest run withouttheir highest-paid player (John Jaha) and highest-paid pitcher (BenMcDonald), a combined $8 million worth of talent.Heck, Jerry Reinsdorf just traded away enough salary to equalabout half the Brewers' payroll.So how have the Brewers done this?Mostly with a collection of has-beens and hasn't-been-yets and amanager who rides a Harley-Davidson and is nicknamed Scrap Iron."One thing we've always done here," said the manager, PhilGarner, "is play hard and play with hope."You would think they need more than hope, considering former CubDoug Jones is their closer and former Sox and Indian Julio Franco istheir designated hitter.Both came to Milwaukee after being released."That's the fun part," Franco said of being in a pennant racesandwiched between the Indians and Sox. "We're winning. I like it."This is a great bunch of guys. They go about their business,have fun and play hard.""Good guys, young, full of energy," said Jones, who hadconverted 28 of 29 save opportunities entering a weekend seriesagainst the National League's surprise team, the Pittsburgh Pirates.Jones blew five of seven opportunities with the Cubs last year."This doesn't surprise me," Jones said of his success. "I'm notdoing anything different than I have in the past."Jones is playing for money usually reserved for third-yearplayers. Franco is playing the rest of this season for the proratedamount of the major-league minimum. But they are happy veterans."This is what you play for," Garner said. "Guys like money whenthey initially get it, but when you play above .500 and get in a racesomewhere, the game is fun."That's as close as Garner gets these days to saying anythingabout a pennant race. In fact, he held a team meeting and forbidanyone from discussing it after the Brewers took a recent nosedive.He figures a team so young is better off not having to deal with thepressure."I think we were looking at a pennant race," Garner said of thebad stretch. "We were trying to play those guys (the Sox andIndians) instead of who we were playing. Consequently, we playedcrappy."We were our own worst enemy. We weren't focusing on what weneeded to do, so I decided to eliminate all that stuff. You can't doanything about what Cleveland or Chicago is doing."But anyone who reads the standings in the daily newspaper . . ."Let's don't get in a conversation that says we're in a pennantrace," Garner said.So has the boycott worked?"We've been playing better since then," Garner says. "I don'tknow if that's it or not."Nobody is quite sure what it is, though the Indians and Soxcertainly have contributed. The truth is the Brewers are the onlyteam in the division that has played better than .500 since theAll-Star break.Can it continue?Well, of the Brewers' last 30 games (the Indians play 33 in thesame stretch), half of them are at home. They end the season with 11of their final 17 games at County Stadium.And that should be good news because they had the highest homewinning percentage in the American League entering the Pittsburghseries. Of course, that makes them among the worst road teams in theleague.They also have had huge mood swings, at times playing well andat times playing like they're in need of psychiatric help."Yeah, we're a case study," Garner said. "We're a Jekyll andHyde."We have not yet gotten to the point a veteran team gets towhere we can be more consistent. So we still get these wildswings."Chalk that up to inexperience. Take away Jones and Franco, andthe Brewers would be younger in average age than the Pirates. Theyalso have been injured, particularly their pitching staff.Just last week, rookie Steve Woodard had his season finishedwith injuries after going 3-2 in six starts. He had replaced injuredJeff D'Amico.No. 1 starter McDonald has been gone since late July, and hisreplacement, Bryce Florie, now has a sore shoulder.The Brewers need help."We're trying," general manager Sal Bando said of attempts toget more pitching. "Good pitching is tough to get. Other teamsaren't in the situation we're in where they have to make a move, sothey can ask for a lot (in a trade)."Gee, if all this had happened earlier, the Brewers might havebeen able to get Wilson Alvarez, Roberto Hernandez and Danny Darwin."If we had been 3 1/2 out and picked up Alvarez and Hernandez,it would have been a shot in the arm," Garner conceded, knowing fullwell his team never could have made that trade with the Sox.But they did almost make one just two weeks ago, when it wasagreed the Sox would send outfielder Dave Martinez for the stretchdrive. That's before the Sox realized they would be aiding andabetting an enemy suddenly ahead of them in the standings. Secondthoughts prevailed.So the Brewers will try to survive with their kids, whosupposedly aren't supposed to know they're in a pennant race.That's OK. Nobody else seems to notice, either. The Indiansworry about the Sox and the Sox worry about catching the Indians.And Wisconsin fans worry about the Packers.It's football season now, meaning it is time to prepare thecheese dip for Sunday afternoons in front of the television.Baseball should be over by now, or so it usually goes. Thus,only 13,065 and 10,886 showed up for midweek games against the TexasRangers.This pennant-race stuff might not last, but the small-marketBrewers have defied the large odds so far."These guys feel like they can beat anybody," said hitting coachLamar Johnson, who played for the '77 South Side Hit Men."This is a team," said pitching coach Don Rowe, who used to workfor the Sox back in the Larry Himes days. "Sometimes when you getbig payroll guys, you get individuals. For us to win, everybody hasto do the job."Big payrolls, obviously, have nothing to do with large dreams.