To mark the start of the tickets sales, the Arctic Tailgate Party will be back for its sixth straight year. The racing sausages, Bernie Brewer and some old time Brewers will be on hand for the festivities. The first 2,000 fans will get an Arctic Tailgate T-shirt, plus a hot dog and soda. During the event, fans can buy tickets, but the April 6th opening day tickets will be limited.

You can go to Brewers.com to register for the chance to pick up opening day tickets on the 25th, but that ends on next Tuesday the 14th.

The news has been flying around the Web for at least two months now and Brewers fans are hoping like hell that Braun is clean and pulls of a rare win with his appeals process. The odds are likely stacked against him as nobody has ever won an appeal, according to some sources that reported over the last 8 weeks. Radio host, Dan Patrick had some good news for Brewer fans when he put his head on the block and said that after seeing the evidence, he was say Braun was innocent and he should win the appeal. The only issue with that is Dan Patrick does NOT make the call.

News that popped up today shows that the appeal process should be coming to a close and we should be able to hear about Braun in the next 48 hours or so. With this being the off season, MLB has no real urgency to get back to the MVP with their decision, so the fans just might be waiting longer than they want to.

Major League Baseball’s drug policy states that the panel chair, Shyam Das, “shall make all reasonable efforts” to get a decision in 25 days or less. Let’s hope that he can keep to that and we will hear about Ryan Braun some time on Monday.

What do you think about the whole process? If the Brewers lose Braun for 50 games, what record do you see the team with over those 50 games?

So, let’s take a look at the deals the front office worked through the 2011 spring training.  The first one, and most talked about was the trade for Zack Greinke.  The Brewers gave up enough to get this guy and it will be tough seeing him start on the DL for 2011, considering his injury was not baseball related.  The highest paid Brewer came with another price in that the Brewers had to give up Escobar, who was doing an excellent job at shortstop, two pitching prospects and a young outfielder.

They did all that and kept Prince Fielder at the same time.  Each fan thought for sure the only way to get a good pitcher was to trade away the 1st baseman, but that didn’t have to happen, apparently.  The next couple transactions were Shaun Marcum and Mark Kotsay.  Another bit of depth on the field in a pitcher and catcher.

Since March started the Brewers have STILL been doing some dealin’ and they found ANOTHER pitcher from the Yankees, Sergio Mitre, who they got while sending away Chris Dickerson.  And finally, Nyjer Morgan (Google this hot head) from the Nationals for cash and Cutter Dykstra.

Now, that is a bit of information from the more important trades they made in the off season.  As a Brewer fan myself, I wondered how they did all of this and STILL have Prince Fielder?  What does that say exactly?  Is he not wanted, no teams were inquiring about him?  Why did we have all this buzz about getting rid of him, when it really didn’t seem close to happening?

I am completely amazed that the front office got all of this done and held onto Prince Fielder, Rickie Weeks, Randy Wolf, John Axford and Casey McGehee (all of whom I thought had potential for trades).  What do you think?

Called “Bypass Lane”, the system allows smartphone users, currently Android, Blackberry OS, Dell Mobile, iPhone and Palm, to search the menu of concession stands that are near the seats they are sitting in.  From that point they can pre-order the goods and when the order is all set to go, you will get a text message and then you can go pick it up.  Can you imagine not standing in a  long line for an inning and a half just to get your nachos, jumbo dog, soda and popcorn?

The Bypass Lane system is already used by a couple other professional and college teams including the Texas Rangers.  The Austin based company usually charges a 99-cent transaction fee at those locations so I am sure you will see the same fee at Miller Park.  It’s still a small price to pay for not standing in line if you ask me.

You can get the application from the iTunes store or from the Bypass Lane website.  The service is available starting opening day, April 4th and there are four locations on the Miller Park Field Level concourse that will offer the service.

You must hurry though to get these tickets as there are only 59 available.  You can go through the link below:

http://milwaukee.brewers.mlb.com/mil/ticketing/axford_bobble.jsp

If you are not able to get the tickets, don’t fret, you can still get a John Axford bobblehead by getting any ticket to that game (currently sold out).  Each fan will get a bobblehead and 5,000 lucky fans will get the John Axford bobblehead wearing the retro pinstripe uniform.

Terms for the Harley Davidson deck tickets include:
Our special ticket packages that included the signed bobble heads in the AirTran Airways Landing Zone and the Harley-Davidson Deck for Palermo’s/Piggly Wiggly John Axford Bobble Head Day, Sunday, April 24 at 1:10pm as the Brewers take on the Houston Astros have sold out!

But don’t worry, we have another great offer for you!

As a follower of John on Twitter, you can purchase two (2) Field Outfield Box tickets for Palermo’s/Piggly Wiggly John Axford Bobble Head Day for just $59! (Reg. $40 ea.)

Trevor got his first save back in 1993 and even he knows that he is lucky to get this far in his career.  Coming in the last month of the 2010 regular baseball season, his 600th save comes 18 seasons after he got his first save in Florida.

Trevor had a rough start to his 2010 season giving up almost every save chance that he was given.  Many fans will remember all those home runs given up in the 9th inning to bring a loss to a well played game for the Brewers.  I remember a Tuesday night against the Pirates where Trevor gave up a home run in the 9th and then a grand slam only a couple of batters later.

But nonetheless, Trevor has fought back over the last 3 months to get his “closer” roll back from newcomer, John Axford.  To see him start out so badly and earn his way back onto the field after many months of sitting on a bench in the bullpen, it sure is easy to say that he earned every single bit of that 600th save!

He is getting heat and many sports bloggers are watching his every move to see when he will finally make a change, or maybe they are just hoping to see him gone one day.  The replacement would have work to do and, of course, the replacement doesn’t really have anything to work with. 

Some batters get hot and stay hot (Braun, McGehee), while others are swinging at flys on the field all the time and get lucky enought to connect with the ball once in a while (I”m looking your way Zaun).  On the other hand, some pitchers get, and stay, hot (Yovani) just to watch the relief come into the game and litterally throw it all away (Hoffman, of course, but he isn’t the only one of late).

Watching pitchers like Dave Bush is tough and when you have stats like 16 earned runs at HOME in only 21 innings pitched, there is something wrong.  At least he is a starter, on the flip side you have Hoffman who is a closer and he is 15 earned runs in only 9 innings!  That is unacceptable.

So with that all being said, do I still think that Ken Macha should get fired?  No, but if you are his boss, who else do you blame at this point?