, in 2005, the franchise was haunted by its only real triumph. Across three and a half decades in town, the Brewers had just one championship to celebrate, a pennant in 1982, signified by a lonely banner high above left field at their home ballpark.
Attanasio, 66, spent his early childhood in the Bronx, playing stickball and Strat-O-Matic with his brother, the future screenwriter Paul Attanasio. Mark cried when thelost the 1964 World Series, when he was 7, and partied when they finally returned in 1976, when he was a student at Brown University. In family lore, calculating baseball stats helped Attanasio hone his skill with numbers, which has proven useful: He runs an investment firm in Los Angeles that manages $42 billion in assets.
“I’m enjoying doing what I’m doing, so I would guess I’ll keep doing it,” said Counsell, who was named Brewers manager in May 2015. “But the promise I made to myself was just get to the end of the year and see where life has you. And it’s unusual for a manager to do that — but when I think about it, I think it’s fine to do.”
“He just hit 700 wins the other night,” Attanasio said. “It’s hard to believe, because it feels like he was just in my apartment yesterday when I was trying to convince him to step in as manager. But you don’t get that many opportunities to reflect on that and say, ‘Gee, where else might you go and what other challenges might you take on?’ So he wants to think about that, and nobody’s earned it more than he has.
“Our young players are very good defensive players, and when you talk about our pitching, that’s because of defense, too,” Counsell said. “The defense plays a huge part in having a low batting average because that’s all balls-in-play stuff. Yet one thing Attanasio will not entertain is the notion of a full-scale teardown. He said he believes in a “hybrid approach” to roster construction — some well-paid stars, but not as many as the high-payroll teams, and some inexpensive young players, but not as many as the low-payroll teams.