"For prospects rising through the Milwaukee Brewers’ farm system, and even established veterans on a rehab assignment, wearing lederhosen is a rite of passage."

"No, this isn’t some elaborate rookie hazing prank... it’s the result of Friday’s theme night at High-A Wisconsin, one in which the team normally known as the Timber Rattlers becomes the Brats as part of Bratoberfest, a play on Germany’s iconic Oktoberfest, while also paying homage to the state that’s home to one of the highest concentrations of residents with German ancestry. It just so happened that Abner Uribe, the Brewers’ flame-throwing reliever who is working his way back from a flexor strain, was in town on his rehab assignment...."

The NYT picks up the best Milwaukee Brewers story of the day: "Brewers’ Abner Uribe delights fans in ‘Brats’ lederhosen uniform during minor-league rehab."

Humiliating? Or is it wonderful... bratoberfestive!

I could watch the Green Bay Packers exhibition game, women’s college volleyball, the team with the best record in baseball the Milwaukee Brewers, the Winn-Dixie 250, high school football, WWE SmackDown, or…Abner Uribe in lederhosen. You tell me… pic.twitter.com/lZWfgdxMLi

— Steve Palec (@stevepalec) August 29, 2026

ADDED: I have a bit of a tags quandary for this post. I don't like tag proliferation, but this isn't the first appearance of lederhosen on this blog. It's the fourth. See them all here. But all the other times, I was able to use my well-loved tag "men in shorts." But this baseball take on lederhosen avoids the baseball travesty of shorts — White Sox, 1976 — and sticks with traditional knickers. As I've said before, I like the knickers and wish all the players would wear them and not those pajama-looking long pants, but I'm still not making a tag for knickers. But if I did, I'd have 12 "knickers" posts now. 

Let me highlight the best of those old "knickers" posts. I remembered that the Young Rascals wore knickers. I found this 1926 song with the lyric: "Knickers and trousers, baggy and wide/Nobody knows who's walking inside!" I said that David Brooks: "expatiated about the good old days when men like George Washington displayed their thighs in tight silk knickers."

And, in 2008, before I got together with Meade and started watching baseball again, there were TVs outside State Street Brats just as The Backstreet Boys were singing the national anthem to open the World Series. I blogged: "The players look like hell! When did they stop wearing stockings and knickers? Those long pants look like pajamas."

And there was Meade, the first commenter: "I must be smoking too much blog. I hallucinated." Because the video looked like this:



Key word linking the end of this post to the beginning: brats.

Confusing headline of the day: "Nancy Pelosi Spanks the First Brat."

Hint: It's Maureen Dowd's new column.

It caught my eye because here in Wisconsin, a brat — rhymes with "squat" — is a very popular sausage. So what's "spanking the brat"? Seems like another one of the many euphemisms for masturbation.

But the NYT is not Wisconsin, so it must be brat — rhymes with "slat" — "a child, so called in contempt" (to quote Samuel Johnson's "Dictionary of the English Language").

What brat would Nancy Pelosi be spanking? I'm thinking Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or maybe Rashida Tlaib — one of the impish new House members.

But no! It's Trump! It's always Trump. Everywhere you look...

When Trump said he could “relate” to federal workers who are now going without pay, it may have been the most audacious lie he told all week....

As Pelosi told reporters: “He thinks maybe they could just ask their father for more money. But they can’t.” She also leveled the barb on Trump in person.

Pelosi deploys what she calls her “mother of five” voice on our tantrum-prone president, perhaps in an effort to reparent him. But how do you discipline the world’s brattiest 72-year-old?

The headline writer equates the use of a "mother of five" voice with spanking. I think Pelosi wants to pose as the adult and make Trump look like the child, but isn't the person resorting to physical violence the one who is immature?

And even if you think Trump can be childish, there wasn't anything childish about saying that he relates to the federal workers who are going without pay. That's the kind of routine presidential expression of calm empathy that people often complain about not getting enough of from President Trump. Dowd tells us that Trump is "tantrum-prone," but — whether that's true or not — his statement of empathy — whether that's bullshit or not — is not like a tantrum.

Dowd exults in Pelosi's patronizing (matronizing?) tone, used against the President of the United States. I'm wondering how this choice of attitude will work in the coming campaign season. Should the Trump opponents treat him as if he is "the world’s brattiest 72-year-old" and address him in a "mother of five" voice? It seems to me Hillary Clinton already tried that and it didn't work. It didn't work when he was not yet President and it was hard to picture him as President. But now he is President. I'm thinking the disrespect is dangerous. It can backfire, especially on those who really believe in and delight in their disrespect. Remember Hillary and "deplorables"!

***

By the way, "matronize" — as a humorous way to say that a woman is patronizing — is a usage that's been around since the 19th century. Among the examples in the OED:

a1854 E. Grant Mem. Highland Lady (1988) I. xvi. 349 An extraordinary woman, once a beauty and still a wit, who was now matronising two elderly young ladies.
1966 New Statesman 25 Nov. 786/3 She has the usual phrases about ‘the self-contained universe constituted by a work of art’, and Sartre is matronised for faltering in his ‘faith in the power of an artistic structure to stand up on its own’.

"Matronize" is a real word, with nonjocose meanings: "To act as a matron," "To chaperone" ("Lady Maclaughlan..will Matronize you to the play"), "to act as hostess to (a party, etc.)" ("The lady who was matronizing the tea recognized him"), and "to render matronly" ("Childbed matronizes the giddiest Spirits").

"Scotty’s been scorched by this firestorm, and just like a bratwurst, he’s fried!"

New lyrics for the Solidarity Singers, quoted in "Sha na na na, goodbye!/Walker is on his way out, but the Solidarity Sing Along might stick around a while longer" (Isthmus).

Isn't the headline writer mixed up? Sha Na Na was that band, but the oft-sung song, originally recorded by Steam, is "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye." It was also recorded by Bananarama, or as Isthmus might call them Shananarama:



Interesting fashion and hairstyles there. For comparison, here's Steam:



By the way, it seems insensitive to liken Scott Walker to a piece of meat and, especially in this time of disastrous wildfires, to picture him fried and scorched in a firestorm. But that's okay. It illustrates the point I always make: Calls for civility in politics are always bullshit.

ADDED: Here's the Wikipedia page for Sha Na Na. The group — who sang doo wop oldies — got the three syllables from "Get a Job" a 1957 song about your mother yelling at you to get a job.

Obama comes to Wisconsin to rally for the Democratic Party candidate for governor and repeatedly mispronounces his name.

Reminds me of the time John Kerry came to Wisconsin — at least he came to Wisconsin — and talked about getting himself a "brat," as if he was coming to take one of our devilish children.

Here's Obama in Wisconsin yesterday:



I haven't watched much of that, but the Milwaukee State Journal says:

At several points, Obama mispronounced Evers' name, which rhymes with “weavers,” not “endeavors.”

It rhymes with "cleavers" and "beavers" and "fevers" and "grievers" not "severs" and "whoever's."

Maybe somebody told Obama it rhymes with "levers."

But, man, somebody is serving Obama badly. He comes all the way to the state, then gets the name of the candidate wrong.

If you want to compare crowd-drawing power: Obama got 3,500 in Milwaukee yesterday (with 600 in the overflow room). Milwaukee is the biggest city in Wisconsin. Trump did a rally on Wednesday in Mosinee, Wisconsin, a town I've never heard of, and I've lived in Wisconsin for 34 years. I'm having trouble finding the crowd-size number for that rally, but I am seeing this, in the Wausau Daily Herald:

Meanwhile, [Trump] mispronounced the name of his choice Senate candidate, referring to her as "Leah Vyook-mar" at one point in the night. He also said Evers' name incorrectly as if it rhymes with "levers," not "weavers."

As if it rhymes with "levers"?!!! So my theory may be correct. Advisers are giving exactly the wrong word to say "Evers" rhymes with.



AH!!! GET AWAY FROM THAT LEVER!!! YOU'LL BLOW US ALL TO ATOMS!!!!

Anomaly at the Brat Fest.

"Series of fights Saturday causes Brat Fest carnival to shutter early in 'anomaly' incident."

That was here in Madison, Wisconsin.

Meanwhile, at the Jersey Shore: A "wild brawl erupted near the iconic Lucy the Elephant attraction in Margate on Saturday."


"Lucy" photo by Robert Brizel.

ADDED: "Amid continuing incidents of gunfire, including a home invasion Tuesday in which a Madison man was killed, the city is still struggling with how to partner with local nonprofits to create a 'rapid response' to gun violence aimed at providing immediate help to victims and their families and preventing further shootings...."

“We’re dealing with chronic stress and chronic trauma in our community,” said Jerome Dillard, director of re-entry services for Focused Interruption and state director of EXPO, Ex-Prisoners Organizing. “We need to get boots on the ground to get the outreach we need to get these lives on track. Many of our young people don’t see themselves as being part of America.”...

“We do have a plan,” Deputy Mayor Gloria Reyes said, noting that the mayor’s 11-member rapid response team of city, Dane County and nonprofit representatives that has been shaping the initiatives will continue to meet regularly.... “It’s unfortunate we have community members and leaders who refuse to look at the bigger picture... It became about the Boys & Girls Club. It became about who was going to get funded and not get funded. It’s very unfortunate.”

Last night, after brats and conversation on The Terrace, we walked home along the lake path.

Summer in Madison. I need to retire so that my time off isn't just summer, because it's so terribly hard to leave Madison in the summer.

I don't watch the news on TV. Can anyone tell me how to pronounce "Brat"?

I searched Google news for "how to pronounce David Brat," but I only got a few uses of the verb "pronounce" in phrases like "Immigration 'has been pronounced dead many times over the last..." I checked a couple Wisconsin newspapers on the theory that it's only the people around here who notice that there are 2 ways to say "brat." I found nothing but realized that nothing is sufficient basis to infer that the amazing Professor Brat says his name like the word Samuel Johnson's 1755 "Dictionary of the English Language" defined as "A child, so called in contempt."

By the way, remember the "Brat Pack"? Here's the old New York Magazine cover story from 1985, "Hollywood’s Brat Pack":

It is to the 1980s what the Rat Pack was to the 1960s—a roving band of famous young stars on the prowl for parties, women, and a good time. And just like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Peter Lawford, and Sammy Davis Jr., these guys work together, too—they’ve carried their friendships over from life into the movies....

We easily remember Frank and the others, but can you remember the Brat Packers? Try to fill in the names:

The Hottest of Them All...

The Most Beautiful Face...

The Overrated One...

The Only One With an Oscar...

The One Least Likely to Replace Marlon Brando...

The Ethnic Chair...

The Most Gifted of Them All...

Anyway, since David Brat doesn't seem to be much of a Tea Partier, if he collects some followers, they can be called — perhaps they already are — The Brat Pack.

The NYT informs us that Madison residents thought Madison's World’s Largest Brat Fest was insufficiently liberal for Madison.

The article is called "A City Split Over the Mixture of Church and Sausage."

I love this quote from Lisa Subeck (referred to as a member of "the City Council," which, if you're going to used capital letters is called the "Common Council"):

"My reaction was, this doesn’t have a very Madison feel to it... It really will turn many people off." With Mr. Lenz appearing as a speaker, she said, 'you really have to think, this isn’t reflective of our values."

Lenz = Bob Lenz, a motivational speaker, with "ties to anti-abortion groups, particularly one called Save the Storks, which parks buses in front of abortion clinics and offers ultrasounds to pregnant women."

Lenz, we're told, was disinvited after a Wisconsin State Journal article — "In the Spirit: Brat Fest takes a big turn toward religion this year," highlighting a plan for a morning worship service and a stage devoted to Christian rock music — caused some locals to complain and threaten a boycott.

At that point, the religionists looked excluded and unwelcome instead of the other way around.

Does the NYT rehabilitate the pride of the locals who ended up looking hostile to religion? Incredibly... I mean, predictably... Scott Walker gets blamed:

Perhaps nerves are still a little frayed here, three years after angry protests over a collective-bargaining law shook the Capitol, and the failed attempt to recall Gov. Scott Walker the year after that.

Some longtime residents said they missed the time when Wisconsin seemed more politically easygoing, a place where voters kept a Republican governor, Tommy G. Thompson, in office from 1987 to 2001.

Please. Madison was always liberal, even when Wisconsin elected Tommy Thompson.

Sorry I didn't notice this Madison-centric story until I read about it in The New York Times. I thought I opened up the local news sites nearly every day. (I guess my aversion is more severe than I realize.) And I should have seen David Blaska's "Boycott Bratfest? Another progressive assault on free speech."

And the NYT missed (or choose to ignore) past lefty protests against the Bratfest that were based on the brats themselves. Local news from 2011:

... Bratfest -- the traditional Goliath known as World's Largest -- is beset on three sides by little Davids trying to make the case that a Johnsonville brat is as good as a couple bucks in Governor Walker's pocket: the People's Bratfest, Wurst Times, and Alt Bratfest.

The Woman's Christian Temperance Union doesn't "think it's cool at all" for Scott Walker to serve beer...

... at his "beer and brat summit" — a post-recall-election, bipartisan outreach effort.

The cookout menu features brats, a local sausage whose name is pronounced "brahts"...

(Somebody tell John Kerry before it's too late!)

[Rita Wert, president of the WCTU] said the problems facing Wisconsin are serious, and policy makers shouldn't cloud their judgment by drinking alcohol.

"That portrays kind of a party atmosphere, and I don't think that's what people want," she said. "It's just really a shame that it has to be that way."

The group raised similar objections in 2009 when President Barack Obama invited a black scholar and the white police sergeant who arrested him to the White House to share a beer and talk about race relations.

Walker spokesman Cullen Werwie said the governor respectfully disagreed with the WCTU's objections. "In keeping with the bipartisan theme of the event, in this case we agree with President Obama" ...

He's bipartisan, and they are consistent. A toast!

"Gov. Scott Walker's call for a bipartisan 'brat summit' is being met with its first boycotts."

And not just from Democrats:

State Rep. Steve Nass, one of Walker's fellow Republicans from Whitewater, said... he was not attending the event because Democratic Party Chairman Mike Tate said at his party's convention over the weekend that "Scott Walker will see the inside of a jail cell before he sees the inside of another term." Nass also criticized weekend comments by Democratic Sen. Fred Risser of Madison about Walker.

Meanwhile, state Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Madison) said in a tweet he won't be attending either.

"I'm passing on 'Brat Summit' photo op. We need cooperation & compromise from Gov., not brats & beer," tweeted Pocan, who is running for Congress.

Rejecting an offer of beer and brats... What has happened to Wisconsin values?

Wurst Times... the other alternative brat fest in town.

The other day, I showed you some pictures of the People's Bratfest, the alternative brat fest. Little did I know there was also another alternative brat fest going on in Madison.

“We’re here because we support the recall of (Gov.) Scott Walker,” said Alyson Pohlman, 32, sitting at a table with a group of friends waiting for the band Halley’s Hoop to perform at the Wurst Times festival.

“It’s a wonderful spin on a Madison tradition, where we get to support and empower our values,” Pohlman added.

Brian Cislak, 62, was there for the same reason: “To gather with people of like minds who want to see Scott Walker recalled.”...

The Wurst Times festival...  sprang up last year along with two others as an alternative to the World’s Largest Brat Fest, now in its 30th year.

So there are 3 alternative brat fests, along with the traditional World's Largest Bratfest?

The World’s Largest, a four-day festival that runs through today at Willow Island at the Alliant Energy Center, has raised more than $1 million for charity. It became controversial last year after it became public that executives of sponsor Johnsonville Sausage made campaign contributions to Walker....

So where did the alternative brat fests buy their brats? Did they make sure the brats were made by Wisconsin workers whose employer's executives contributed to Tom Barrett? Are there brats like that?

Pheasant brats.

What Meade is cooking for lunch.

Anticipating the big game.

The fans are fortifying themselves with brats and beer:



The merchants are purveying special T-shirts:



This one made us laugh a lot:



And in the background, under the reflection, there's "Shuck You." I heard a guy saying he didn't understand it: "Shuck you?" Dumb! But then I thought, actually, you have to know at least 3 things: 1. that the Nebraska team is called the "Cornhuskers," 2. that "shuck" is another word for "husk," and 3. that "fuck you" is a standard expression. Then you have to get the hang of the way human beings combine things for humorous effect. If you think about it, the dumbest things are really quite sophisticated.

“These Brats Bust Unions!”

The anti-Scott Walker sticker campaign.

“You don’t have to be in Madison or NYC to participate!!... You can be anywhere where there are stores. Here’s the deal: the struggle in Wisconsin is not over. It has just changed course. One of the current tactics is a boycott of the companies that donated to the Scott Walker campaign last year. No matter where we live, we can support Wisconsinites, spread the word about the boycott, and let these companies know that we are taking action against them.”

So... vandalism is the tactic. Another "peaceful" protest. If you don't like this political attack on grocery stores, buy the products the protesters have targeted. Johnsonville Brats. You know you need toilet paper: Get Angel Soft toilet paper for your angel-soft ass.  Sargento Cheese and Coors beer — the menu suggests itself.

Meanwhile, there's this "Post-It Campaign" that Instapundit is pushing, which I never thought was cute. (Meade can verify that when I heard about it, I called it "littering" and expressed contempt for it.) "Ten Rules for Liberty Guerrillas." Ugh.

How about some respect for the work of people who run small businesses? Hang your scrappy signs on your own damned property.

Man, I have seen too many signs this year!


(Date of photo: February 25, 2011.)

Sunday on skis.

This was our second stop...



The first was Governor Nelson, but I didn't take a picture. We stopped at Steve's Liquor Store on the way home, not because we needed anything, but because we knew they were having a pre-Super Bowl tailgate party, which is to say, free brats. So we bought some beer and Nueske's bacon and grabbed a free brat to share as we drove home.

"Ann Althouse may look like your typical law professor, but she's much more than that."

"Althouse has been writing a popular eponymous blog since 2004, where she posts photographs along with biting commentary on law, politics and pop-culture. Her site, which promises to eat 'intellectually inert brats for lunch' attracts 500,000 monthly visitors, including some suitors. In 2009, Althouse made headlines in the blogosphere and even The New York Times after announcing her engagement to a commentator she met through her blog. Who needs dating sites?"

From MSNBC's "Who's Who of Political Bloggers."

I wonder if they know what brats are?

(Man, that's an old picture. I don't even remember that jacket.)

"Wisconsin fans will be taking this very seriously while enjoying $8 brats, $7 fried cheese curls and $10 pitchers of beer at Mad River Bar & Grille, 1442 Third Ave."

The NY Post is telling New York City folk where to go out to watch the various bowl games, and this is the advice for Badger fans. That's all very nice. But it's not cheese curls! It's cheese curds! Unless they've got some sort of homemade Cheetos over there at the "grille," it's cheese curds.

And, by the way "grille" is the thing on the front of a car. "Grill" is the thing you cook on. But that's not the Post's fault. Maybe the curl/curd mix-up isn't the Post's fault either. I see the Mad River Bar & Grille's idea of a Wisconsin experience is Coors beer. Come on! Pick a Wisconsin beer!

Andrew Sullivan: "I have to say the more I see of Chuck Heath, [Sarah Palin's] dad, the more he seems like the real thing."

"The revelation of the episode was his little shed full of astonishing artefacts of wildlife, small and large, that he joyfully shared with the kids. He stole the entire show, captivating the children like an iconic granddad from the wild, and he is obviously an educated, smart, curious man. How on earth did he produce an intellectually inert brat like his daughter?"

Sullivan was watching a TV show about Alaska. He should come to Madison. We eat intellectually inert brats for lunch.

A Madison bratscape.

(I have bratblogged before.)

Madison, last night and now.

Last night, on State Street, the sports bar looked warmly Christmasy:



Across the street, a woman sold handmade jewelry from a pushcart parked next to a despicable chalking:



Today, we hole up at the sublime Electric Earth Café:



The people who work here are unusually nice, so nice it's a little weird. You order your food at the counter and, nicely, they bring it out to you. It makes a difference not having your name called out. Leave a good tip in the tip jar when you come here.

We're enveloped in blue... electric blue, I guess. The paintings are charming. I love the Batman:



Framing the shot, I get a look I interpret as disapproving, but I show the picture to the young woman in green, and she smiles and gives me permission to use it. Thanks!