Just imagine the cupcakes are potentially humorous Brewers tidbits.

Hello.

Figuring one of every six Miller Park Drunk posts of late were either co-written by me or mentioned me, I finally set aside my fear of rejection last Friday and asked Vince, left, if I could be taken in as the second MPDer. Fortunately for me, he complied.

"But who is this 'Maas' author?" you ask with feigned surprise. Before I officially tag myself into this ring of dick jokes, halfassed Photoshops and obscure pop culture references, I thought I'd formally introduce myself and help prepare you for what you'll get from me.

Who am I?
You know, I feel like that's a question to which there's really no true answer (I'm kind of deep!). But if forced to narrow it down to a few bullet points, I'm a Sagittarius. We're known for our lack of astrological knowledge. Beyond that, I'm a Milwaukee-based professional writer... in the absolutely loosest sense of the term. I liken my writing as a living to how Jack Wilson is technically a professional baseball player, except that I've never had the ability to trick a mismanaged organization into overpaying me. My mismanaged organization pays me exactly what I'm worth.

You probably know me from...
Writing those few sentences above this. I sincerely doubt any of you know who I am. Don't get me wrong, it's not because you guys aren't learned and well-versed people. Rather, I am just that unknowable. I'm like the Nearly Every Baseball Blogger Ever of baseball blogging notoriety. However, that's not to say I haven't tried to build my brand. I cut my teeth with the now-defunct Brewers blog Right Field Bleachers. I write over half the Brewers-related content at The Onion-affiliated websites The A.V. Club Milwaukee and The A.V. Club Madison. I contribute content (primarily music and some Brewers stuff, when possible) to Milwaukee Magazine, too. I also (hardly ever) write for Boston-based baseball blog Bugs & Cranks.

You may have also heard of my new Wisconsin sports-themed T-shirt company Forward Fabrics and my, like, never updated pizza blog Doctors Of Za, where I write under the handle "T. Mario."

What to expect from me.
I've loved the Brewers for roughly 21 of my 26 years. The missing annuals were my first five, when I was either a clueless, drooling piece of shit and/or not aware that anything that wasn't a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle or one of my own boogers existed. Still, I think that's a pretty honest and admirable assessment of my Brewers fandom. Thus, I am able to produce obscure names like Jesse Levis, Jody Reed, Turner Ward and Rocky Coppinger to serve as the mortar to bind the bricks that are my contemporary Brewers takes. I sponsored Tim Dillard's Baseball-Reference page waaaaay before it was cool (Estimated date of it being cool to sponsor Tim Dillard's Baseball-Reference page: Never). I'm also certain that I'm one of two people responsible for John Axford using "New Noise" by Refused as his entrance music in save situations. This heavy metal magazine agrees. In short, I care deeply about the Brewers.

Hopefully, I'll be able to help bring well-thought, well-written and funny posts to the site. They'll be in the vein of Vince's humor and writing, except without the pictures of that dog in the lobster costume. I don't know what that's about. I also swear a lot more often and have been known to overuse parenthesis (like, a lot). If this all goes correctly, Miller Park Drunk will be a better site with more updates, Vince will get more visitors/ad revenue, I'll sell more shirts and we'll all get our dicks wet and our pussies (consensually) jammed. I mean that last part figuratively, of course.

And maybe--JUST MAYBE--we'll share a few laughs along the way.

Love,
Tyler

None of that matters now. All of those bad things, the Brewers current record and everything that happened before today does not matter. As far as I'm concerned the season starts tonight with the Miller Park debut of Zack Greinke. His arrival is the reason we believed in this team, the reason people picked the Brewers for the World Series and the reason we never gave up on them despite the fact that the frickin' Pirates have a better record than them right now. Tonight is the night that it all begins. Forget Opening Day, this is the real beginning of the season.

Now I do realize how ridiculous that all sounds and if the Brewers weren't six games under .500 I wouldn't be saying it, but that's the way it is so that's what we're going with. The season starts tonight and judging by the amount of tickets available nobody bothered to tell anyone about it. Tonight is Zack Greinke's first game in Milwaukee and Miller Park should be full. Like Mr. 3000 full.

The Brewers losing ways stop tonight. Have you seen that Padres lineup? Anything is possible tonight. No-hitter, perfect game, Brewers win, Mark Kotsay playing good defense, Corey Hart remembering how to hit, anything. As the great poet Will.I.Am once said "Tonight's the night."

BUY TICKETS TO TONIGHT'S GAME

The best part about tonight is that it's 5 County week which means there are tons of cheap tickets available. There are tickets in every single section below face value. There is no excuse not to go to this game. This is the biggest game of this young season. I truly believe that.

Tickets for the rest of the series are just as cheap and I recommend you go to those too because we should win and it'll be cheap. You could probably buy tickets to all three games for under $10, but tonight is what it's all about. Tonight is going to be magic.

(At least I hope so.)

FRIDAY

Nelson Figueroa (0-2 7.31 ERA) vs. Yovani Gallardo (1-1 4.62 ERA)

This matchup is what they call in inside baseball terms "not fair". Yovani has posted two strong starts followed by two not so strong starts, but I'm not worried and could see him bouncing back in a big way against a not so good Houston Astros lineup. Yo is 7-2 vs the Astros in his career. And Nelson Figueroa..... wait, Nelson Figueroa? The guy who was awful for the Brewers in 2002? He's still around? And he's not that bad? Baseball is so weird sometimes.

PREDICTION: Brewers 11-2

TICKETS: Plenty of ticket deals available at brewers.com which means that people who are attempting to get rid of them on the secondary market have to sell them for cheap. Tickets are currently selling for 15% below face and are starting as low as $6. Not too shabby.

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS FOR FRIDAY'S GAME

SATURDAY

Brett Myers (1-0 2.39 ERA) vs Shaun Marcum (2-1 1.90 ERA)

A true pitcher's duel. Brett Myers has always pitched well in Milwaukee, far away from the distractions of his significant other's stupid face, and he goes up against Shaun Marcum who has been amazing in his last three starts. This should be a good one.

PREDICTION: Brewers 1-0 (18 innings)

TICKETS: As we saw in the last weekend home series the Brewers had Saturday is considered the day to go as tickets are selling for 15% over face value on the secondary market. Still, there are deals to be found. Tickets start at $9 and there are others in the Loge Infield Box going for under face.

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS FOR SUNDAY'S GAME

SUNDAY JOHN AXFORD BOBBLEHEAD DAY

Wandy Rodriguez (1-2 5.48 ERA) vs Randy Wolf (2-2 3.18 ERA)

Randy Wolf is coming two starts of six innings plus where he didn't give up any runs so you know he's getting rocked in this one. Luckily we're facing Wandy Rodriguez who is a similar good start-bad start pitcher who is coming off a good start. Expect a slugfest.

PREDICTION: Brewers 10- 9

TICKETS: About the same as Saturday. Cheapest is in the $6-$9 dollar range with deals to be found in the Loge box and bleachers. Check it out. Should be a beautiful day game!

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS FOR SUNDAY'S GAME

Let's take a look at what we have to work with this weekend.

FRIDAY: Carlos Zambrano vs Randy Wolf

Zambrano has always pitched well at Miller Park and if the Randy Wolf from his first start of the season shows up this one could turn ugly. Still, I think Randy Wolf is better than that start and while Zambrano is good he does struggle with his control at times. Something the Brewers can pounce on.

Tickets are currently averaging $60 apiece, about 45% over face value, but there are deals to be found if you look deeper. I saw quite a few Loge infield/outfield tickets in the $25-40 range that are face value $55. So check those out.

SATURDAY: Matt Garza vs Chris Narveson

Matt Garza is the Cubs' new star pitcher that really needs no introduction. Chris Narveson looked amazing in his first start of the season with six scoreless innings and zero runners advancing past first base. If he can put in a performance like that against a Cubs offense that doesn't come close to matching the Braves offense he did it against, this should be a good one.

Tickets are averaging $73 apiece for this one, a whopping 97% above face value, but once again you just need to know where to look. Once again the Loge infield/outfield are priced slightly below face in the $40 range. The Club sections and Field Infield box also have quite a few below face.

SUNDAY: Casey Coleman (?) vs Yovani Gallardo

This was supposed to be Randy Wells start, but he's out with an injury and the Cubs are expected to call up Casey Coleman to start. I don't know much about him, but he did post a 4.11 ERA in the minors last season and is known to struggle with control. Yovani Gallardo is Yovani Gallardo. If his first two starts are any indicator he is going to have an amazing season.

Tickets for this one are the best deal of all. Average ticket price is only $47 and tickets are averaging 47% over face value. If you want to sit in the Terrace they are going for $11-$15 which is almost half of their face value. Bleachers are also priced below face and there are deals all over the stadium. Add in day baseball and this is the game you should think about going to.

So, the secondary market it is. For pretty much every game for the rest of the season I can end up going to the game for less than face value, but for this one I have to pay over market value for tickets. What to do?

Miller Park Drunk has partnered with TiqIQ for the 2011 season to help you find the best deals. TiqIQ puts all of the secondary markets (ebay, TicketNow, Stubhub, etc) and puts them on one site, sorting them by price so that you can find the best deal for the game you want to go to. Want to go to Opening Day? As of now tickets are starting at $50/each and the prices are only going down. The average ticket price is down from last week and should continue until gameday. Or if you want to skip Opening Day and head to Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday's games tickets are currently averaging only $25/each or about 22% below face value. It's not just a link dump, it actually tells you where the deals are. That's what I like about it.

The reason we decided to partner with TiqIQ is because we use them ourselves. I would never recommend something I didn't use myself. Buying tickets from the Brewers is nice for a walk up, but most of the time we can find better tickets and better deals by checking out TiqIQ. Last season we sat behind home plate, ten rows up for under $30. You can't beat that.

We'll do our best not to bombard you with advertising during the season and will only do a single post about tickets before each home series. We will also clearly tag each post with [ad] so that you know what you are getting into, but we really think you should check this service out. If you want to go to the game just look here instead of going to Stubhub or ebay first. You'll get the same results, it'll be faster and it'll be easier. You'll get what you want, it'll help us and everyone will win. We've got the widget setup below for the first ten home games of the season and if you were thinking of going to one of those just have a look and see what there is to offer. If you want to go to one after that click the link up top that says "Brewers tickets". It's that easy. Thank you.

SO CLOSE.