After a brief ceremony at the starting line, Brewers infielder Craig Counsell raised the starting pistol and with a bang, the runners and walkers were off on their 5K route. Before his starting duties began, Counsell took a minute to speak with me. He was dressed casually in a green sweater and jeans. He had walked over from his Whitefish Bay home accompanied by his 5-year-old son, Brady. Counsell said he loved growing up in Whitefish Bay. The favorite memories of the major leaguer are riding his bike to ball games at Cahill Square and elsewhere.
"What was nice about Whitefish Bay is that in summer you were riding your bike everywhere, to a friend's house and to all the different baseball games," he said.
He graduated from Whitefish Bay High in 1988 and remembers his favorite subject was math. The logic of it appealed to him. He jokingly said he wasn't good at math, but he had to then admit, yes, he did earn an accounting degree at Notre Dame.
Counsell was a star growing up in the Whitefish Bay softball and baseball programs. He now has two World Series rings.
He regretted that he could not stay for the rest of the celebration. He has a game today at Miller Park.
Although most people are running the Run the Bay event, it also invites everyone to walk the Bay, and that is just what Teddy Werner is doing with his 2-year-old, curly-haired daughter Isabel. The little one is equipped with a comfy stroller and will have an easy "walk."
Dad said, "I'm just hoping to finish." The patience of a 2-year-old is not indefinite.
