How Murphy became 'Patches' in Crew clubhouse

This story was excerpted from Adam McCalvy’s Brewers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

CHICAGO -- Christian Yelich got a kick out of his nickname for the Brewers and their loveable manager reaching more fans this week thanks to Mark Feinsand’s terrific piece for MLB.com about Milwaukee’s “Average Joes” and their leader, Pat “Patches O’Houlihan” Murphy.

If you’re not a fan of mid-2000s comedy films, that would be a reference to the underdog dodgeball team and their no-nonsense coach in 2004’s “Dodgeball.”

Murphy is known for doling out nicknames, but Yelich turned the tables a couple of years ago by dubbing him “Patches.” With Murphy elevated to manager, Brewers sideline reporter Sophia Minnaert procured a jersey from the film for Murphy, and equipment manager Jason Shawger had a Brewers logo affixed.

In Yelich’s view, the comparison is more apt than ever. The Brewers not only were banged-up going into this first 2024 matchup against Craig Counsell’s Cubs -- with Yelich among the prominent players on the injured list -- but they had ace right-hander Freddy Peralta awaiting word on his appealed, five-game suspension, and they played Friday with associate manager Rickie Weeks in charge of a 3-1 victory while Murphy finished his own two-game suspension.

“We’re Average Joe’s Gym, dude,” Yelich said Friday morning. “We get the -- I don’t want to say ‘hype,’ but we get the storylines around the series. At the same time, it’s a series in May, you know? It’s a division rival, but every division game is important. Regardless of how this series goes, there’s still a long way to go. You want to keep perspective on that.

“Yeah, we’ve got some guys out. We’ve got some guys suspended, including Patches himself.”

That would be the fictional Patches O’Houlihan from the film, played by the late, legendary Rip Torn, who takes over a ragtag team in its battle against the slick, well-financed Globo Gym.

Yelich thinks it’s a great comp.

“‘Couns’ went to Globo Gym and Patches is at the head of Average Joe’s,” Yelich said. “It’s just how the two teams are made up, payroll-wise and personnel-wise. It kind of fits the storyline. Hey, at the end of the movie, Average Joe’s wins.”

Counsell recalled Friday morning how good it felt when the Brewers beat the Cubs at Wrigley Field, partly because the Brewers were underdogs early in his tenure as Milwaukee manager and partly because of the charged atmosphere in the crowd for every game. The Brewers’ biggest victory here came in Game 163 in 2018, when outfielder Keon Broxton squeezed the final out of a win that clinched a division title.

Now he will spend this season on the other side opposite Murphy, his onetime college coach at Notre Dame and then the Brewers bench coach. Since they are not working together anymore, there have not been as many conversations, Counsell said. Not because of any animosity, but because what they’d usually talk about -- how to make their team better -- is off the table.

What’s Counsell’s take on the 2024 Brewers after studying up for this series?

“They're playing well,” he said. “Offensively, they've done a really good job scoring runs. That’s probably what you take note of most.”

Is he surprised the Brewers hired his former teammate Weeks as associate manager?

“Rickie has always had a presence to him that absolutely makes you think he’s for sure qualified to do this,” Counsell said.