Nine years is a fairly long tenure for a head coach in any professional sport. To get to that point, you must be doing something right. Craig Counsell certainly was as the winningest coach in Milwaukee Brewers history.
That's why his decision to leave the Brewers last offseason was so shocking. Well, it was shocking until we learned the Chicago Cubs offered Counsell the chance to become the highest paid manager in Major League Baseball history with a five-year, $40 million contract. Hard to argue with that resolve.
Still, goodbyes can be difficult, and they say it's always harder to be the dumper than the dumpee. Counsell built strong relationships with people in the Brewers organization. One would expect a reunion with his former team to be bittersweet. Counsell, though, did his best to lock in Friday before the Cubs' first game against the Brewers this season.
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"Look, we're just trying to win a baseball game," he told reporters Friday morning. "This is a good team. I think you spend most of your time trying to figure out how to beat the team.
"There are people there that I have really good relationships with. You miss people, for sure. I miss people over there, absolutely, because you have strong relationships with people. When you see people that you've spent a lot of time with, and you miss them, that's what kind of brings the emotion to it."
One of those people is the Brewers' new manager, Pat Murphy, who was Counsell's bench coach in Milwaukee for his entire nine-year tenure. Counsell admitted the two haven't spoken much since his departure from the team.
"Pat and I, we don't talk that much anymore," he said. "As a manager, the thing that consumes you all the time is your team and helping your team and making your team better. Pat and I just aren't gonna have that conversation right now.
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Counsell then spoke about the different eras of the Cubs-Brewers rivalry he experienced over the last nine seasons, even as the Cubs released their grip on the NL Central in the late 2010s.
"It's in division, and it's a team you're competing against, and it's a team you're trying to beat," he said. "So that's how you think about it more than anything. But, I mean, they were just so good for a while that it was just a really difficult team to play."
A reporter then asked an interesting question — would Counsell be more into the Cubs-Brewers rivalry if he didn't look back so fondly at his time with the organization? Would a division race be more fun having Murphy on the other side as an enemy as opposed to a friend?
"I mean, nobody's an enemy," Counsell said. "This is baseball competition. You're trying to beat the other guy. That's what we're here to do, and we have fun doing it. The competition is fun. It's fun trying to beat the other guy. That's kind of what we're wired to do.