As much as I hate to admit it, I am a die-hard Milwaukee Brewers fan. I have loved this team since the day I started watching baseball. I’ve been there for the fall of County Stadium and the rise of Miller Park. I’m that crazy guy you see on the scoreboard dancing around in his authentic “Slater” jersey, supporting his team to the last inning. I even have an old Brewers jersey from when I was about 2 years old.

This is how much I love this team, and yet they just can’t seem to accomplish the major goal of every team in any sports league from pre-school to the pros — winning.

Losing has accompanied the Brewers so often that the fans have merely become accustomed to it. What should keep us optimistic about the future? A new manager and general manager? Please.

Milwaukee has been to this stage so many times it’s almost uncanny. After suffering through 10 straight seasons without finishing above the .500 mark, the Brewers have gone through general managers and coaches like the Yankees do players.

This is the same old story it has been for years. The Brewers are not capable of being a .500-plus ball club by hiring a new manager. That is evident already after watching 10 seasons of garbage from this team.

The main problem lies elsewhere.

First, the Brewers are a small-market team competing in a system that demands money for a team’s success. This was made apparent by the 1997 Marlins, whose team was bought simply to win the World Series. They won it, but then were gutted the following season. The Brewers simply don’t have that luxury.

Second, the team has suffered a variety of bad moves involving their players, trading Brewer greats Fernando Vina and Jeff Cirillo, for minor league pitchers who have done nothing.

Think about it.

The Brewers’ pitching staff has needed help for years, but trading away big-time players for pitchers, who you can only hope will be good in the future, doesn’t cut it.

The money problem also has hurt the team in keeping big-time players, such as Greg Vaughn and Gary Sheffield. This is also why the Yankees keep on winning 100 games every year. They can afford to keep players of this caliber.

Third, another major area of concern is the Brewers’ depth.

This team is capable of pulling off a successful April season like they did in 1998 going 16-9 to start, but that is only one-sixth of the battle. The next month, the Brewers dropped below .500 and never recovered. This team cannot keep decent players healthy for an entire season, but then again, not many can.

The difference, though, is that the majority of competing teams have great depth. This allows other players to step up and replace the injured starter, preventing the team from missing a beat.

Finally, the last and only time the Brewers made a World Series appearance was back in the 1982 season, a year before I was born. They went on to lose the Series and ever since they’ve only had four seasons with records above the .500 mark.

I swear that I am a curse to this team because they have not found the post-season in 20 years.

It stuns me even more to think that the commissioner of baseball, Bud Selig, owns this team and yet, they are basically one of the worst teams in the league.

I don’t even want to print the all-time record statistic for this team because the win-loss gap is so wide you’d have to fly a plane over it. You’d think Selig would be able to supply the Brew Crew with enough money to win 10 consecutive championships, but that goes to show you something about professional baseball these days.

It is a league that needs about as much fixing as the Brewers organization.

The only thing to do now is sit back and watch another season unfold and pray that this team can find an ounce of success. Even if they finished at 81-81, I’d have a slight reason to be optimistic. I can only pray, though.

Despite the outcome of this season, I will forever be a die-hard Brewers fan.

After all of the losing seasons I’ve endured, I have and will still cheer this team on from the Loge section of Miller Park, sporting the same old “Slater” jersey while I dance on the scoreboard monitor.