NL Division Series: Rockies vs Brewers Thursday, October 4, 2018 Brewers Workout Day soak in. You never forget the birth of your first child. Q. We kind of talked to you a little bit last week And seems -- I hear Whitney is doing about the progress at that point, but to be here great, which is important, obviously, and David Stearns again today in the postseason, just how fulfilling is seems really happy. it for you as an owner? MARK ATTANASIO: It's immensely fulfilling. My main I will say only David Stearns could figure out how to get challenge is to actually embrace it and enjoy it because a team back to the playoffs in two years and then have this morning I was speaking with my wife Debbie, and I a baby come right in between clinching a division spot said, well, I think I'm two-thirds excitement, one-third and the first game. Congratulations to the Stearns anxiety, and it's already moved to 50/50 anxiety and family. excitement as I got to the ballpark here. Q. I'm wondering in the years that you've been I think what I remember from 2011 is more as you get here, what did you know about Milwaukee when through these games, like a relief at the end of the you first bought the team and how has the city game if you prevail rather than elation, until you grown on you? actually win the series, that is. MARK ATTANASIO: Well, I knew a little bit because my younger brother Robert married into a family, the Stein Q. How do you feel about playing the Rockies family here. They own Stein's House and Gardens. rather than the Cubs? But I got a much more intimate view once I bought the MARK ATTANASIO: You know, we all -- it's interesting, team. a number -- whether you're thinking of or David Stearns, , coaches, players, we all The biggest surprise to me was how welcoming kind of came at it the same way. We were always sort everyone was, not that Milwaukeeans are known for of rooting for actually a 20-inning game the other night. that, but having grown up in in and then living in Los Angeles, I'm not used to that type of We know the Cubs really well. We also know they warm welcome, whether it was -- I've said it often; once have the heart of a champion, having been champions. a guy literally got off a sanitation truck and came Neither we nor the Rockies have been. We knew we'd running to me and said, hello, sir, welcome to have a little more of a home field crowd here with the Milwaukee. And he took his glove off, too. Everyone Rockies, so that is feeling good. Mostly we just was always very welcoming here. My family and I, it's watched and waited. been 14 seasons now, have just really felt part of the fabric of the community. Q. Your GM got distracted last night I hear in the maternity ward. You've always talked about how he Look, it just gets better and better. This community can do multitasking. Now he's really being has supported this team over, I've said this in a number challenged. of interviews, more than two and a half million fans 11 Tell us about what you've said to him and what he's out of 12 seasons. So the fact that we have over 2.8 said to you just about having a baby right at this million fans this year is great, but even when we're time, and if you told him anything about planned challenged, the people come out. parenthood failure? Our TV ratings this weekend were something like 12.8, MARK ATTANASIO: I'm just going to make sure I have 13.8, crazy numbers for the last game against the the right birth weights and things here. So most of our Tigers. It was the Sunday game, which is otherwise a texts have been about the baby. Nora Ann Stearns, 7 Packers Sunday. People were watching the Brewers. pounds, 5 ounces, 20 inches. Everyone is doing well We like that. today, as well. They did well yesterday and today. And the sponsors, as well, we have a good group of You know, as we try to do here with the playoffs, I 135 sponsors. The whole community really surrounds advised him to embrace the moment and really have it this team. It's part of the fabric of the Milwaukee

Rev #1 by #166 at 2018-10-04 18:26:00 GMT page 1 of 4 summer, and we're delighted it's now going to be part around. of the fabric of the Milwaukee fall, Wisconsin fall. You know what was interesting to me was the skill set Q. Kind of building off that, when you took over to add -- the very first add was Junior Guerra, was a this team in 2005 I think it was, something like that, Rule 5 add, really you find a diamond in the rough, and things had not been very great for the Brewers for he's found a bunch of those. So we saw he had that a while, the Packers were kind of at the pinnacle. skill set. We wouldn't know he'd have the skill set to Just the way the perception of the franchise and make a bold like he did for at the the team has kind of changed, not just locally, but same time he made a bold free agent signing. That also around the game in the time that you've had was our largest free agent signing ever. control here. MARK ATTANASIO: Well, we had -- the team had To get and do them on the same day, something like 11 or 12 losing seasons, and that -- it $150 million of commitments, that was bold, especially had been 20 some odd seasons without playoffs. So when everyone thought we should be adding a starting even when we got to 500 the first year, sort of the pitcher or two or three. thought was, well, but you're still not winning. And so he's shown an ability to execute and manage at That's why helped get a very high level. Some guys are good at building teams, but not getting to winning. Some guys can CC Sabathia here in 2008. It was a huge -- that was manage winning teams, but he's shown the ability to do really the seminal turn for this franchise. He brought a both. Having the most wins in the this complete winning attitude, which everybody saw. He year is an absolutely extraordinary accomplishment. still -- obviously he's a Yankee, a New Yorker, but he's Nobody would have said that. still very fond of his time here, and we talk about that. If David and I were to announce here three years ago, So I think that was a shift. And then that group of we said, our goal is to have the most wins in the players, that entire group of players, we still have one National League in three years, we'd have had of them in , but Prince Fielder and Corey probably the same reaction I had when I said my goal Hart and the whole group of guys who grew up was to win here. And so I think that David and Craig, together. We had the terrific 80's teams into the early they really get the credit for all of this. 90's with that terrific team, and now we have a third terrific team to embrace, and that's really fun. I will say I did two smart things. I hired Craig Counsell as a manager and I hired David Stearns as a general Q. You said David Stearns got this team back to the manager. Those were two pretty good moves. All the playoffs in two years, and I'm wondering because rest is their doing. David Stearns will never put timelines on anything, he's not calling it a rebuild, anything like that, but Q. Many of your colleagues in ownership, how do you view it in terms of where he inherited particularly in smaller markets, have embraced the this team and the moves he made to where it is concept of some people call it tanking, some call it now? rebuilding, but giving up a few years to get better MARK ATTANASIO: Well, you know, it started -- Doug down the road. You've been more resistant toward Melvin did an exceptional job of literally -- any number that. Why is that? of contracts that we would have addressed were pretty MARK ATTANASIO: Well, you know, a lot of my much moved, bringing in -- I believe we got Corey mentoring in the sports frankly came from Doug Knebel, Zach Davies and Josh Hader in trades that Melvin. The reason I'm so fond of Doug is -- you know, Doug made, three critical pieces to our team. I thought I knew a lot about baseball before I bought the team, and when I bought the team, I found out how And as written, David Stearns has really taken the best little I knew about baseball. And we would talk a lot -- we kept virtually all the key baseball people in about how hard it is to win and how hard it is to get Doug's group in some role for us and then filled in back. And you can break things down, but it's not easy. around that exceptional group of people that David Just because you break them down doesn't mean recruited starting with Matt Arnold. you're going to get back to where you want to get to, plus I just hate to lose. And so while this is our third season, I guess, under David, really last year, I felt the turnaround was two So you put those two together, and when I -- I think I seasons because we had won Game 61 last year, and mentioned in a prior interview a few days ago here, that very first season he was just moving pieces David and I in the interview process talked about

Rev #1 by #166 at 2018-10-04 18:26:00 GMT page 2 of 4 process and methodology. We didn't talk about relationship has grown tighter. rebuilding or breaking things down. He obviously saw Why do you think that you guys were able to go how things had worked in Houston, and he was pretty against the trend of that separation not happening? convicted with me that this was a different situation. And also, do you think it's important that Craig is a Things were in better shape in Milwaukee than they Brewer and a Milwaukeean and a Wisconsinite for were when they got to Houston. what it means to him to lead this team?

So it wasn't going to be -- he had got the job, which he MARK ATTANASIO: Yeah, so first of all, we interviewed obviously did. It wasn't going to be exactly the same seven or eight candidates, and I told all of them that program. Craig was going to be the manager. So that would have disqualified a candidate if they had a problem with I liked the fact that -- it's sort of like getting something that, and I'm pretty attuned to watching body language, custom made. This was custom made for the and nobody had a problem with that. But had they -- , what he and Craig have done. that was a pre-condition to the job. And I think frankly without the two of them interacting together, we never would have -- we needed not only And that was unique, I think, as you pointed out, for terrific manager, terrific , we needed something like this. You know, Craig was the perfect them to be able to work well together. manager for a lot of reasons, one of which was that he had worked in Doug Melvin's baseball ops group for a Q. We've talked a lot about the transition from few years before he took that role. Doug to David in 2015, but the end of 2014, you were not exactly pleased with the way things And I remember one Spring Training, we were really on ended. How much did that season -- did you think the edge of the edge of looking at analytics, and we you'd be back at this point so quickly? How much brought in a group that did advanced video scouting did that one sting? using video instead of human eyes to scout. MARK ATTANASIO: Well, losing 22 out of 31 games doesn't feel good to anybody, and so it stung a lot. It And to my surprise, the absolute first guy into that also -- I believed in that group of players, and we were meeting from the baseball ops group was Craig in San Diego on August 24th or 25th that season, and Counsell. He stayed for the entire meeting, and it was we won 10-0, and I had the Padres ownership saying, like two and a half hours. my God, your guys look like men and our guys look like boys, and they're big and they're strong and they're So I knew he was open to new ideas. I also knew that fast. From the next day, it was in a different direction. -- he told me, and this is a man who scored -- I believe he scored the winning run in two World Series. And he That stung a lot. We brought that whole team back in felt like, well, all he had left to do in baseball, which 2015 because we did believe in the team, and we was a big task, was to win a World Series for the thought that group of players deserved the opportunity Milwaukee Brewers, so that meant a lot to me, also. to try to show that that last month was a mirage and to He's just been a real force. really -- I also believed that you need to -- it's a lot -- I really have been very humbled by the sport. And so I Q. People are going to be talking about what Yelich try to take lessons from business, and it's better when and Cain in particular meant to the team this year. you're going to change things to make large changes, Can you talk about a move that David made that and so I wanted that group of players to have their maybe not a lot of people have talked about, but opportunity. that really made an impression on you? MARK ATTANASIO: Well, I think the -- let me just start And then when it clearly didn't work out, I think we lost more broadly. Those guys are -- David gave an 12 of the first 14 games or something like that, and interview recently where he said that this may be his then it was time to just say, okay, now this is -- we're one day off. He is always on, and his guys, they're going to move in a completely different direction. But working. He was in Australia somewhere on a we needed to see that that was the case. vacation, and he was communicating. He is always trying to make the team better. Q. The thing that you just mentioned about Craig and David working together, it's a little bit In between having a baby and playing in these playoffs, extraordinary in baseball because often a manager if there was a way to acquire a player tomorrow, who's in place when a new general manager comes whether he could play or not in the game, he would. in, if he doesn't go right away, he does go, and He's really committed to making the team better. instead of that, you guys extended Craig and his

Rev #1 by #166 at 2018-10-04 18:26:00 GMT page 3 of 4 I think his -- he's got a very high batting average on the moves he makes. Not everyone works, but I don't think there's anything -- I don't think there's -- there's so many good moves. We added, what, six players in July and August. I think all of them have helped us win games.

We see how competitive it is. It's one-game differences, you're in or you're out. Jonathan Schoop hit a grand slam to win a game. Xavier Cedeno made some great pitches. helped us win a game. Even if you pick the two offensive players, if we had one win less, we would have been in the Wild Card game the other night, and we could have been losing in the 13th inning. Every move was important.

Q. Where are you in your contracts with David and Craig, and are you concerned that some other more deep-pocketed organizations might go after them? MARK ATTANASIO: Well, they both have -- I don't know to the date, but they both have at least two to three years left. I forget if we made the contracts go terminus or not.

I feel more important that -- contracts are contracts, but what you want to do is create a healthy working environment for people. You want to support them as much as you can, whether it's financially, whether it's through intellectual conversation, whether it's through helping provide support for their families as needed.

And so I feel like the best way -- and this is a great place to be, and I think David and Craig both think it's a great place to be. And so that's really how I try to motivate folks rather than having them locked up under a contract, although we have years left on both.

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