Move over St. Louis: The Cubs might have a bigger rival in the division #Brewers

Two years ago in April in St. Louis, the Cardinals played soothing, classical music during Cubs batting practice. And Busch Stadium ushers tried to crack down on Cubs fans wearing “Try Not To Suck” T-shirts during the same series under the guise of enforcing a stadium rule banning “obscene or indecent clothing.”

“We love the psychological entertainment warfare,” Cubs manager Joe Maddon said then.

It didn’t work, of course. The Cubs won that series, 103 games during the season and eventually the World Series. The Cards haven’t been to the playoffs since.

Fast-forward two years: Roll over Beethoven, and move over St. Louis. The Cubs are headed to Milwaukee, and the Brewers are coming after the Cubs.

In what promises to be the Cubs’ first series with some baseball emotion to it — if not some tone-setting for the National League Central — they play the next four against the team they caught down the stretch last year for the division title.

“Love it. It’s Hazleton vs. West Hazleton,” Maddon said of the growing rivalry between the upstart Brewers and two-time defending division champs. “I think St. Louis is still there, too. Intensity-wise, I think what’s happened is Milwaukee is ascending to that level that’s already existed between us and St. Louis.”

Intensity at a Cubs-Cardinals level?

Good thing for the Cubs this is being played in their home away from home — Wrigley North at Miller Park — where Cubs fans often outnumber the hometown fans.

Except for one thing.

In a move straight out of the Cardinals’ T-shirt playbook, the Brewers staged a “presale” event for all 10 Cubs games at Miller Park — for “Wisconsin residents only.”

“It’s not that we dislike Cubs fans per se,” said the team in a tweet advertising the sale. “We just really prefer Brewers fans.”

If anything, it was only a continuation of verbal jabs and perceived gamesmanship between the teams that started early last season when the Brewers began flexing their newfound muscle at the expense of a Cubs team still irritable from that World Series hangover.

Cubs pitcher John Lackey seemed to insinuate Brewers first baseman Eric Thames benefitted from some extra Flintstones vitamin power after homering into the wind at Wrigley in April — “one of those things that makes you scratch your head a little bit” — with pitching coach Chris Bosio echoing the sentiment in a radio interview.

The Brewers and Thames made it known that Thames had been drug-tested multiple times, including the next day.

A month later, the third-place Cubs drew the ire of the first-place Brewers when they announced a rainout two hours before the game on a day in which it never rained during the scheduled window for the game.

“It’s the first time our players were treated for sunburn after a rainout,” said Brewers manager Craig Counsell, whose team had opened the series the night before with a win over the Cubs.

And late in the season, with the Brewers fading, and the Cubs charging, the Brewers appealed to Major League Baseball to try to block the Cubs from rescheduling an afternoon game at Wrigley Field against the Brewers to a specially-approved Friday night start – arguing it created a competitive advantage for the Cubs, who traveled home from a road trip that Thursday night.

The Brewers lost the argument, and the game.

“It’s good for the game,” Maddon said of the intensifying rivalry with all its sideshows. “It’s good for both communities.”

But it can only happen if both teams are an on-field threat to the other.

And if the Brewers’ 5 ½-game division lead at the All-Star break, and their 86-win season wasn’t enough to suggest the threat they have become to the Cubs, then their additions of All-Star outfielders Lorenzo Cain and Christian Yelich within a 24-hour period in January certainly did.

“You can’t contrive it. People that attempt to contrive rivalry I always got a kick out of,” Maddon said. “It either exists or it doesn’t. It’s an organic thing. You cannot force rivalry.”

This one might not be going away anytime soon.