From where I grew up on the north side of suburban Chicago, it's a pretty easy drive up to Milwaukee for Brewers games. When Barry Bonds was one homer short of 700 and the Giants were playing in Milwaukee, the research department and I drove up for three games straight. Miller Park has a lot of things the ballparks in Chicago don't offer. The guy who controls the music that goes over the PA there is the hippest in the bigs; I heard Franz Ferdinand's "Take Me Out" for the first time at a Brewers game and the last time I was there they played a Get Up Kids song. There's a roof, obviously. There are wide parking lots that stretch for as far as the eye can see and if you get there early enough every sight and smell is one worth seeing. The residents of Wisconsin did not invent tailgating, they merely perfected it. And there's the sausage race, which is even better now that the chorizo is competing. (We're a little unclear on what kept the chorizo out last year. Was its little moustache and big sombrero really any more or less offensive to Mexicans than the already ridiculous and harmless stereotypes the bratwurst, Italian sausage, and Polish sausage might be to their respective represented ethnicities?)

But the best thing about Miller Park is the hot nuts. Top five hot nuts jokes from Tuesday night in Milwaukee:

1. Dude, could you hold on to my hot nuts for just a second?
2. Oh, man, I just can't get enough of your hot nuts.
3. I thought that blonde might like you but she was totally using you for your hot nuts.
4. I think I got something stuck in my teeth from your hot nuts.
5. Ever since I saw your hot nuts all I have been thinking about is getting some hot nuts of my own.