I’m a regular visitor here, but Milwaukee has certainly had its share of visitors. … In fact, it’s pronounced ‘Mill-e-wah-que,’ which is Algonquin for ‘The Good Land.'”

Like Alice Cooper in “Wayne’s World,” I too share a deep affinity for the city of Milwaukee. Every year my friends and I make the 90-minute road trip to The Good Land and hit up the old haunts: showing up drunk to the Miller Brewery tour, hitting on waitresses during an extended repast on Water Street — “seriously, miss, you’re the prettiest woman I’ve ever seen handling a plate of sausage” — and passing out by the fourth inning at a Brewers game.

After a Milwaukee road trip of their own this week, the Cubs looked like the ones who had one too many. There are no excuses for being swept by the historically hapless Brewers. Actually, there are plenty of excuses: injuries, questionable umpiring and the typical junk the team throws around when times get rough.

But there are more important things than a brief spring swoon — like how Milwaukee should be one of the best baseball towns in America.

I’ll be heading back up for the final road trip of my college career this Saturday. After the boozing and boorishness, I’ll certainly nod off as the Brew Crew takes on the Mets — not because baseball is boring (which it can be) or because I’m a lightweight (which I am), but because Miller Park has the atmosphere of a North Dakota airplane hangar.

Aside from Opening Day, only a game against the division-leading Cardinals drew more than 30,000 fans. All three Cubs games had crowds just under that number — made mostly of Cubs fans. If you watched any of the three-game series, you’d have seen a sea of Cubs shirts behind home plate as Miller Park became Wrigley North.

“Whenever they played ‘guess the attendance’ at Brewer games, I’d always pick the lowest number,” Communication senior and lifelong Wisconsinite Steve Gensler told me. “It’s not funny how many times I was right.”

Before the hate mail starts flowing in — I’m looking at you, White Sox fans — I want to say how much I love Milwaukee fans. The few who come to the games wear their loyalty as a badge of honor. I once saw an elderly couple wearing matching “I survived the Brewers season of 1993” shirts. That team lost 92 games and finished 26 games out of first place.

After 12 straight losing seasons, the Brewers have long been the poster children for careless ownership. The team has been a halfway house for young talent, trading expensive veterans for prospects, then dumping them when their contracts came up. The Selig family — which had owned it since its move from Seattle in 1969 — pinched pennies, extorted taxpayers for a new ballpark and sold the team this year. Why should fans spend money when the Seligs won’t?

Still, Milwaukee ranks high as a baseball getaway. Where else in America can you get three free beers just for taking a free brewery tour, catch a baseball game for next to nothing — and get to see five guys race around the field in giant sausage suits?

So if the Cubs are on the road, you should be, too. Hop in the car, pick up a block of Gouda as big as your head at the Mars Cheese Castle on I-94 and take in the simple pleasures of The Good Land.

And if the Brewers revert back to their old ways, perhaps blame someone else other than the Seligs.

“When I was in the womb, the Brewers were in the World Series,” Gensler said. “When I was born, we started to suck. This may all be my fault.”

Assistant forum editor Christopher Kenny can be reached at [email protected].