As a longtime Milwaukee Brewers grounds crew member who's helped make the magic happen for decades, many of Monte Owens' nights belong to baseball.
During games, he's run across the field between innings to clean the bases and rake the infield. He's been in the bullpen, opening the gates to let the pitchers out. And he's jumped up and down to celebrate every hit, every run and every win.
"I love baseball, so I'm there at every home game," Owens, a 57-year-old, born-and raised-Milwaukeean who now lives in Brown Deer, said. "We're gonna win it all. I know for a fact."
Owens started working for the team 35 years ago. Because he's taken some seasons off, he's logged 25 seasons during that stretch.
And he has another personal connection to the Brewers.
For years, his mother Elizabeth Owens worked as a nanny for the daughters of Allan "Bud" Selig - former Major League Baseball commissioner and the man responsible for bringing the Brewers to Milwaukee.
And when one of Selig's daughter's had her own daughter, Elizabeth was her nanny, too.
"She was part of my life from day one," Wendy Selig-Prieb said of Liz in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "She was family by choice, and by love."
Selig-Prieb, who previously served as the Brewers' president and CEO, said on Oct. 23 that she was just talking with her daughter, Natalie, the night before about how much they wished Liz was still alive.
Owens said he essentially grew up with the Selig family.
When he joined his mother during her visits to the family home, Bud Selig would let him hang out to watch TV and look at baseball cards. And when he and his mother attended Brewers games, they often got to go up to Selig's office. Selig always gave him a Pepsi and baseball.
Owens would sit in Selig's big office chair at the stadium and spin in circles. Elizabeth always told him not to, but he recalls Selig saying, 'No no, it's OK. Let him be a boy."
When Selig's daughters moved away, Selig would often fly Elizabeth with him to visit them, Owens said.
And in 1991, when 22-year-old Owens needed a job, Elizabeth talked to Selig, who offered Owens a spot on the grounds crew.
When Elizabeth died in 2020, Selig-Prieb paid for her headstone, Owens said. A diehard fan who passed on her love of Brewers baseball to her son, her headstone is engraved with a baseball and two bats. Owens designed it.
"In Loving Memory of Our Mother," her headstone reads. "A Mother's Love is Eternal."
"She would be so happy about where the Brewers are today," Owens said. "I might break down and cry. I love the Brewers so much. And for my mom to not be here…" His voice trailed off.
A return trip to the World Series - 44 years later
Owens did make it to the 1982 World Series − his cousin took him − but Elizabeth never got to go. He was 13 at the time. She was working another job at a hospital.
Forty-four years later, he'll again be at the Fall Classic, working this time. But he knows his mother's watching from up above.
"When she died, it was the hardest pill to swallow. But she lived a good life; she was 85," he said. "What I’m sad about is that my mom missed this. But I’m making her proud. I’m pushing forward. I'll be there for her."
Owens' day doesn't end when he's done at the ballpark
When the games are over, often around 11 p.m., Owens' work isn't done. While his nights belong to baseball, his mornings − very early mornings − belong to the news.
While much of Milwaukee is asleep, Owens is still on the move, picking up a hefty heap of newspapers for his daily delivery route.
He rides his scooter around the east side of Milwaukee and Shorewood for hours until they're delivered to more than 200 customers, including 110 Journal Sentinel readers, 50 Wall Street Journal readers and more than 50 New York Times subscribers. He's typically done by 6 a.m., he said.
For years, he made those deliveries by car, using a quarter tank of gas every day to complete his route. But when rising gas prices began eating away at his earnings, he needed a new solution.
"A light came on in my head," he said. A newspaper customer had given him the scooter as a present, and a manager had given him bags that had sat unused in his garage for over a year. Eventually, he affixed the bags to the handlebars and began using the scooter to carry papers along his route.
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When he gets home, typically around 6 a.m., he sleeps through the afternoon before reporting to the ballpark around 5 p.m.
Sometimes, he pulls all-nighters, but other times, after late games, he naps in the parking lot while waiting for the newspaper pickup doors to open.
"People call me crazy," Owens said.
On the morning of Oct. 16, after the Brewers defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers, punching their ticket to the World Series for the second time in franchise history and first time since 1982, Owens got to deliver the good news in print.Contact Claudia Levens at clevens@usatodayco.com. Follow her on X at @levensc13.Contact Mary Spicuzza at mspicuzza@jrn.com.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Longtime Brewers grounds crew member relishes team's playoff run