A visit from the president had Brewers' bus stuck in gridlock traffic in NYC. So they had to get creative.
NEW YORK – Hoby Milner has come through time and time again in pressure situations for the Milwaukee Brewers.
Typically, those come on the mound, working in and out of jams in his role as a high-leverage reliever.
On Thursday, he navigated a different kind of traffic.
A visit to New York City by President Joe Biden caused traffic to reach a standstill in parts of Manhattan, and caught in the gridlock happened to be a Brewers team bus headed to Citi Field.
During what is normally a commute of 45 minutes to an hour to get to the ballpark in Flushing, the Brewers had moved six blocks from their hotel in roughly 50 minutes. As the bus had sat motionless through six or seven cycles of the stoplight, 3 p.m. was quickly approaching with a 7:10 ET first pitch ahead.
“I was sitting there and we hadn’t moved in like 15 minutes,” Brewers pitcher Corbin Burnes said. “I turned around and was like, We’re going to have to take the damn train.”
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After a few more minutes of not moving, Milner made the first move.
“I put it in the GPS,” Milner said, “and said, hey, follow me.”
Burnes was the first one to follow, but far from the most important. That distinction belonged to Adrian Houser, that night’s starting pitcher.
“I was like, all right, I don’t think we’re going to make it anytime soon,” Milner said. “Siri said 50 minutes and that was if we started moving, so I checked how fast the subway would be. And it said, like, 32 minutes.”
So off got Milner, Burnes, Houser, Brian Anderson, Julio Teheran, Joel Payamps and Bryse Wilson at 54th Street and Lexington Avenue – smack dab in the middle of Midtown – and they followed the lefty to the subway, where they caught the Blue Line to the 7 train, which took them to the stadium in half an hour.
The bus, still carrying Matt Bush, Elvis Peguero and Raimel Tapia, eventually reached the stadium, a bit over 30 minutes after the public commuters.
And those weren’t the only players who had a tough time getting to the stadium. Devin Williams, Owen Miller and Jesse Winker were among those who caught an Uber ride, which took more than two hours. The last bus of the day, which left the hotel at 3 p.m., took roughly an hour and a half.
Most importantly, though, everyone arrived.
“Hoby’s the MVP of today,” Burnes said.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Brewers use subway, Uber as Biden's visit slows bus ride to Citi Field
