In our house, Brewers baseball isn’t just background noise, it’s a family thing. Every game is on. Every at-bat is tracked. And the loudest cheers come from my husband while my 20-month-old daughter claps her hands for her favorite player, Isaac Collins. Most people now recognize the Brewers left fielder as the National League Rookie of the Month. We just call him “Uncle Ike.”
Last year, I wrote about Isaac getting called up to the big leagues.
We thought it would be a short stint during late-season call-ups. Isaac and his then-fiancè (now wife), Isabella thought the same. During spring training, they were busy making plans for their future, including preparing to welcome their first child.
Spring training is one of my family’s favorite times of year. We get Uncle Ike, Auntie Iz, and Bebe (my husband’s mom) nearby for a few precious months in Arizona. But I’ve never envied the uncertainty Isaac and Isabella live with, their lives are always in the hands of whatever team Isaac is playing for. They expected to spend this season in Triple A, Nashville, but when assignments came out, they learned Isaac would start the year in Milwaukee. They didn’t necessarily expect it to be a long-term thing.
Then, injuries on the team extended his stay. Eventually, it was just Isaac, proving day after day that he deserved to be an everyday starter.
There are no bigger Brewers fans in Arizona than us. My daughter cheers and claps at all the right times (and if you’ve seen the Brewers’ record lately, that happens pretty often). My husband’s support for his brother is unwavering…he truly doesn’t miss an at-bat. We went on a cruise this summer, the first thing he did whenever we docked after days of not having signal was check Isaac’s stats.
My husband Roman watches his younger brother with so much pride. But mostly, he’s just one of his biggest fans. He’s also very analytical and watches baseball the way you’d kind of expect a former pro player turned computer nerd would.
“It kind of shows itself in the way he plays his game but he’s always been very meticulous and relentless when he does things. So I think that translates really well to baseball because you play a game every day and you have to be consistent. You can see in Isaac’s game he does all of the little things right. He battles every at-bat, he never takes a pitch off on defense and when you do all those things right it translates to success. He might not have super flashy tools but he can do a little bit of everything and he uses that to contribute in a ton of different ways.”
When I asked him to get a little sappy with me he said…
“I am proud of him but its also just fun to watch him and watch the Brewers. It’s just fun to watch them win and watch Isaac do what he does.”
In July, we went to Milwaukee to watch him play at home at American Family Field. I fell in love with the city and its fan base, the small city comes alive for the Brewers.
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One of my favorite moments came at the team shop. My mother-in-law and I bought a toddler jersey for my daughter and had it customized with “Collins #6.” When we picked it up at the team shop during the third inning, I saw a teenager pointing at my daughter’s jersey and say, “That’s an Isaac Collins Jersey! OMG, that’s so cool!”
Being the social butterfly I am, I said something like “Best player on the team!”
My mother-in-law and I struck up a conversation with him and his friend. Turns out, just weeks earlier he wasn’t even a baseball fan. He came out to a game with his friend and Isaac balled out in that game. Suddenly this teenager named Ian became a huge Isaac Collins fan.
He showed us the jersey he was picking up at the same time, it was a much bigger “Collins #6” jersey than the one we bought. I pointed at my husbands mom and said, “well you have her to thank…this is Isaac’s mom.”
I got his phone number and in the next series Ian came back to a game and we brought him on the field for Isaac to sign his jersey. He was psyched! For us, it was just really cool to meet someone who was already a die-hard Isaac Collins fan. 
Last month, Isaac earned the National League Rookie of the Month, putting him on the radar of baseball fans everywhere. Now, he may just be in the Rookie of the Year conversation. But no matter how the votes go, I know personally, he will look back and think this is one of the best years of his life.
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In the past 12 months, he’s married the most amazing woman (so happy to call Isabella my sister-in-law), found out he’s becoming a dad just months after the wedding, secured a starting spot with the Brewers, proven himself every day, earned Rookie of the Month…and this week, he’ll finally meet his baby boy!
Oh, and today? He hit a walk-off home run to sweep the Mets for the Brewers’ ninth straight win.
ISAAC COLLINS #WALKOFF HOMER!
NINE STRAIGHT @BREWERS WINS!SOMETHING SPECIAL IS BREWING IN MILWAUKEE! pic.twitter.com/SzCiqFZmmj
— MLB (@MLB) August 10, 2025
The post Uncle Ike, Rookie of the Year? first appeared on Sports360AZ.
