Milwaukee's Kevin Mench stands in left field as the racing sausages stroll along the outfield wall last week in Milwaukee. The sausage races, once widely considered the main attraction at Miller Park, have taken a backseat to the surging Brewers.

Milwaukee's Geoff Jenkins, left, and Bill Hall celebrate a victory against Washington on Monday in Milwaukee.

Milwaukee ? Brewers manager Ned Yost is sitting in the winningest dugout in the big leagues, talking about what life was like at the bottom of baseball.

“We know about living in that freaking basement. We’ve been down there in the dark, dank basement with that one burned-out light bulb,” he said.

The Brewers have moved upstairs. It’s only May, but there is a sense with this team that they’re in it for the long run.

That’s right, the Brewers, the one-time joke of baseball who were better known for their sausage races than the team they put on the field, have the best record in baseball.

The sausage races are awesome, and Pittsburgh and Washington have copied the goofy and entertaining format that was Milwaukee’s signature baseball event.

But now there’s a buzz about this team in Milwaukee, and people around baseball are beginning to look at the Brewers in a different way.

“I don’t really care,” said Yost. “If they’re not looking at us now, they will before too long. I don’t care what other people think. I care what we think. I still don’t think we’ve hit our stride.”

The day Yost took over in 2003, he was beaming with optimism about turning it around. He said back then that he expected this. He was from Bobby Cox University, a longtime third-base coach with the Braves, who brought a hard-nose lunch-bucket brand of baseball and an unrelenting desire to turn Milwaukee into a winner.

“It’s nothing more than the vision we had five years ago,” Yost said. “We knew we had great, young, talented kids in the minor leagues, and we knew we had to tread water until they got here, and when they got here we would be able to compete with the addition of a free agent or two. I’m not surprised. I saw it years ago.”

Looking for a benchmark day? Try Christmas Eve, when the Brewers signed free agent pitcher Jeff Suppan, the MVP of the NLCS for the world champion Cardinals.

“It kind of sent a signal that, hey, we’re making some headway, and we’ve got guys who want to play for us, and we’re getting close,” Yost said.

“The first couple of years we couldn’t even get to close to having a guy consider coming here. The last year or two all of a sudden the interest in free agents started to get more and more, and to finally sign one of Suppan’s caliber was great for us.”

Suppan said: “I knew this was a good team, and Yost showed me their plan to win, and I believed we could win here.”

“Nobody wants to go to a small-market team that can’t win,” Yost said.

The kids have made a difference. First baseman Prince Fielder, second baseman Rickie Weeks and shortstop J.J. Hardy are hooked at the hip, a young threesome who came up together in the minors to help redefine Brewers baseball.

“Yost has us brainwashed,” Fielder said. “I was talking to Weeks and Hardy about it the other day. We changed when we got here, everything from not giving in with two strikes to running bases better and playing better defense. The biggest thing is he makes you believe you should win and you are going to win.”

It’s been a while. The Brewers haven’t been in the postseason in 25 years, a fact that makes Fielder smile. “Yeah, I’m 22, so that’s a long time to go without winning,” he said.

There are no superstars in the lineup, but Yost has a core of decent players, a solid rotation and the best setup-closer combination in the game in Derrick Turnbow and closer Francisco Cordero, who saved 10 games in April. Yost always had a plan.

“I have a great amount of respect for what Ned has done. He had a vision. You have a plan, and you try not to deviate from it,” Brewers general manager Doug Melvin said. “We had to build around our young players, because we’re not going to be a club that gets overly active in free agency, and we have to be selective.

“We looked at three teams to pattern ourselves. We looked at Florida, Minnesota and Oakland. We decided not to be like Florida, because they built up and tore down. We wanted to pattern ourselves more like Oakland and Minnesota.”

Teams might be using Milwaukee as the new pattern to copy – and not just for the sausage races.