When Lorenzo Cain and the Brewers put their hands up in celebration, they're just looking for a little love

If you ever wondered what Lorenzo Cain and his Milwaukee Brewers teammates are signaling when they get on base, stretch their arms out over their head and gesture with their hands, it's actually nothing more than a simple request.

"Show me some love."

The signal was started by Cain, the straw that stirs the Brewers' drink as their leadoff hitter and centerfielder, and he's been doing it plenty over the past few months in helping Milwaukee rattle off a National League-best 41 victories. 

"Anytime a player, pitcher, anybody does something special – get a hit, hit a home run, make a diving catch – it’s just letting his teammates know and the fans know to show him some love," Cain explained recently. "Let the love just rain down on 'em.

"I started doing that back in K.C. awhile back and it just kind of stuck. I just continued doing it when I got here, and it's kind of spread around a little bit."

First baseman Jesús Aguilar has his own name for it.

"Love Nation," he said, having made the motion himself plenty this season with a .286 average and 11 home runs. "Show me some love."

Cain wasn't asking for affection during spring training, even though he hit a cool .419.

Instead he waited until the Brewers traveled to Petco Park in San Diego, where he tortured the Padres by reaching base nine times in 15 plate appearances in helping spark a three-game sweep of the season-opening series.

With Cain taking advantage of every opportunity, it wasn't long before his teammates caught on and began reciprocating.

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"We actually didn’t know about it until San Diego, when he kept getting on base. That was the first time we saw it," pitcher Brent Suter recalled. "He was having a great series, and he kept doing that. We were saying, ‘Do you want us to do it back?’

"We weren’t sure what to do at first. Now we all do it back. It’s great."

Team-specific gestures have been relatively common across the major leagues over the last decade or so, and it was only back in 2011 when Prince Fielder and Nyjer Morgan started the "Beast Mode" craze in Milwaukee.

Inspired by the movie "Monsters, Inc.," Fielder, Morgan and the rest of the Brewers would outstretch their arms in a hugging motion anytime they reached base.

It caught on quickly and became popular enough that the team even had a longtime clubhouse attendant dress up as the main character, Sulley, and throw out the first pitch before Game 6 of the NL Championship Series at Miller Park.

"Everybody has their own thing that they do," Cain said. "Look around, and it’s big in every clubhouse. Every team comes up with something that just gets them going in the dugout. Get everybody involved.

"It’s a special bond you want to build with your teammates. It’s a long season, so you find ways to have fun with a lot of the stuff you do inside the clubhouse and out on the field.

"It’s definitely fun."

That Cain is setting the tone for the Brewers in the clubhouse shouldn't come as a surprise.

The five-year, $80 million contract he signed with the team in late January carries plenty of weight, but the 32-year-old began to learn the value of hard work and being a good teammate during his first go-round with the Brewers in 2010.

It was then, in spring training and later during a 43-game stint in 2010, that he suited up alongside and took cues from Fielder and Rickie Weeks - two of the more fierce competitors the franchise has ever seen.

Cain was traded to the Royals that off-season as part of a blockbuster deal for Zack Greinke, and it was in Kansas City that he blossomed.

Two World Series and one World Series championship later and he's back in Milwaukee, setting the tone for a Brewers team that expects to make its first postseason appearance since that 96-win 2011 squad.

"I just kind of set back and just watched how those guys worked," Cain said of Fielder and Weeks. "Now that I’m one of the older guys, I’m trying to show these guys. All these guys go about their business in the right way, so it’s very easy to just kind of fall in line."

Ryan Braun already had established himself as one of the best players in the NL when Cain first broke in. Eight years later, he's following Cain's lead by asking for a little love whenever he gets on base. 

"He’s not vocal in the locker room, but he leads with the way he plays and the way he competes," Braun said. "I think his best attribute as a player is his competitiveness. When he gets on the field he competes his butt off every day, and I think that’s something that sets the right example as a veteran guy and I think it’s something that everybody definitely feeds off of."

Cain, who leads the Brewers with 240 at-bats, 39 walks, a defensive WAR at 1.3 and dirty uniforms, agreed with Braun's assessment of his leadership style. But he also pointed out the foundation had been laid before he got here in the form of a motivated group of players.

"I’m more of a lead-by-example type of guy," he said. "I’m not really a rah-rah guy, screaming and yelling on the bench. I’m not really that guy. I try to go out there and play the game and do the right things on the field and just kind of show these guys how to go about their business each and every day.

"But it’s easy for these guys, because they all go about their business the right way and they all go out and play hard and give their all. So it was definitely easy to jump right in."

One of the up-and-coming players who quickly took notice of how hard Cain plays and how he goes about his business was Aguilar.

"He shows this team a lot of positive things," Aguilar said. "He’s a good leader, he’s a good teammate, a good guy. You see him playing hard every time and you want to follow him - just play the right way, play hard and good things happen."

It was Cain who drove in the Brewers' lone run in their 1-0 shutout of the Chicago Cubs on Wednesday at Miller Park with a third-inning homer.

As usual, he asked for some love as he crossed home plate. Then he, Braun and Christian Yelich came together in the outfield and asked for seconds after Corey Knebel struck out Willson Contreras to seal the series victory.

If all goes according to plan, Cain hopes to be presiding over a Summer of Love in Milwaukee.

"We love it," Suter said. "If you look up in the stands, you see a lot of fans doing it now, too. It’s pretty cool."

Added Aguilar: "It's been happening a lot this year. We've got to keep it going."