A Complete History Of Milwaukee Brewers Stadiums: Milwaukee County Stadium

Long before the ‘modern’ major league Milwaukee Brewers came into existence, a team from Boston moved to Milwaukee and became the Milwaukee Braves. But to see the origins of Milwaukee County Stadium, one needs to go back even further in time. 

The original minor league Milwaukee Brewers came into existence in 1902 and were affiliated with the St. Louis Browns (1929-1933) and the Boston Braves, as a Triple-A club from 1947-52. The Brewers played at Athletic Park, which was located a few miles north of downtown Milwaukee. Constructed in 1888 for an estimated $40,000, it was also the home to both the Milwaukee Badgers, an NFL team from 1922-26, and for one game with the Green Bay Packers in 1933. The park was renamed Borchert Field at the start of the 1928 baseball season in honor of previous owner Otto Borchert, who had died of a heart attack a year earlier while speaking at a baseball dinner that was broadcast on the radio. The Brewers were the sole tenants until the last baseball game was played there in 1952.

During the late 1940s/early 1950s, Milwaukee civic leaders were seeking a major league franchise, but Borchert Field was seen as too decrepit and too small to host a big-league team. In June 1950, plans for a $3.5 million stadium were presented to the Milwaukee County board highway committee by the park commission. The original seating capacity was 26,000, which could be increased by 10,000 temporary seats (Oshkosh Northwestern, June 16, 1950). Initially, the minor league Brewers were going to play there but that plan would change. 

Groundbreaking for the project took place on October 19. Two months later, construction foreman Joseph Wicks was killed when a timber slipped from a crane and crushed his head. Wicks was helping lay the stadium foundation (Twin City News-Record, December 14, 1950). 

In addition to the 36,000 seats, ‘Milwaukee County Municipal Stadium’ would have parking for up to 10,000 automobiles. The stadium ‘will be of modern design, with rose-colored brick and has all the features of stadia built to date’ (Capital Times, June 26, 1951). Bernard Gimbel, ‘sportsman’ and president of Gimbels Department Stores, said the new stadium “would rank with any in the nation when it is finished.” He went on to say that the stadium “will make Milwaukee a better place to live by giving the city top facilities for sports and other mass audience events” (Green Bay Press-Gazette, August 9, 1951). In mid-December, county officials said that the stadium would not be finished in time for the 1952 baseball season due to delays by bad weather and slow delivery of steel (Beaver Dam Daily Citizen, December 17, 1951).

To further complicate matters, a 29-day construction workers strike in May 1952 was another setback that meant the stadium would not be ready for any part of the 1952 season. The strike delayed raising of steelwork and pouring of concrete in the stadium. In late July, another construction worker was killed when a hoist plunged 90 feet and killed Fred Maypark. Another worker, Carl Walter, suffered fractures in both legs and a possible broken back (Janesville Weekly Gazette, July 25, 1952). 

Three weeks before Christmas 1952, Boston Braves’ owner Lou Perini denied the Braves would move to Milwaukee for the 1953 campaign. “The Braves will definitely remain in Boston in 1953,” Perini stated (Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune, December 3, 1952). That plan would change dramatically over the next four months. In January, Brewers general manager Red Smith announced that the Brewers would play five exhibition games against major league teams in 1953, including the New York Yankees, Boston Braves, Chicago White Sox, Chicago Cubs, and Pittsburgh Pirates (Wisconsin State Journal, January 13, 1953).

The dance between the St. Louis Browns and the Boston Braves to play in the Brew City started in earnest in early March, as both teams were interested in moving their respective franchises to Milwaukee. Bill Veeck, owner of the Browns, ‘was certainly agreeable’ to moving the franchise to Milwaukee. The Braves blocked the move because they demanded another Triple-A franchise ‘just as good as Milwaukee’ (Beaver Dam Daily Citizen, March 4, 1953).

Meanwhile, the Brewers said all box seats and reserved seats had been sold for the Opening Day game with St. Paul on April 15 at the new stadium (Green Bay Press-Gazette, March 12, 1953). That all changed on March 18 when the National League approved the transfer of the Boston Braves to Milwaukee. The Brewers minor league franchise moved to Toledo and became the Toledo Sox. 

How excited was Wisconsin now that the Badger State had a major league baseball team? The Park Falls, Wisconsin, Chamber of Commerce announced that the first two Braves players to hit home runs at Milwaukee County Stadium would be awarded free musky fishing trips on the Flambeau flowage in northwestern Wisconsin (Capital Times, March 23, 1953). 

Eight days before the season opener with St. Louis on April 14, the Braves were given special permission by the National League to sell bleacher seat tickets before the day of the game and 2,000 fans lined up to purchase the tickets, which cost 80 cents each (Two Rivers Reporter, April 6, 1953).

On an Opening Day where ‘a chilly 20 mph wind whipped the open stands under sullen and occasionally spilled light rain,’ 34,357 fans braved the conditions and were rewarded with a walk-off home run by star rookie Billy Bruton in the 10^th inning as the Braves beat the Cardinals 3-2 in their first home game. Lefthander Warren Spahn pitched a complete game for the victory, allowing only six hits and two runs in 10 innings while facing 39 batters.

The Braves drew over 30,000 fans 38 times that season, and had a total attendance of 1,826,397, setting a National League record. In the offseason, the Braves spent $1.8 million on new seating, including a double-deck expansion on the third base side and new grandstand seating down the first base line. The new seating capacity would now total 44,000 (Capital Times, December 23, 1953).

Milwaukee finished either second or third in their first four seasons before putting it all together in 1957 as they won the National League title and beat the New York Yankees in an exciting seven-game World Series. In 1958, the Yankees got their revenge, beating the Braves in another seven-game World Series. The turnstiles clicked to the tune of 2,215,404 fans in 1957, setting a National League mark that would last until it was bested by the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1960.

In November 1962, Perini sold the team for $5.5 million to a group of Chicago-area executives, led by Bill Bartolomay. Perini ‘found it more and more difficult’ to participate in team affairs and said he was disappointed with the slumping attendance and poor standing in the league. The Braves drew only 766,921 in the 1962 season, prompting Perini to sell the club. 

Bartholomay, who briefly was a part of a minority ownership of the Chicago White Sox, had to quash rumors in early 1964 that the team would be moving to Atlanta. “We are positively not moving,” Bartholomay said. “We’re playing in Milwaukee, whether you’re talking 1964, 1965, or 1975. We’ll play in Milwaukee as long as we’re welcome” (Merrill Daily Herald, April 11, 1964). That lasted for the next two seasons as the Braves moved to Atlanta after the 1965 campaign. Attendance in that final season was 555,584, which ranked as the worst in the National League.

The stadium stayed mostly empty except for Green Bay Packer ‘home games,’ usually three or four per year in addition to those at Lambeau Field. In 1968 the White Sox played nine games at County Stadium and drew over 264,000 fans, an average of 29,300 per game. In comparison, they drew just 539,000 in Chicago over 72 games, an average of just 7,400 per game. The following season saw the White Sox play 11 games at County Stadium, but they only drew an average of 18,000 fans per game. It probably didn’t help matters that White Sox owner Arthur Allyn said, “I wish they’d get off that kick that we’re going to move anywhere. I’ve said it before: we’re not moving to Milwaukee today, next year, or ever” (Wausau Daily Herald, April 24, 1969).

The Seattle Pilots, a 1969 expansion team, was having financial difficulties after the season and into 1970. In January, Pilots’ chief stockholder, William Daley, said “[I’m] very impressed with Milwaukee. I can honestly say that it is an excellent facility for major league baseball” (Oshkosh Northwestern, January 24, 1970). In late March, federal bankruptcy referee Sidney Volinn approved the sale of the Pilots to a Milwaukee group led by Allen H. (Bud) Selig for $10.8 million.

The team that entered spring training as the Seattle Pilots emerged as the Milwaukee Brewers. Their home opener had the second-largest crowd of the year at 36,107, but they saw the Brewers get crushed by the California Angels, 12-0. Milwaukee entertained their biggest crowd on August 16 to a 4-3 walk-off win over Cleveland. The immortal Gus Gil singled home the winning run in the bottom of the ninth in front of 44,387 happy fans. The Brewers only drew 933,690 the first year, but the next two years were worse as the gate dropped to 600,440 in 1972. They drew 955,741 in 1974 but never drew less than one million fans per season over the next 26 seasons, excluding the strike year of 1981.  

For the record, Billy Bruton and Eddie Mathews hit the first two home runs in Milwaukee Braves history at County Stadium.