It's No Diego Rivera, But It'll Do

I have some rather mixed feelings towards Miller Park, but one of the things I absolutely love about the place is its respect for many areas of Milwaukee baseball history. In addition to the current Brewers and the Milwaukee Braves, there are shrines to lesser lights such as the Milwaukee Bears and Chicks, Milwaukee's brief experiements with the Negro National League and All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, respectively.

The Brews aren't so honored (yet, if I have anything to say about it), but they are immortalized alongside the Braves and the current ballclub in a series of murals around Miller Park.

There, between beermaking images, is a scene from Borchert Field.

Okay. That's the good. The bad is that, even allowing for artistic license, the Brews never wore anything like that in the Awkward Confines of the Orchard. That's the gray road uniform.

The cap shown there is from 1947-1952, the period in which the Boston Braves owned the team (and which would be subsequently adopted by the National League franchise when they moved west to the Cream City). The jersey, not so much.

We've talked a little about the Braves-era Brewers uniforms before. At home, the Brewers wore a script "Brewers". In 1947, the Brews were still wearing their classic wordmark, with its distinctive "B".

By 1952, the Brewers' last year of existence, their uniforms had evolved to almost a perfect match of those of the Braves:

The piping is now definitely red/navy/red. Note the style of "B" and the Greek "e" on the script, which originated in the Boston Braves wordmark (even the "w" is just two Braves' "v"s run together).

As an aside, and in the same anacronistic theme, I noticed an interesting detail on the mural honoring the 1970 Brewers, entitled "BACK IN THE BIG LEAGUES".

There on the scoreboard, right below Milt Mason (the original Bernie Brewer) in his perch, is a recolored Beer Barrel Man:

Not exactly true to the period, but very cool. Further justification for putting him on the team's sleeve. As if we needed any more.