1944 AAGPBL Schedule

This tweet recently caught my eye:

1944 League Schedule. #6gamesaweek #doubleheadersonSunday #norest #DiamondGirls2018 #WomeninBaseballWeek pic.twitter.com/LfFKTvGn1J

— DiamondGirls (@menageriepro) July 24, 2018

"DiamondGirls" is the official account of a "one-act, one-woman show about three Saskatchewan gals in the AAGPBL." And they post amazing AAGPBL-related content. Including this 1944 league schedule. Let's take a closer look at it:

The Milwaukee Schnitts are the second column from the left, just after their expansion sisters, the Minneapolis Orphans.

The first thing that jumps out at me is the large holes in that schedule. The Schnitts had their first series at the end of May, opening their season with three games at Borchert Field against the South Bend Blue Sox. And then they went on the road and didn't return until June 16th. Hard to create local momentum when the Milwaukee fans can't see you. And then again in July, when they went over a month&mdashJuly 5th through August 10th—without a home game. Minneapolis also had large holes in their schedule, leading me to believe that it might have involved sharing their ballparks with American Association club that had preference in booking dates. Perhaps it is not a surprise that the AAGPBL struggled to take off in the larger cities.

Worth also noting that the Minneapolis club lost their home partway through their season, leading that second-half schedule to be played on the road. Which is why the franchise originally called the "Millerettes" is today commonly known as the "Orphans".

The second thing I want to point out is the notation along the bottom: "Week Day Game in all cities are played at night except those marked (D) in Milwaukee, which are played during the day." We know that was due to scheduling conflicts with the Brewers. Of the 48 home dates on this schedule, twelve are listed as double-headers. That leaves 36 single home games, of which fourteen were played during the day (eight of those on weekdays). Permanent lights had been installed at Borchert Field in 1935, so the Brewers were well-equipped for night games.

The Schnitts were forced to play more than half their games in the afternoon. That, coupled with the long stretches without games, show what an uphill battle for fans they were fighting before the season even started.

1915 Brewers Home Schedule

This Brewers home game schedule was published in early 1915:

At first glance, it looks pretty straightforward. Opening Day at Athletic Park (still a decade away from being re-named Borchert Field) was April 15, the last regular-season home game was September 11th.

The American Association roster was fairly stable, and all the usual suspects are there: Minneapolis, St. Paul, Indianapolis, Columbus, Louisville, Kansas City, and... Cleveland?!

Yes, Cleveland. The Cleveland Spiders, to be precise. And their story leads us to the history of the Federal League.

The Federal League of Base Ball Clubs was an "outlaw" league that tried to challenge Major League Baseball. Founded in 1913, it set itself up as a third major league in 1914, with clubs in Brooklyn, Chicago, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Baltimore, Kansas City, and Buffalo.

The Federal League had fielded a team in Cleveland in 1913—the "Green Sox", managed by Cy Young—but Cleveland Indians owner Charley Somers was determined to keep the Feds out of his town. Somers moved the American Association's Toledo Mud Hens, which he also owned, to Cleveland starting with the 1914 season. The relocated Mud Hens were known as the "Cleveland Bearcats".

In 1915, the Federal League continued to come on strong. In January that year, it filed an antitrust suit against the American and National Leagues. The upstarts were also successful in luring major league players to their outlaw league. Somers renamed his American Association club the "Cleveland Spiders", after an old National League team.

League Park in Cleveland, circa 1911

The Bearcats/Spiders played in League Park, the home of the Indians. This took up the open dates left by Indians road games and essentially shut the Federal League out of Cleveland. That meant that, for these two years, the Brewers played a succession of road games in a major league ballpark.

The Feds were unable to crack Northern Ohio, but were fairly successful in forcing the Majors to take notice. Following the 1915 season, the majority of the owners agreed cease operations, and drop their legal action against organized baseball, in exchange for a cash settlement. The lawsuit would be carried on by the Baltimore Terrapins' owners, in a futile attempt to keep big-league ball in the Charm City, but would eventually end with the establishment of baseball's antitrust exemption.

Other Federal League owners were more successful; Charles Weeghman, owner of the erstwhile Chicago Whales, purchased the Chicago Cubs. He promptly moved them into into the Whales' Weeghman Park, which you know today as Wrigley Field. The St. Louis Terriers owner Phil Ball bought the American League's St. Louis Browns. Ball would become important to Milwaukee's story in a couple decades, when he bought a controlling interest in the Brewers.

And, of course, Somers moved his American Association club back to Toledo and the Mud Hens were reborn. Those Cleveland Spiders are now just a footnote in baseball history, an interesting curiosity buried in the home schedule for our 1915 Milwaukee Brewers.

1919 Schedule Card

This 1919 schedule card sold a couple years ago on eBay. A simple wallet-sized card, it lists the team's schedule, both "At Home" and "Abroad".

On the back, a 1919 calendar.

Notice that there's no team nickname. There's a very good reason for that, but it's a story for another time.

1936 American Association Schedule

This league schedule table was published in the Sporting News in early 1936.

It shows all the matchups for the Association. As the notation indicates, the Association was experimenting that year with holding their Season Opener on a Sunday.

If you're looking for just the highlights, here it is:

This is what fans in '36 had to look forward to, eighty years ago.

1948 Capital Airlines Pocket Schedule

This 1948 Milwaukee Brewers pocket schedule was printed up by Capital Airlines to promote their service in and out of Milwaukee.

On the front, a generic if stylish view of a gentleman picking up his tickets from the counter. Remember when air travel was glamorous and adventuresome? Me neither.

"Serving Air-Minded America for Over 20 Years" refers to Capital's founding in Pittsburgh in 1936 as Pennsylvania Central Airlines. They re-branded to Capital the year this schedule had printed.

The reverse lists all the Brewers contests at Borchert Field.

It might have been fun for an airline to produce a schedule of road games, which fans might fly to see. But a list of home games is probably more practical for fans in Milwaukee.

Compare it with this 1948 schedule, printed by the Brewers themselves.

These schedules were printed up for many of the pro teams in cities served by Capital, such as the Baltimore Colts of the All-America Football Conference.

At the time, Capital was an eastern-based airline as seen in this 1952 route map:

Not many American Association cities on there, although the Brewers could fly Capital for their road trips to Minneapolis, St. Paul or Toledo.

Capital Airlines merged into United Airlines in 1961.

1943 Pocket Schedule

In 1943, the Milwaukee Brewers were searching for their first American Association pennant since 1936. America was at war, and FDR was in the White House. Bread cost nine cents a loaf, three pennies bought you a first-class stamp, and the average American annual salary was $2,500. A Brewer fan could look at this pocket schedule to decide which games he or she would be spending part of that salary on.

This is a little larger than most pocket schedules; about 3¼ by 5 inches folded. On the cover, manager Charlie Grimm and mascot Owgust rally the fans.

1943 was a great year to "come out to Borchert Field and watch the Brewers play ball!". Owner/president Bill Veeck was starting his second year at the helm.

The Brewers must have loved that photo of Jolly Cholly - they used it again on the pocket schedule the next year.

On the inside, the list of games.

Look at all those night games in red! The Brewers didn't play their first night game until June 6, 1935, and now eight years later the Brews were playing most of their games under the floodlights.

Apparently when this schedule went to prees Veeck hadn't yet thought of holding 10 am morning games for war production swing-shift workersl the first morning game was held on June 5, which is marked here in blue as just another day game. I wonder when the idea first came to Sport Shirt Bill?

The Brews also had three exhibition games during the regular season; the Brewers would welcome the Yankees and Cardinals to Borchert Field, and would hop just across the border to play the draftees at the Great Lakes Naval Station in North Chicago.

And in case you were wondering, the average price of a gallon of gas that year (presumably even MobilGas) was 15¢.

Even sixty years ago, teams were looking for ways to make ticket-buying as easy as possible for their fans. Buy them by mail, head on down to Borchert Field, call the ticket office at COncord 3180, or stop in to Gimbel's downtown to pick them up.

And look at all those options. Box seats a buck-and-a-quarter, but kids could get 'em for sixty-five cents. Grandstands for 85¢ and the bleachers were forty-five cents for adults and twenty-five for children. When was the last time kids got a reduced rate at the ballpark?

Wadham's Oil Company had been sponsoring the "Sport Flash", with "up to the minute sport news" since at least 1933. Even if you couldn't make it to the ballpark any of those nights, you could still get updates on the radio.

For those fans who did get to Borchert Field, they saw some pretty good games. The Brewers finished 1943 with a 90-61 record, taking home the club's fourth pennant.

1940 Schedule - Yellow Cab

This schedule from 1940 is common of the type printed up by businesses from the early days of baseball through today.

In addition to the Brewers' home and road games, the schedule lists the home dates for the Cubs and White Sox. The Chicago clubs had a special relationship with Milwaukee; as the two Major League clubs closest to Milwaukee, they were often adopted by Cream City fans as their "big league club". The White Sox almost moved to Milwaukee in 1970, but that's a story for another day.

On every page, you can call Yellow Cab at MArquette 1800.

Yellow Cab is still around, although they have since become a co-operative.

(Document Wisconsin, Flickr)

They even still have the same phone number, albeit updated for modern convention.

Reposted: 1944 Pocket Schedule

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Editor's Note: This is part of our 1944 retrospective. It was originally posted on September 16, 2011.

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We return again to early 1944 - this pocket schedule gave Brewer fans a peek at the season ahead of them.

On the cover, Owgust makes a great leap for the catch. This is why I love mascot logos; the graphic versatility. The Brewers' marketing department could field a whole team of Owgusts running, pitching, catching, batting and even flashing a little glove.

On the inside, we see the Brewers' schedule of games, both at Borchert Field and "abroad". I love that every Sunday and holiday game, nineteen in all, was a scheduled doubleheader. Those were the days.

And there's Brewer skipper Charlie Grimm. The pocket schedule was obviously printed before Grimm was hired away by the Cubs and Casey Stengel was brought in to replace him as manager.

Below Grimm we have Brewer announcer Mickey Heath at his microphone. As we learned from the May 1944 issue of Brewer News, the games weren't broadcast on the radio in 1944. Instead, Heath hosted a 15-minute highlight program on WISN sponsored by Miller Brewing Company six days a week, Monday through Saturday.

The back of the schedule shows us the ticket prices as well as another ad for Miller, whose relationship with Milwaukee baseball long preceded the ballpark which bears its name today.

1928 Brewers Pocket Schedule

"1928 Brewers Schedule"
by Paul Tenpenny
(Tencentz@aol.com)
Copyright 2013 Tencentzports
Printed with permission of the Author

The 1928 Milwaukee Brews under Jack Lelivelt managed to finish the season in 3rd place with a 90-78 record.

The hard hitting team was led by outfielders Bunny Brief and Bevo LeBourveau with .309 and .399 averages respectively, while infielders Ivy Griffin, Otis Miller, Harry Strohm batted .325, .314 and .323 for the season. Catcher Bob McMenemy anchored the catching corps with a .341 average while pitcher Ernie Wingard hit .331 in 80 appearances along with leading the mound men with a league leading 24 wins.

This recently acquired 1928 schedule is a great find for a number of reasons. Early schedules like these are seldom seen, but one showing a uniform of the day is a research coup for us.

The Library reference just brings a huge smile to my face. Milwaukee is blessed with a wonderful library system. The Milwaukee Public Library has been a huge help in the research done by BorchertField.com contributors. They have partnered with us, assisting with microfilm, providing display space for collections and allowing the local SABR chapter to do presentations. Most importantly, they have given us access to collections that normally would not be seen by the general public.

A case in point was allowing me to go through the very brittle 1913 Newspapers for my research on the 1913 jersey in my collection, without which I could not have been so certain of my authentication and the Milwaukee Brewers using its design for this year's Turn Back The Clock game.

Chance Michaels loves this one too because his mother happens to be a retired librarian.

I must agree with Milwaukee Brewer Outfielder Lance Richbourg (1924-26), "There is no friend like a book."

Lance swung a big bat while with the Brews, as his batting averages show us:

1924 .321
1925 .312
1926 .346

The inside panel shows both the Home and Away schedule:

The Outside panel includes a suggested reading list.

1948 Pocket Schedule

Time for another pocket schedule, this time from 1948.

On the cover, your '47 Milwaukee Brewers, with manager Nick Cullop front and center. Those Brewers won the Little World Series in 1947 (but not the American Association pennant, in a quirk of the league's rules), and big things were expected of them this year.

As far as I know, 1948 was the first season the Brews used that italicized version of the script wordmark introduced in 1942. It would appear on subsequent schedules and team publications, but never the uniforms themselves.

The inside holds the schedule of games. Although this copy has significant paper loss, all the text is still there. Note the absence of any announced exhibitions with major league clubs, formerly a regular event at Borchert Field (plus a new foil label for Miller High Life!).

On the back, play-by-play man and former Brewer first baseman, coach and manager Mickey Heath. Heath had provided radio broadcasts of Brewer games since 1940, and was still going strong.

Look at those prices - Box seats were only $1.50 or $.90 for kids under 12 (the equivalent of $14.56 and $8.73 in 2013 dollars, respectively). Grandstand seats were $1.00/$.40 ($9.70/$3.88), and a bleacher ticket would only set you back $0.60/$0.40 ($5.82/$3.88). What a deal.

Milwaukee fans saw some pretty good ball for that money, as the Brewers went 89-65 on the season. That was good enough for second place, eleven games behind the white-hot Indianapolis Indians, who won 100 games.

1933 Pocket Schedule

This pocket schedule invited fans to follow their Brewers in the 1933 season. It is a single piece of goldenrod cardstock with two-color print in a dramatic black and red.

In 1933, Brewer highlights could be found on WTMJ. The Milwaukee Journal's station would lose them to WISN (no later than 1937), and they in turn would be replaced by WEMP as the home for Brewers play-by-play by 1948. WEMP would retain the rights through 1952, the Brewers' final season.

On the back, an ad for motor oil:

Wadham's Oil Company was a an oil and gasoline company based in the Cream City in the early 20th Century.

In 1916, gas stations as we now know them were in their infancy. The first drive-up gas station in the United States had opened just three years earlier in Pittsburgh. Wadham's recognized an opportunity and decided to enter that new market, realizing that it could sell its product directly to the public through a series of roadside filling stations.

Their first station opened the following year, and by 1930 Wadham's had over one hundred custom-built stations throughout metro Milwaukee. As this 1934 ad tells us, every fourth car in Milwaukee filled up at a Wadham's pump:

The Wadham's service stations themselves were an early exercise in buildings-as-branding. Designed by Milwaukee architect Alexander C. Eschweiler, the stations were decorated in the Japonist style, topped with red stamped-metal and tile pagoda roofs. The buildings themselves served as advertisements for the stations, selling a sense of Eastern romance and adventure to passing motorists.

Wadham's was purchased Vacuum Oil Company in 1930, which was then acquired by Socony, which later became known as Mobil. Many of the distinctive Wadham's buildings are still found around the city, repurposed and preserved to various degrees.

Wadham's stations were decorated in a trademark red, black and gold color scheme, which might account for the printing on this card.

1950 Pocket Schedule

This pocket schedule comes from the 1950 season. The natty flat-topped gentleman doffing his cap on the cover was also featured in a Miller High Life ad in that season's score cards.

I'm not a huge fan of this "Brewers" wordmark, a skewed version of the script the Brews had worn on their flannels since 1942. I've only ever seen this version on printed materials; they certainly never put it on a jersey.

The schedule is on the interior. Home dates in red, and all holidays and Sundays are double-headers!

Brought to you, as always, by Miller High Life, "the Champagne of Bottle Beer."

On the back, Mickey Heath invites you to listen to his play-by-play. Heath, the voice of the Brewers for a decade, was in his last season with the club. In 1951, he would be followed by Earl Gillespie.

$1.65 for box seats sounds pretty good to me.

1951 Pocket Schedule

This tri-fold pocket schedule laid out the season for the 1951 Milwaukee Brewers.

On the cover, Owgust squats behind the plate. Back your Brewers!

The interior flap features an ad for sponsor Miller High Life, the Champagne of Bottle Beer.

The interior shows the entire 1951 game schedule. Home games at Borchert Field are in red, road contests are blue. The Pittsburgh Pirates came to town on May 24 for a special exhibition game (a game the Buccos won, 9-4).

The back cover introduces us to Earl Gillespie, in his first season as the Brewers' radio announcer.

And what a season Gillespie got to call; the Brewers cruised to a 94-57 record, nine games clear of the St. Paul Saints to claim Milwaukee's seventh American Association pennant. The Brews then went on to best the Montreal Royals, four games to two, in the 1951 Little World Series.

1952 Pocket Schedule

This tri-fold pocket schedule laid out the season for the 1952 Milwaukee Brewers.

On the cover we have Owgust chasing down a ground ball, backed by the club's twin pennants from '51; the American Association crown and the Little World Series.

On the interior flap, an ad for the Champagne of Bottle Beer.

The interior lays out the entire 1952 schedule. A double header every Sunday!

In addition to a full compliment of American Association contests, the Brewers played four exhibition games against major league competition; May 12 against the St. Louis Browns, June 9 against the Chicago Cubs, July 31 against the Chicago White Sox and a TBA date against the Boston Braves.

Such exhibition games were commonplace but took on an additional meaning in Milwaukee in the early 1950s. The city was looking for a major league representative, and at least two of those clubs were looking towards Milwaukee.

The back cover features Earl Gillespie, the Brewers' sophomore radio announcer.

Also interesting is the notation at the bottom:

Watch for Brewer Opening in Milwaukee County's New Stadium!

1952 was the final year of pro baseball in Borchert Field. Beginning with the 1953 season, the Brewers would move into their new home at the former Story Quarry.

As we all know, it was not to be. County Stadium was built to draw a big league club to Milwaukee. It was a smashing success, drawing the Braves from Boston and closing the final chapter of the original Brewers' history in Milwaukee.

But all of that was in the future. There was baseball to be played at the Orchard in 1952, and the Brewers played it well. They finished the season 101-53, twelve games clear for the American Association pennant, ending their era in Milwaukee in style with back-to-back titles.

1944 Pocket Schedule

We return again to early 1944 - this pocket schedule gave Brewer fans a peek at the season ahead of them.

On the cover, Owgust makes a great leap for the catch. This is why I love mascot logos; the graphic versatility. The Brewers' marketing department could field a whole team of Owgusts running, pitching, catching, batting and even flashing a little glove.

On the inside, we see the Brewers' schedule of games, both at Borchert Field and "abroad". I love that every Sunday and holiday game, nineteen in all, was a scheduled doubleheader. Those were the days.

And there's Brewer skipper Charlie Grimm. The pocket schedule was obviously printed before Grimm was hired away by the Cubs and Casey Stengel was brought in to replace him as manager.

Below Grimm we have Brewer announcer Mickey Heath at his microphone. As we learned from the May 1944 issue of Brewer News, the games weren't broadcast on the radio in 1944. Instead, Heath hosted a 15-minute highlight program on WISN sponsored by Miller Brewing Company six days a week, Monday through Saturday.

The back of the schedule shows us the ticket prices as well as another ad for Miller, whose relationship with Milwaukee baseball long preceded the ballpark which bears its name today.