Upcoming Event - Lecture at the Chudnow Museum of Yesteryear

Over the last several days, I've been in contact with the curator of the Chudnow Museum of Yesteryear in Milwaukee about an upcoming lecture they're hosting on the Brews in honor of the centennial of the club's first pennant.

The pennant-winning 1913 Milwaukee Brewers

The lecture will be held on February 18, 2013 at 6pm in the Chudnow Museum Theater. Dr. Patrick Steele, professor of History at Concordia University, will be speaking on the early American Association Milwaukee Brewers.

Tickets are $3 for the General Public, $2 with Student ID. The museum is located at 839 North 11th Street in Milwaukee, a little over 2 miles due south of where Borchert Field once stood.

I hadn't heard about the Chudnow Museum before this, but it sounds fascinating. I'll definitely check it out on my next visit to Milwaukee, which won't unfortunately be until well after Professor Steele's lecture. If you're able to attend, let me know how it goes.

Frank Roth's Double-Knob Bat, c. 1906-1908

This beautiful Wright & Ditson Napoleon Lajoie-model double-knob bat was featured in MEARS's December auction.

This was the catalogue description:

Lot #45: 1908 circa Napoleon Lajoie Double Knob Wright & Ditson Bat – Used by Frank Roth with the Milwaukee Brewers AAA

Advanced bat collectors will appreciate the link between this store model bat and use in the professional leagues.

Born on October 11, 1878 in Chicago, IL, Frank Roth excelled in sports and became a professional baseball player. Mainly a catcher, Frank Roth did play some infield during his major league career which dated from 1903-10. He bounced along the big leagues, playing with the Phillies, Browns, White Sox, and Reds. In between, he played for the Milwaukee Brewers AAA team at Borchert Field during the 1906-08 seasons.

This bat was uncovered in Milwaukee, WI as a recent MEARS Auction consignment. It is safe to assume the bat was used during Frank Roth’s career with the Brewers. The provenance comes in the form of his leather bat case, which was engraved, "Frank Roth". The leather is severely deteriorating, but the brass name plate with his name remains intact and in excellent condition.

Since great care was taken to protect this bat, it may have been used during Roth’s stint in the major leagues.

The bat itself is a standard Wright & Ditson Napoleon Lajoie Double Knob bat. Thick handled as was Lajoie’s style, this bat measures 34" and weighs 43 ounces. On one surface in excellent black screening is "Patent Applied For, Wright & Ditson, Boston". On the reverse side "LAJOIE" is deeply factory stamped.

Bat remains uncracked and in excellent condition, despite its probably major league use. A very unique Lajoie bat with true provenance. The original bat bag with Frank Roth's name is included. LOA Troy R. Kinunen / MEARS (A0559)

I love the double-knob.

Frank Roth, seen here in his rookie-season 1903 Philadelphia Phillies sweater, spent three seasons bouncing around from Philadelphia to the St. Louis Browns to the Chicago White Sox.

The Brewers acquired him in 1906 as a platoon catcher, and he produced instantly, hitting .290 in 86 games. At the time, the American Association season was shorter than that of the American League, and after the Brewers closed out their 1906 calendar Roth was sent back to Chicago's South Side by Brewers owner Charles Havenor for the last sixteen games of the big-league schedule.

Roth was back in Athletic Park at the beginning of 1907, where he batted .320 before Havenor again loaned Roth to the White Sox in September.

The late-season exposure garnered Roth notice from other big-league clubs, and in February of 1908 the Toledo News-Bee reported that Washington Senators manager Pongo Joe Cantillon (himself a former Brewer skipper) offered to trade his veteran backup catcher Mike Kahoe, 28-year old pitcher Charlie Smith and an unnamed pitcher to Milwaukee for Roth, but Havenor declined.

The Cincinnati Reds were more successful in prying Roth away from Athletic Park, and in January of 1909 Havenor announced that he had reached a deal to sell the catcher. Roth played in Cincinnati for two seasons before retiring into the coaching ranks.

This gorgeous bat sold for $4,061, including buyers premium. I'd love to talk to the new owner, maybe see if we can get a picture of that leather case.

1943 Score Card

This score card was sold at Borchert Field during the last home stand of the 1943 season. It marks a return to saddle-stitched books after at least a decade of bi-fold cards.

On the cover, Owgust stands huge over the Orchard, swinging for the fences. This was his second season as the Brews' mascot, making his cover debut the previous year.

This score card is printed in green and red on newsprint. The first pages feature memories of the season from Brewer management (under a banner of Owgusts pitching and catching).

The management of the Brewers wish to take this opportunity of thanking the fans of Milwaukee for their loyal support throughout the season. It proved what has always been our contention – that Milwaukee fans are the most loyal in the country. This loyal support has made possible our efforts to supply you with a winning ball club and has renewed our determination to continue to do our utmost to provide you with clean, healthful entertainment whenever you attend the games at Borchert Field.

Great stuff.

In the following pages, we're introduced to some members of the team.

Pitcher "Jittery Joe" Berry (an ironic nickname in the "Little John" mold) was the anchor of the Brewers' rotation. Heinz Becker was the Brews' first baseman. Becker was born in Germany, raised in Dallas and brought to Milwaukee by team president Bill Veeck, where he quickly became a fan favorite.

There's a little space under each biography for autographs, but the owner of this copy never collected any.

I especially love the Roundy's cartoon in the upper-right corner.

Note also the list of Milwaukee Brewers serving in the armed forces. Within a few months, they would be joined by Veeck himself.

We also see how the Orchard was laid out in 1943: 395 feet to straight center, 262 down the left field line, 265 down the right, and 424 / 426 to the respective corners. This is very similar to those we've seen before. The subsequent pages give us even more information on the ballpark, this time the seating area.

I'm surprised at the number of womens' facilities available in 1943, but maybe I shouldn't be. The Brewers had a long history of female owners, who might have been responsible for accommodating female patrons. Even if they weren't behind it, I'd expect Veeck was.

Then there's the "Lucky Number" contest, as constant as anything in the club's history.

Hidden in amongst the ads we find the "Steller Jewelry Company's Player of the Week". This week it was hard-slugging outfielder Hal Peck, certainly worthy of the award.

This takes us to the newsprint score cards in the middle of the book. On this day, the Brews were facing the Kansas City Blues.

A cocktail bar in Milwaukee named "Molitor's"? I'll meet you there.

On the next page, of course, we have the hometown heroes.

Lots of talent in that lineup; 1943 was a very good year for Milwaukee baseball.

The next several pages are full of wonderful ads. "After the game, join the crowd"! What I wouldn't give to be able to visit some of these spots.

Another lucky number contest?

The next pages give us much to digest.

Based on the schedule presented here, we can tell that this score card was sold at the Orchard on either the 17th, 18th or 19th of September (that last one a double-header). It also indicates that the American Association playoffs would begin just days later, on the 21st, as the four "first division" clubs faced each other to determine who would represent the Association against the International League in the Junior World Series.

The phrase "first division" has fallen out of use in baseball circles, but in 1943 "first division" and "second division" would have referred to a team's position in the standings; top half was first, bottom half was second. The term fell into disuse when the two Major Leagues expanded and organized their teams into smaller units called "divisions" in 1969.

It seems very strange to us today that a team could win their pennant and not move on to the deciding postseason series, but that's exactly what happened in the American Association. In this particular season, the Brewers finished 90-61, five ½ games ahead of second-place Indianapolis, but were bounced out of the playoffs by the Columbus Red Birds. This was a particular bane of Bill Veeck during his time in Milwaukee, as he was able to assemble clubs that dominated his league during the regular season (winning three pennants in a row) but washed out of the playoffs.

We also touch base with Mickey Heath. A player/manager for the Brewers in the late 1930s, he moved on to radio and coaching in 1940.

On the inside back cover, Heath and manager Charlie Grimm relax in a mud bath.

Wartime travel restrictions had forced the Brewers to move Spring Training to Waukesha, but these fellows look like they've made the best of it.

And, of course, we have to finish with a full-page back-cover ad for Miller High Life.

What could be more "Milwaukee" than that?

Big Things on Tap for 2013

Happy New Year, everyone!

2013 represents the Centennial of the American Association Brewers' first pennant. This hasn't gone unnoticed by the big league club; the Brewers are doing something big to celebrate this glorious chapter in Milwaukee baseball history, and I'm honored to have been a small part of it.

The pennant-winning 1913 Milwaukee Brewers

One thing I can tell you now is that the Brewers will be giving away a bobblehead of first baseman Corey Hart wearing a 1913 throwback uniform!

This will be the first official bobblehead honoring our Brews, unless you count the Beer Barrel Man bobble from 2006.

I helped the Brewers with their research on the 1913 uniforms, and was able to send them pictures of an extant jersey from a private collection. I was very encouraged by their insistence that we get it right and be authentic to the originals.

Individual tickets for this game won't go on sale until February, but this game is included in 20-Game Sunday Plus Plan now on sale.

I'll be there; hope to see you at Miller Park on what will be a great day for fans of Milwaukee's baseball history!

Milwaukee Tavern Scorecard - July 22, 1940

Today we present another in our series of Milwaukee tavern cards. This example, dating from July 22, 1940, is different than the others we've seen, conspicuous by the lack of a publisher's credit.

The phone number - Marquette 6857 - is in the same exchange as our Steinel Publishing card from 1932, and the notation "34th Year" lines up with their date, but I can't find the name anywhere.

The graphics aren't as much fun as some of the cards we've looked at, but there's a world of information in this beauty.

We can start by looking at the American Association standings. This late in July, the Brewers were languishing in fifth place, ahead of only Indianapolis.

The Brewers were playing a night game against Toledo, so that day's game missed the print deadline. The space its score would be displayed is filled instead with some intriguing Brewer news from the days before:

Ray Schalk's debut as the new manager of the Brewers yesterday wasn't exactly a howling success neither was it a complete washout thanks to a seventh inning second game homer by Charlie English with two mates aboard to give the Schalkmen an even break for the day in their twin bill with the Columbus Red Birds. The visitors easily won the first game, 11 to 4. The score of the second was 6 to 3.

It is follwed up below by this note:

Schalk, who saw the Brewers lose to the Birds Saturday, assumed management of the club immediately after that game following the resignation of Mickey Heath who will spend his time between Milwaukee and the farm clubs operated by the Brewers.

Ray Schalk was a popular former Brewer of thirty years previous, one of many big-league players who found his entry to the majors via Milwaukee. He came to the Orchard in 1911 and the following season was sold to the White Sox, where he became famous as one of the honest players on the "Black Sox" squad). Thirty years later, he was brought in as a skipper to take over from player/manager Minor "Mickey" Heath, who was about to transition to coaching and broadcasting with the club.

This particular tavern card chronicles an important moment in Milwaukee Brewer history, more than earning it a spot in our Archives.

Happy Holidays from Borchert Field

"Owgust and the entire Borchert Field force wish you and yours a merry, merry Christmas and the best for the new year."

The original festive Owgust is here.

1976 Borchert Field Postcard

The demolition of Borchert Field was completed on June 11, 1953, but the ballpark lingered longer in the memories of fans.

This "short run color" postcard of a very quiet Borchert Field was printed in 1976. That makes it something of an oddity, produced during the fallow period after the Brewers were dead and buried—indeed, anyone at that time interested in past Milwaukee clubs would probably have stopped at the Braves—but before the retro craze revived mass commercial interest in old clubs and their ballparks.

The photo itself, credited to Harold Esch, is undated, but perhaps we can narrow down the timeframe.

We can start with the light standards. The infield lights are casting a shadow from behind the camera, but are not visible. That helps, because those poles were originally placed on the field in front of the grandstand, and were moved outside the park in early 1942. So we know if it can't be any earlier than that.

The outfield ads along that right field fence might be a better bet. They don't match the ads we know were in place in 1952. So 1952 is too late.

We can go one year earlier; this photo of first baseman George Crowe was taken in 1951.

The three outfield ads right behind him match perfectly. (click for larger)

They are, from left, Hooligan's Super Bar at the corner of Farwell and North Avenues, Burghardt Athletic Goods (which had a long relationship with the Brews, even supplying their uniforms) and finally the Milwaukee Wood Fuel Co..

On the other hand, the billboard to the left doesn't match.

And there's a large billboard over his shoulder that doesn't seem appear on the postcard.

So that would seem to set the last date it could have been taken. Let's see if we can narrow down the earliest.

In 1947, April snow forced the postponement of Opening Day. From the Milwaukee Journal coverage, we get a good look at the right field wall, as team secretary Fredric (Shorty) Mendelson gazes forlornly across the infield.

It's an almost perfect match for the angle of Mr. Esch's postcard photo, allowing us to compare the ads plastered across the right field wall.

Although we can't make out all the ads in our 1947 photo, we can see clearly enough to establish that four visible billboards match our postcard:

Those are the same three from our George Crowe photo, plus Checker Cab Company on the extreme left.

There are, however, two billboards which just as obviously don't match.

I can't quite make out the left one on the postcard but the right is for WTMJ TV. The newspaper photo shows something different. So not 1947.

I don't know how often the ads changed over; I'd expect some minor turnover every winter, but not within the baseball season. It seems reasonable to expect at least some ads to remain the same from year to year. There may be one other clue on that wall, though. Look at the foul line: it runs right over the Milwaukee Wood Fuel Company's ad.

Very unusual; you'd expect the ads to be placed so that the foul line ran between them rather than through one. The original foul line was, in fact, along the right edge of that last billboard. It was moved as part of a general overhaul of the ballpark after the 1946 season, when the Boston Braves bought the team. One of the changes they made was moving home plate, shrinking the outfield but also improving the park's notorious sightlines. Moving the plate also required moving the foul poles, in this case thirteen feet to the north, resulting in the bisected ad.

The trees appear to be in full leaf, indicating that it was taken during the spring or summer. We know that the spring of 1947 was unseasonably cold, and it seems unlikely that the outfield walls would have been repainted so soon after the park was overhauled, so I'll say we're now talking about early 1948 as the earliest possible date.

Our window is now between 1948 and 1950. That's pretty good, but I'll keep looking and see if I can't get it any closer than that.

"The Enemy is Defeated", 1914

This cartoon was printed on the sporting page of the Milwaukee Sentinel on Monday, September 28, 1914:

The Brewers are depicted as a longhaired character in a spiked pickelhaube scaling the wall of "Fort Pennant". Smoke drifts from the barrel of his baseball-bat cannon behind him as he raises his saber in victory and cries in a thick accent:

"PY GOLLY!! MEIN ARTILLERY VAS TOO HEAVY FOR DEM LOUEYVILLE ALLIES!"

Two days before, the Brewers had defeated the St. Paul Saints 11-3 (relying on their "heavy artillery") to clinch their second consecutive American Association pennant over the second-place Louisville Colonels. That's their manager "Scrappy Jack" Hayden playing the corpse above.

The cartoon was by Clarence "Cad" Brand, who had been scribbling for the Sentinel since 1900. Brand created this long-haired character, who was more commonly seen in a baseball uniform and old-fashioned cap, to represent the Brews.

I'm intrigued by the imagery Brand has chosen for this victory cartoon. The World War was only two months old. The cartoon was published exactly three months after the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria on June 28th, and two months to the day after war was declared. I imagine that, at the time, nobody fully appreciated that the conflict was eventually going to spread across the ocean, but even so the military imagery is curious given the war headlines racing across the facing pages of the paper.

Of course, the war would not be contained to Europe, and less than three years later the United States declared war on Germany and began sending her boys "Over There".

To drum up and maintain support for the war, the U.S. government launched an anti-German campaign, using imagery stunningly similar to Brand's. This poster by artist Fred Strothman depicts almost exactly the same scene as Brand's cartoon, but from the other side of the hill. Our lovable "Py Golly!" character is now the bloody Hun, saber, pickelhaube and all.

What a difference a few years can make.

1951 Junior World's Series Ticket

This ticket stub, rescued from a scrapbook, gives us a look into the penultimate day of the Brewers' penultimate season in Milwaukee.

This ticket was good for one Borchert Field grandstand entry to the Junior World's Series game against the Montreal Royals.

The Junior World's Series, also known as the Little World Series (the possessive forms of both names seem to have been used interchangeably), was a best-of-seven played between representatives of two of the largest minor leagues, the American Association and the International League.

Unlike the leagues involved in that other World Series, the American Association didn't automatically send its pennant winner. The champion instead joined the next three teams in a two-round "Shaughnessy playoff" to determine who would go on to the Little Series. In the 1940s, it was a source of great consternation for team president Bill Veeck that his mighty clubs, which took home three pennants in a row, couldn't ever make it to the Series. In 1951, however, the Brewers were both the Association champs and the playoff kings for just the second time in their history.

The Series had opened in Montreal, and by the time the Brewers came back to the Orchard they found themselves down 2-1. A little home cooking was just what the Brews needed, though, and they came back to take the fourth game and tie the series. That's where it stood when this ticket was carried through the turnstyle.

Game 5 was played on October 3rd at Borchert Field. The Brewers rewarded the home fans from the start, scoring on a hard single from first baseman and Rookie of the Year George Crowe in the bottom of the first. They scored another in the third and four in the seventh to put the game away, all while pitcher Ernie Johnson held the Royals scoreless.

It was never close, and when the out was recorded the score was six to nothing in Milwaukee's favor. This game broke the series tie and put the Brewers just one game away from clinching.

The following day, the two clubs returned to Eighth and Chambers to play again. That sixth game didn't start off well for the home team, as the Royals jumped out to a 10-2 lead in the top of the third inning. The Brews wouldn't be stopped, though; they battled back with five runs in the sixth, one in the seventh and three in the eighth. When the dust settled, it was Brewers 13, Royals 10. Game over, series over and Milwaukee was on top of the minor league baseball world.

This was the club's eighth AA pennant, third Little Series championship and fifth overall minor league crown.

The ticket stub itself is a fascinating artifact from the last days of the American Association Brewers. I love that moiré pattern, not to mention any opportunity to see Owgust in action. And compare this ticket with the box set ticket; $2.50 got you into the box seats, but you only needed $1.50 for the grandstand.

Regardless of where you were sitting, grandstand or box, if you were one of the 9,188 people with a ticket like this, it must have been one hell of a game to watch.

1932 Score Card

This score card was sold at Borchert Field during the 1932 season. Like the 1933 card we've already looked at, this one is printed on heavy cardstock, bi-folded to create four pages, 7 inches tall by 9½ inches wide.

The cover is striking for its large ad for mineral water, "on sale at the ball park."

I'm also intrigued by the decorative detailing. In each corner of the cover, the border is marked by a small swastika.

The swastika, which dates back as far as ten thousand years, was a common good luck symbol in the early part of the 20th century. As such, it was not uncommon to find it in a sporting context, although that would soon come to an end. The Nazis were on the rise in Germany in 1932, winning a plurality of seats in the Reichstag that July. In January of 1933 the Third Reich was formed with the swastika as its emblem, and the ancient symbol would forever be tied to tyranny and horror.

But that was still in the future. On the inside of the program, your Milwaukee Brewers:

Wearing lucky number 7 is player/manager Frank O'Rourke. Note that he's listed as sharing hot corner duties with "Pip" Koehler. Other Brewers of note include diamond clown "Cuckoo" Christensen, pitchers Garland Braxton, Earl "Teach" Caldwell and Rollie Stiles (you may remember we examined his jersey earlier), catcher Russ Young, and Ted Gullic, who was in his first full season at Borchert Field. Gullic would go on to become one of the most popular Brewers ever, playing eleven seasons in Milwaukee.

And what a sign of the times that was, with two different cigarette ads proudly proclaiming their product is gentle on the throat.

The Indianapolis Indians were visiting the Orchard that day.

So the Brewers sourced their hot dog buns from a local bakery. Interesting. Between that and the mineral water, we're getting a better sense of Borchert Field's concessions.

The Milwaukee Herold, in the bottom right corner, was a German-language newspaper that had been publishing since 1861. At one time Milwaukee had several German papers, with circulation exceeding that of their English competitors. Those days were past, and the Herold closed its doors at the end of September 1932.

The back cover brings us another "lucky number" contests, and an ad buying tickets from a local vendor. Hugo "Sluggy" Walters' tavern was a longtime fixture around the corner from the Orchard. Walters opened his doors in 1902, the same year the Brewers took up residence in his neighborhood's ballpark, and Sluggy never missed a home opener.

The scorecard is probably most notable for what it doesn't include.

No beer ads.

Although today it seems impossible to separate baseball from beer, Milwaukee's most famous product, and the inspiration for the club's nickname, was not legal at the time this card was sold to fans. 1933 saw Prohibition in its dying throes; President Roosevelt signed the Cullen–Harrison Act, allowing the manufacture of low-alcohol beer, in March, and Prohibition was repealed by the end of the year. The Brewers' score cards in 1933 would prominently carry ads for Miller High Life on its back cover.