Milwaukee County Stadium


Milwaukee County Stadium was a multi-purpose stadium in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Opened in 1953, it was primarily a baseball park for Major League Baseball's Milwaukee Braves and later the Milwaukee Brewers. It was also used for Green Bay Packers football games, ice skating, religious services, concerts, and other large events. Its final season was in 2000, when it was replaced by the adjacent Miller Park, now American Family Field.

Construction

Milwaukee County Stadium was originally built as a home for the Milwaukee Brewers of the minor league American Association, replacing the outdated and deteriorating Borchert Field. Both locations would be influenced by the future Milwaukee County freeway system, as Borchert Field's footprint would be cleared to make way for Interstate 43, with County Stadium located southwest of the interchange with the Stadium Freeway and Interstate 94.
Several locations around the city, including the Wisconsin State Fair Park in West Allis were considered before the city settled on the defunct site of the Story Quarry, on the west side of Milwaukee near the Story Hill neighborhood. County Stadium was the first ballpark in the United States financed with public funds. Construction began in October 1950 and, hampered by steel shortages during the Korean War, was completed in 1953. Construction cost was $5.9 million, with the bonds paid off in 1964.
The city of Milwaukee also hoped to use the new facility to attract a Major League Baseball franchise, and in this respect their efforts were immediately successful. In fact, the minor league Brewers would never get a chance to play at the new stadium.
When it opened in 1953 it had 28,111 permanent seats and could hold up to 36,011 people. After an expansion one year later, the seating capacity was increased to 43,394. Subsequent expansions raised the baseball capacity to 53,192.

Dimensions

The stadium's final dimensions were symmetrical:
DimensionDistanceNotes
Left Field line
Shallow Left Center
True Left Centerunposted
Deep Left Center
Center Field
Deep Right Center
True Right Centerunposted
Shallow Right Center
Right Field line

Major League Baseball

Milwaukee Braves (1953–1965)

Even before it was completed, the new "Milwaukee County Municipal Stadium" drew the interest of major league clubs. The St. Louis Browns, who had played in Milwaukee in 1901, the inaugural season of the American League, applied for permission to relocate back to the city they had left half a century before. The Boston Braves, the parent club of the Brewers, blocked the proposed move. The Braves had long been struggling at the gate in Boston, and rumors of them relocating had been floating for some time. The move to keep Milwaukee available as a new home indicated to many observers that the Braves would move to Milwaukee themselves.
Three weeks before the beginning of the 1953 season, and right before the new stadium was ready to open, the Braves made it official, applying for permission to relocate. The other National League owners agreed, with the team becoming the Milwaukee Braves. The Braves' first regular season home game was on April 14 against the St. Louis Cardinals. Bill Bruton hit a 10th inning home run to win the game in dramatic style. In their first season in Milwaukee, the Braves set the National League attendance record of 1.8 million.
The first published issue of Sports Illustrated on August 16, 1954, featured County Stadium with Braves batter Eddie Mathews on its cover, along with New York Giants catcher Wes Westrum and home plate umpire Augie Donatelli.
On July 12, 1955, County Stadium hosted the 22nd All-Star Game. The National League won, 6–5, on a 12th-inning home run by Stan Musial. It hosted the first two editions of the Global World Series, an international baseball tournament, in 1955 and 1956; both editions were won by the United States. The Braves hosted back-to-back World Series in 1957 and 1958, both against the New York Yankees. The Braves defeated the Yankees in seven games in 1957, but the Yankees returned the favor the next year.
The stadium continued to be the National League's top draw until 1959 when the Dodgers, who had moved to Los Angeles two years before, overtook the Braves. In the early 1960s attendance fell, along with the Braves' standings, amid an unstable ownership situation. The Milwaukee Braves used the stadium through the 1965 season when new owners, seeking a larger television market, moved the team to Atlanta.

Chicago White Sox (1968–1969)

In an effort to return Major League Baseball to Milwaukee after the departure of the Braves, local businessman and minority Braves owner Bud Selig brought other teams to play at County Stadium, beginning with a 1967 exhibition game between the Chicago White Sox and Minnesota Twins. The exhibition game attracted more than 51,000 spectators, so Selig's group contracted with Sox owner Arthur Allyn to host nine Chicago White Sox home games at County Stadium in 1968.
Selig's experiment was highly successful – those nine games drew 264,297 fans. Those games took place on May 15 vs. the California Angels, May 28 vs. the Baltimore Orioles, June 17 vs. the Cleveland Indians, June 24 vs. the Minnesota Twins, July 11 vs. the New York Yankees, July 22 vs. the Oakland A's, August 2 vs. the Washington Senators, August 8 vs. the Boston Red Sox, and August 26 vs. the eventual World Series winners, the Detroit Tigers. In Chicago that season, the Sox drew 539,478 fans to their remaining 72 home dates. In just a handful of games, the Milwaukee crowds accounted for nearly one-third of the total attendance at White Sox games. In light of this success, Selig and Allyn agreed that County Stadium would host Sox home games again the next season.
In 1969, the Sox schedule in Milwaukee was expanded to include 11 home games. Although those games were attended by slightly fewer fans they represented a greater percentage of the total White Sox attendance than the previous year – over one-third of the fans who went to Sox home games in 1969 did so at County Stadium. Those games took place on April 23 vs. the California Angels, May 22 vs. the Detroit Tigers, May 28 vs. the New York Yankees, June 11 vs. the Cleveland Indians, June 16 vs. the Seattle Pilots, July 2 vs. the Minnesota Twins, July 7 vs. the Oakland A's, August 6 vs. the Washington Senators, August 13 vs. the Boston Red Sox, September 1 vs. the Baltimore Orioles, and September 26 vs. the Kansas City Royals.
Selig was unable to attract an expansion team among the franchises awarded for the 1969 expansion. However, one of the teams founded in that expansion would later work in Selig's favor.

Milwaukee Brewers (1970–2000)

Not discouraged by the setback, Selig instead bought the troubled Seattle Pilots out of bankruptcy court. The Pilots had been a 1969 expansion team. The Seattle franchise had serious stadium and financial issues. In the spring of 1970, Milwaukee had baseball again, and County Stadium had a new tenant.
The new Milwaukee Brewers, named for the American Association club for which County Stadium was originally built over 20 years earlier, called it home from 1970 to 2000. The sale occurred during spring training for 1970, and happened so fast that Selig could not get new uniforms made. Instead, they ripped the Pilots insignia off the pre-existing uniforms, and the Brewers adopted the Pilots' blue, white, and yellow instead of the red and navy blue that Selig originally wanted; these remain the team colors to this day, despite changes to the shades over the years.
On July 15, 1975, County Stadium hosted its second All-Star Game. As in 1955, the National League beat the American League, this time 6–3. With an attendance of 51,480, it was the largest crowd at the stadium at that time. The Brewers were represented by George Scott and Hank Aaron, who had recently returned to Milwaukee in a trade with the Braves.
Aaron spent the last two years of his career in Milwaukee and in the American League, where the designated hitter position allowed him to extend his playing career. Aaron hit his final home run at County Stadium, giving him a career total of 755, establishing at the time the career home run record he first took from Babe Ruth in 1974. Aaron's final home run took place in the 7th inning with a solo shot off California Angels right-hander Dick Drago on July 20, 1976, a game that the Brewers would win 6–2.
Before the Kansas City Royals were to play a game on June 12, 1977 against the Milwaukee Brewers at Milwaukee County Stadium, thieves stole gloves and uniforms belonging to Royals players. Due to this, all but seven Royals players had to wear Milwaukee road uniforms for the game played that day.
The Brewers won their first and only American League Championship by defeating the California Angels in five games in 1982, and hosted Games 3, 4 and 5 of the 1982 World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals.
There was a chalet and giant beer mug, originally at right-center field and later at left, where mascot Bernie Brewer would "dunk" himself whenever a Brewers player hit a home run. The chalet is now stored at Lakefront Brewery, a Milwaukee microbrewery, and can be seen on brewery tours. County Stadium also gave rise to the Sausage Race, during which several anthropomorphized sausages participate in an initially fictional race to home plate between the sixth and seventh innings. Whoever finished first was the "wiener" and whoever finished last was the "wurst".