The Forgotten Brewers
Early forays into Major League Baseball in Milwaukee.
September 27, 1884 — Milwaukee
The landscape of professional baseball looks a lot different than it does today. Less than a decade removed from the founding of the National League (and Major League Baseball with it), the league is still young enough to face competition. The American Association was founded in 1881 and in September 1883, a young St. Louis millionaire founded a new major league, the Union Association. After two franchises dissolve midseason, the league is looking for replacements to finish out the schedule.
The Milwaukee Brewers, known in the papers as the Cream Citys, have atop the standings of two consecutive shortened seasons (in the same summer) of the Northwestern League, a regional minor league; with an open calendar and a talented team, the Creams make a natural fit. That is why the Wright Street Grounds are hosting the Washington Nationals on this late-September day, inaugurating a long and winding tradition of major league baseball in Milwaukee. Nothing is written in the papers due to the lack of recognition of the league and a growing skepticism of professional baseball across the country, but the Brewers win, 3-0.
The Brewers beat the Nationals in the next two games, beginning their experiment in the major leagues with a 3-0 record. They then lose the final of the four game series against Washington, but only lose 3 more times the rest of the year, finishing their brief season with a record of 8-4, good enough to finish in second place–according to winning percentage.
That fall, the winner of the American Association, the New York Metropolitans (not those Metropolitans) face off against the National League champion Providence Grays in the first proto-World Series. The Union Association pennant winner St. Louis Maroons are left out, despite amassing a 94-19 record. In January of the next year, only Milwaukee and the team from Kansas City attend a scheduled Union Association meeting, and the league disbands.
August 18, 1891 — St. Louis
After the short-lived Union Association, the American Association and National League are established as the two major leagues, competing in interleague World Series at the end of each year, but 1890 had brought a shakeup. Most of the players in the National League had formed the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players and left to form their own league, the Players League. To help fill the gap, the reigning American Association pennant winners, the Brooklyn Bridegrooms—today’s Los Angeles Dodgers—made the unprecedented move of switching to the National League. The Player’s League would last just one season, but irreparably damaged both remaining leagues, particularly the Association. In Cincinnati, the Kelly’s Killers were formed for the 1891 season, but are jailed multiple times for scheduling games on Sunday, and by August, are languishing 21 games out of first place and losing money. League leaders and club management decide to suspend the franchise for the remainder of the season.
However, there are still 34 games on Kelly’s Killers’ schedule that somebody needs to play. To fill the void, the Milwaukee Brewers leave their spot in the minor Western League, and play out the Kel’s remaining games.
Even though the standings of both the Western and American Associations are regularly updated in local papers, no recount of this game exists, but the Brewers defeat the St. Louis Browns 7-2. Two days later, in Louisville, the Brewers are victorious again over the Colonels, by a margin of 5-2, off to a 2-0 start. The team then loses 10 of their next 11 games, but then win 8 of the next 9, ultimately ending the season with a 21-15 record, good for third place based on winning percentage.
The American Association disbands four months after the Brewers first game as a member, and the Brewers return to the minors as a member of the newly re-formed Western League, but the franchise falls apart after one more season.
April 25, 1901 — Detroit
After nine seasons of the National League reigning uncontested as the sole major league, Ban Johnson is ready to declare his rejuvenated Western League—rebranded to the American League and including a new iteration of the Milwaukee Brewers—a Major league to compete on the sport’s largest stage once again. 8,000 spectators fill Bennett Park to watch one of the first games of the newly formed league, between the visiting Milwaukee Brewers and the home Tigers.
The game starts off quietly, with both teams failing to score in the first inning, but the Brewers get the scoring started with two runs in the top of the second. After holding the Tigers in the bottom half, they add on five more in the top of the third, quickly taking a commanding 7-0 lead. The Tigers show a hint of fight by scoring two in the fourth and one in the fifth to cut into the lead, but the Brewers add on in the seventh and eighth, taking a 13-4 lead into the bottom of the ninth.
That is where things go left. No one knows exactly how, but the Tigers score 10 runs in the bottom of the ninth to spoil this iteration of the Milwaukee Brewers’ major league debut, 14-13. Unfortunately, this would be a harbinger of things to come, as the 1901 Milwaukee Brewers finish the season—their first full major league season—with a record of 48-89, good for last place and 35.5 games behind the pennant-winning Chicago White Stockings.
Following the 1901 season, the Brewers relocate to St. Louis and rebrand as the Browns1, beginning a more than 50-year drought of Major League Baseball played in Milwaukee.
Later relocated to Baltimore to become today’s Baltimore Orioles