Bushville Wins!: The Wild Saga of the 1957 Milwaukee Braves and the Screwballs, Sluggers, and Beer Swiggers Who Canned the New York Yankees and Changed Baseball

by John Klima

The rip-roaring story of baseball's most unlikely champions, featuring interviews with Henry Aaron, Bob Uecker and other members of the Milwaukee Braves, Bushville Wins! takes you to a time and place baseball and the Heartland will never forget.

"Bushville hits the sweet spot of my childhood, the year my family moved to Wisconsin and the Braves won the World Series against the Yankees, a team my Brooklyn-raised dad taught us to hate. Thanks to John Klima for bringing it all back to life with such vivid detail and energetic writing." -- David Maraniss, New York Times bestselling author of Clemente and When Pride Still Mattered

In the early 1950s, the New York Yankees were the biggest bullies on the block. They were they led the New York City baseball dynasty, which for eight consecutive years held an iron grip on the World Series championship.

Then the Boston Braves moved to Milwaukee in 1953, becoming surprise revolutionaries. Led by visionary owner Lou Perini, the Braves formed a powerful relationship with the Miller Brewing Company and foreshadowed the Dodgers and Giants moving west, sparking continental expansion and the ballpark boom.

But the rest of the country wasn't sold. Why would a major league team move to a minor league town? In big cities like New York, Milwaukee was thought to be a podunk train station stop-off where the fans were always drunk and wouldn't know a baseball from a beer. They called Milwaukee Bushville .

The Braves were no bushers! Eddie Mathews was a handsome home run hitter with a rugged edge. Warren Spahn was the craftiest pitcher in the business. Lew Burdette was a sharky spitball artist. Taken together, the Braves reveled in the High Life and made Milwaukee famous, while Wisconsin fans showed the rest of the country how to crack a cold one and throw a tailgate party. And in 1954, a solemn and skinny slugger came from Mobile to Milwaukee. Henry Aaron began his march to history.

With a cast of screwballs, sluggers and beer swiggers, the Braves proved the guys at the corner bar could do the impossible - topple Casey Stengel's New York baseball dynasty in a World Series for the ages.

Genres: Baseball, Sports, History, Nonfiction

352 pages, Paperback

First published July 3, 2012

Reviews

[Josh Montague · Rating 4 out of 5]

Any tale in which the Yankees lose is a good one by me. If they lose to a team from my current state, so much the better. Great baseball writing!

[Michael Cash · Rating 4 out of 5]

I grew up in Atlanta, suffering through the dark years of the 70's and 80's with the Braves. They had some bright spots, to be sure, such as Hank Aaron's becoming the all-time home run leader, Phil Neikro's knuckleball, Dale Murphy, and the 1982 Division Championship. But nothing compared to what the Braves were in Milwaukee. This book recounts the incredible 1957 season, letting us into the personalities, the tension, and the victories of that great club. They narrowly missed becoming one of the great baseball dynasties. They blew it by one game in 1956, won it all against the Yankees in 1957, blew a 3-1 World Series lead against the Yankees in 1958, and lost a one-game playoff against the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1959. Almost 4 consecutive World Series Championships. The would certainly be better known if they could have pulled that off. I love feeling that I have a connection and know the players of the Milwaukee club, and that the current Atlanta Braves are part of that great legacy.

[Gary Brecht · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an entertaining account of one of the most memorable World Series games in my lifetime. Not only is this an enjoyable narrative of the actions on the diamond, but it also acknowledges the significance of the first team to relocate away from the big metro areas in the East. After the Braves left Boston for Milwaukee (“Bushville” in Casey Stengel’s peculiar vernacular) the Dodgers and Giants departed from New York and relocated to Los Angeles and San Francisco. Milwaukee’s victory over the dominant and highly favored New York Yankees signaled a sea change in the way professional baseball would further evolve. Author John Klima gives us a portrayal of the men behind the scenes as well as the colorful players who made history on the ball field.

[Frank Nappi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recently, a fan of my Legend of Mickey Tussler series sent me an email telling me about a book that she was certain I would love. In light of the fact that my Tussler series centers around the Milwaukee Brewers (minor league affiliate of the Boston Braves) in the late 1940’s, she figured that so much of what I had written (although largely fictionalized) was germane to the history presented in
the artfully written book Bushville Wins!: The Wild Saga of the 1957 Milwaukee Braves and the Screwballs, Sluggers, and Beer Swiggers Who Canned the New York Yankees and Changed Baseball. To say she was correct is a colossal understatement.

Klima’s book is one of the best I have read in a long time. It is compelling, entertaining, and utterly irresistible. Mr. Klima does a stellar job in presenting the myriad personalities of the various players on this storied Braves team, including high profile names like Warren Spahn (who makes a cameo appearance in my first Mickey Tussler novel), Lew Burdette, Bob Buhl, and Eddie Matthews. Klima further delights the reader with vivid, anecdotal accounts of
various baseball scenes that are both endearing and entertaining. His style is fresh and crisp and his approach to this special period in Milwaukee baseball history, including of course the 1957 World Series, is wonderfully refreshing.

Post WWII is a wonderful period in history, and baseball seemed to thrive during this epoch. The charm that many cities possessed at this juncture, Milwaukee included, make for wonderful backdrops to a variety of stories. This is the reason that I selected Milwaukee as the setting for my Mickey Tussler novels. What is more inviting than a tiny metropolis dotted here and there with bakeries, tiny shops and breweries? And of course, plenty of hard working, salt
of the earth denizens who just love their baseball!

This was the perfect place for my character Mickey to thrive and of course as Klima suggests, the perfect place to refute the erroneous belief that Milwaukee was “Bushville” and certainly not ready for major league baseball.

This is truly a remarkable work - -a deft amalgamation of ingenuity and baseball lore -- one that is a must for not only Milwaukee baseball fans but for baseball fans everywhere.

[Paul Pessolano · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Bushville Wins” by John Klima, published by Thomas Dunne Books.

Category – Sports

If you are a baseball fan, if you are a Boston Braves fan, if you are a Milwaukee Braves fan, and if you are an Atlanta Braves fan don’t pass up a chance to read this book.

This book starts in Boston as the Boston Braves are on a downslide, not only are they not winning games but attendance were non-existent. A self made man, and I mean a self made man, Lou Perini has a vision. This vision included moving the team to Milwaukee which was considered “Bush League”, hiring the best players regardless of color, and believing that baseball was on the verge of expanding not only across the United States but maybe the world. It was this move that paved the way for the Brooklyn Dodgers to become the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Giants to become the San Francisco Giants. The story tells of the devotion the fans had for the Braves and were the first team to go over 2 million in attendance. The town of Milwaukee and its people were considered “bushers”, a term used to designate them as second class citizens in the baseball world.

The Braves team of 1953 thru 1957 was a team made up of a bunch of screwballs that did anything for a laugh and was not beyond staying up most nights drinking, even days before a game. However, in 1957 a no nonsense attitude took over the team and they accomplished the highly improbable by beating the “Kings of Baseball”, the New York Yankees.

A well told story that will bring back many memories of games and players that most of us grew up with. If you thinking of giving this book to a teenager please be advised that there is some language that may be inappropriate for them.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great story, but not a particularly well-written or well-edited book. The author begins by getting the publication schedules of Milwaukee's two daily newspapers wrong (the Journal was p.m., the Sentinel a.m.)and there are other places that beg correction if not clarification (second-baseman Felix Mantilla goes to his left to field a ball behind the bag?)

Too much of this reads like it was written in the over-hyped style of ESPN Sports Center. The lazy use of profanity, especially as an adjective, gets tiresome. Like the author's mother, my mother was a great fan of the Braves (Spahnie was her favorite), but I would never invite her to read this book because of the language. When it's used in direct quotes, or even once for effect, that's fine -- otherwise find some new words.

Still, I enjoyed this trip down memory lane. My earliest baseball memory is of my father taking me to the parade on Wisconsin Avenue in downtown Milwaukee the day the Braves won the World Series. Wish I still had the pennant he bought me that day.

To this day, when asked what my favorite baseball team is, I always say, "They don't play anymore -- the Milwaukee Braves." There's a mystical quality to that team that this book almost, but never quite, captures. Maybe you had to be there.

[Manray9 · Rating 3 out of 5]

John Klima’s “Bushville Wins!” is an entertaining baseball book especially for fans of the old Milwaukee Braves. I would not put it in a class with Daniel Okrent’s “Nine Innings” or David Halberstam’s “October 1964,” but it is a decent spring training warm-up. Klima is no literary lion -- in fact, he left no baseball cliché unmentioned. I'll give it Three Stars – it’s a bloop single with a man on second.

[David Watson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I borrowed Bushville Wins!: The Wild Saga of the 1957 Milwaukee Braves and the Screwballs, Sluggers, and Beer Swiggers Who Canned the New York Yankees and Changed Baseball by John Klima from my dad. My dad grew up in the 50's so he remembers the 1957 world series very well and since I now live in Milwaukee I was interested in learning more about this time in baseball history. This was a well researched book that gives an in-depth look at what I always thought of as the golden age of baseball.

1950's was a time in baseball where everything was changing and the city of New York was the baseball capitol of the world.  Bushville Wins! starts with 1953, the year the year the Braves moved to Milwaukee through the 1957 season. I loved how this book gets into how the whole state of Wisconsin fell in love with the Braves and how the Braves success led to the Giants and Dodgers moving out west. This book gets a little into how barn storming tours were becoming a thing of the past and the very end of the negro leagues. Television was changing a lot also and more people saw the 1957 world series from their homes than ever before.

My favorite part of this book was hearing about how different the players of the time were. There are stories on how Eddie Mathews loved to get drunk and get into fights, how the sports writers of the time use to protect the ball players if they were doing something along the lines of spending all their time in the bars and how the hero of every Braves win got a case of Miller high life from the Miller Brewery which is located near the stadium.The 1957 season gets described in great detail, I loved how it was pointed out how the 57 world series felt like a funeral to New York because both of their National League teams were leaving town and their fans were rooting for the Braves.

I thought it was interesting how when the World Series shifted to Milwaukee not only did the Braves get a warm welcome but the Yankees did too. The Yankees didn't know how to act in the face of Wisconsin hospitality which led to Casey Stengel  calling the city Bushville. Stengel became public enemy number 1. New York and Milwaukee couldn't have been more different but one thing New York found was that Milwaukee fans were much more passionate than New York fans at the time.

If there was anything I didn't like about this book it was that it gave a little too much detail on certain games in the season and how the fans were reacting to the teams and players. At times the descriptions seemed redundant and I found myself loosing interest at points. The book also made me a little sad it points out how important it was for when the Braves beat the Yankees yet we know the next season the Yankees got even and just a few years later Milwaukee's love affair with the Braves was over and the team was headed to Atlanta. This made me wonder why did a city that had a team who never had a losing season turn their backs on them? I guess that's a topic for another book. Since I live in Milwaukee I'm grateful that we have the Brewers to root for now.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is about the 1957 World Series the only Series that Milwaukee Braves ever won. It also, begins with the move of the Boston Braves to Milwaukee by owner Lou Perini who author Klima views as a visionary because the Braves were the first team in the major leagues to move to another city in over fifty years and this paved the way for other teams such as the St. Louis Browns to Baltimore in 1954, and the Dodgers to Los Angeles and the Giants to San Francisco in 1958. The author also gets inside the heads of such stars as Eddie Mathews, Warren Spahn, Lew Burdette and Henry Aaron, the players who made it happen back in the years when baseball was indeed the national pastime. The author spends a great deal of the book on the 1957 World Series especially talking about how the haughty Yankees seemed put out to think they had to come to this hick town, "Bushville", to play in the Fall Classic. Boy did Milwaukee show them who was boss.

Filled with great stories about Casey Stengel, the "Mick", Aaron, and many others. You come away with a great sense of what it was like to be a ball player during that era and how large of a role baseball played in post war America. Well researched it provides an insight into the Braves mania that hit Milwaukee in the mid-50's. Well worth the read.

[Ken Heard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this six or seven years ago and thought I'd read it again in honor of the passing of Henry Aaron. As I did on the first read, I loved this book! John Klima does a great job of leading the reader through the development of the Milwaukee Braves - from moving from Boston to winning the World Series in 1957. And, kudos to Klima for referring to Aaron as "Henry" and not "Hank." I read somewhere that Aaron preferred Henry as his name.

Klima captures the feel of baseball of that era and the fans' support of the furthest western team in the league at that time.

The one downside: Klima resorts to a lot of cursing when writing about Eddie Mathews in particular and others. It's an attempt to get the flavor of who these players are and the words they use, but it gets old after a while. I'm not a prude, but at times it seems unnecessary to include yet another f-bomb when referring to some pitcher or play.

Overall, though, this is a fun read that gives a team the recognition it deserves, and Klima does a really good job putting the works in chronological order.

[Albert Meier · Rating 5 out of 5]

An artful glimpse at a different era and a shining moment. I had heard about Mathews and Spahn and the rest from my father, but to follow there struggles and antics and triumph in the 1957 season was new. Klima approaches baseball with the reverence of a fan and the skill of a pitcher dropping one over the corner. He covers the facts of how the team came to be in Milwaukee; he covers implications of how this ushered in the movement and expansion of the game. But he shines most when he captures the players is their styles and personalities and the fans that took the Braves into their hearts. I heartily enjoyed this book.

Warning: Profanity is used throughout. It did not feel gratuitous but more like what you'd actually hear in the locker room. Avoid if this would trouble you.

[Reader Szczap · Rating 4 out of 5]

Got this book for Christmas last year, and read it over my Winter break.

Did I like it? Yes. Will I ever read it again? Probably not. Was it interesting? Certainly. Are there other periods of baseball history that capture my interest more? Yes.

This is a book that definitely helps form an image of 1950's baseball in my mind. My knowledge of the iconic Braves team is largely formed by this book, and as a result, so are the teams they legendarily battled with, such as the Dodgers, Giants, and of course the Yankees. Must read for anyone with an interest in this era. Solid read for any baseball fan.

[Clint · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though I was anxious to read this book because of my years-long love of the Atlanta Braves, it read much longer than it was. Author combined newer interviews with old newspaper accounts to tell the story of the Braves' move from Boston and its years leading up to the 1957 World Series championship. Much emphasis was put on the team's leading the way on franchise shifts, the way Milwaukee got into the team and the end of the New York Yankees' recent dominance. Interesting but could have been shorter and sharper.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very enjoyable and extremely well researched. I've read a great deal about the period and this is an excellent single year look while still giving a great deal of background and clearly love of the subject. Just a couple of minor things prevented the 5 stars - given baseball's focus on stats, you simply have to get them right and minor typos like calling a two run homer a three run shot kind of stands out. Plus there was a preponderance of cursing. It's one thing when quoting someone, but the overusage prevents this being a book I can have my kids read.

[Pat Lawlor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although this may be the very first sports book I have ever read in my life, I LOVED it! Of course, I grew up in Milwaukee, and was in first grade when this one miracle Braves year happened. It was so much fun to relive the city as it once was in my young life from an adult point of view. Klima's writing just keeps you wanting to turn the pages to see how this game turned out. I feel like I could walk into the Braves locker room of 1957 today and know all the players and coaches as friends. Great story, great writing. I enjoyed every page!

[Melinda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book. But as a Brewer's fan currently living in Milwaukee, I'm admittedly biased. Lovely David vs Goliath story. Many of the character traits of the Milwaukee area I can recognize still today. We will welcome you, but if we feel you have slighted us, we can definitely hold a grudge. We love our sports teams. And the outside media still sees us as a second rate, small market team not really worth covering. Even when we prove them wrong.

[Josh Hitch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great look at a fantastic 1957 season when the Braves beat the mighty Yankees. Kilma writes so well, that even knowing who wins you find yourself rooting for the team while reading his blow by blow in the World Series games. Also goes into how the Braves moving to Milwaukee started the western expansion of the majors.

Highly recommended, Kilma writes baseball about as well as it can be done.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I was more of a baseball aficionado it would've earned 5 stars, but as it is, I enjoyed the description of Milwaukee, a town that I love, and the big personalities that made the game. Very fast paced and energetic writing style...wonderful read!

[Shiela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent! One of the most enjoyable non-fiction books I have read. It filled in many gaps in my knowledge of the baseball lore. Klima's accounts of the games are so well done that I found myself sitting at the edge of my seat, yelling and cringing with anxiety through the season.

[Adam J · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book captures the moment in history where an underdog in the newly formed team of the Milwaukee Braves win a title while being a "bush league"team and showing everyone wrong. It is probably more suitable for an older reader due to the language and the writing style.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a baseball geeks I know the story of the '57 Braves. But now I KNOW the story. A fun, entertaining read about (sadly) the only World Series championship in Milwaukee history. Hopefully, in 60+ years people will be reading about the Brewers winning one...

[David Go · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read. Provided a thorough yet engaging read on one of the best forgotten teams in baseball history. The sections involving the Series itself made you feel like a fan at the time. Phenomenally written.

[Staci Willems · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this. I just wish my dad was still around because I have so many questions about what it was like to be a Milwaukee baseball fan during their still to this day, only World Series win. I will be forever grateful to him for the great 1950s baseball paraphanalia he left behind.

[Jeremiah Gumm · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun read. The author loves analogies and gratuitous cuss words, but I enjoyed reading about the team and players that were my departed father's favorites when he was a kid. Definitely a fun read for any fan of baseball history.

[Henry Bettencourt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a Braves fan, so may be biased. But that was one of the better baseball books I’ve ever read. The author does a great job of telling the story and pulling you in. His way of describing people makes you feel like you know them and the drama makes you feel like you’re watching a game.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

An enjoyable read. Brought back many childhood memories. Lots of information that I didn't know.

[Matt Tooley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe 3.5 stars. Klima is a solid writer, and this was a solid baseball book.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best baseball book I have read since Luckiest Man. Of course being a braves fan since around 1980 added to my enjoyment of the book. It was really awesome!!!

[J.P. Bary · Rating 5 out of 5]

When the Braves moved from Boston to Milwaukee in the early 1950’s, it had little impact on my allegiance to the team. I was, after all, a very young New Yorker, barely strong enough to swing a bat or tall enough to reach the major league strike zone with it. My allegiance to the Braves was accidental; a consequence of not wishing to disappoint a favorite uncle from Massachusetts, who mistook the B on my homemade cap as a sign of allegiance to his favorite team. In the days when baseball was necessarily a largely hometown affair, my loyalty to the Braves had in fact sheltered me to some extent from following baseball as passionately as some of my friends, whose passionate disputes about the Dodgers, Giants and Yankees only seemed amusing. It was only when the Braves put away the Dodgers and prepared to take on the vaunted Yankees in the 1957 World Series that I began to realize how serious the business of baseball could be.

Doubtless there are many Boston fans that followed the Braves to Milwaukee, as well as die-hard Yankee haters from the era, who will remember the 1957 World Series with as much nostalgia as the rabid Milwaukee fans who lived through the season. But this book has appeal to a larger audience than aging Braves and Yankee fans. The significance of the 1957 season goes beyond the obvious importance of the Braves’ move in fueling the rapid expansion of the major leagues or the signal influence that the 1957 World Series was to have on TV broadcasting. It is even broader than the David vs. Goliath theme the title of the book suggests. As a keen observer of the game of baseball, John Klima is able to put the outsize importance of the season and its protagonists in vivid perspective:

“The 1957 National League was ferociously tough and balanced. Virtually every team could beat each other on any given night. Future Hall of Fame hitters were on every team, a golden age of National League talent —Roberto Clemente in Pittsburgh, Ernie Banks in Chicago, Willie Mays in New York, Richie Ashburn in Philadelphia and Stan Musial in St. Louis. Plus, veterans Roy Campanella and Duke Snyder were joined by young pitchers Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax in Brooklyn.”

The 1957 National League penant race was fiercely competitive and, despite a surprisingly promising start, the Braves clung to their lead in the National League only by the narrowest of margins throughout most of the season. As July ended, five of the eight teams in the League were separated by less than four games and Klima's vivid description of the challenges the Braves overcame to take the prize covers all the most thrilling events of the season.

Klima is not only a perceptive baseball historian; he also has a gift for channeling the great sportswriters from an era when every city worth its salt had competing dailies and New York could support a small army of them. Whether pulling up highlights from past seasons or stringing together masterful summaries of the day-to-day battles during the Braves’ intense 1957 pennant race, Klima conveys the drama experienced by Milwaukee fans as they rode the roller coaster ride of the team’s performances following their move to a new home: the dreams sparked by the promising improvements to the team in 1955, the dashed hopes of 1956 and the excitement generated by Warren Span’s reliably competitive pitching and Henry Aaron’s newly productive home run tallies early in the 1957 season.

Klima gets you to connect with the passions of players and fans alike. You can taste the bitter feelings unleashed in the famous dugout-emptying brawl Drysdale sparked by his knock-down pitching and trash talking during the Dodger’s last season at Ebbet’s field. You also sense the pride of veteran journeymen like Andy Pafko, Dick Cole and Del Rice, who kept the Braves’ hopes alive by delivering all-star performances when half of the team’s all-star players were injured in mid-season, and the professionalism and confidence that the entire team gained through the acquisition of Red Schoendienst from the NY Giants. When the Braves struggle to vanquish first the disputatious Dodgers and finally the aggressively hard-charging Reds at the close of the season, one feels both the elation of the fans and their nagging doubts that the team will be so lucky with the supremely talented Yankees. Their hopes and prayers are literally documented though the letters of support and well-meaning advice they sent to manager Fred Haney.

Klima conveys a sense of the era in another way as well. He provides enough of a glimpse of the key players off-field antics and individual foibles to make one aware of the personal demons they might have struggled with without distracting from their on-field heroics. This is clearly a book for true believers and those prepared to be converted. As Klima points out, it was an era when good writers knew the virtue of discretion and knew how to get attention by telling a great story, rather than simply trading in gossip. He emulates them with great success.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a remarkable time in the history of the game of baseball, and John Klima does a wonderful job in encapsulating the fervor, enthusiasm and mania that was Milwaukee after the Boston Braves uprooted and planted itself on the shores of Lake Michigan, in the "biggest little city" known as Bushville U.S.A.

First, the pros of Klima's prose. He does a remarkable job of capturing the mania that had overtaken Milwaukee. They'd always been a baseball city, but not a major league city, and the move from Boston was exactly what the residents had always wanted. The reactions of the Braves' players is eloquently and succinctly stated as numerous accounts are retold. Players were overwhelmed with tens of thousands of fans greeting them and were unceremoniously accepted by many people from outside the state as well.

Now, the not so good. It may be a bit sensationalistic, hoping to capture the ESPN sports center methodology to story telling sometimes opting to work "blue", so to speak, trying to emulate the rough and glib language shared between ballplayers and the press. The topic of racism is somewhat brushed under the rug, too, in lieu of one-upmanship as it was referred to in the book. Also, a little more proof reading would have been nice, as a few though/through and lose/loose spellings were inappropriately swapped throughout the book which was then distracting.

These are perhaps subjective quibbles, but if you're a fan of baseball, especially the Milwaukee Braves, a team that never had a losing record by the way, then by all means, you should read this book.