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Home of the Braves: The Battle for Baseball in Milwaukee
Winner of the Gambrinus Prize from the Milwaukee County Historical SocietyIn March 1953, the Boston Braves relocated to Milwaukee. They soon found success with stars like Hank Aaron and Eddie Mathews. The team began drawing bigger crowds than almost any other and went on to win two pennants and a World Series within five years. To fans, it was the dawn of a new dynasty—making it even more of a shock when the owners announced in October 1964 that the Braves would move once again, this time to Atlanta. Patrick Steele examines all facets of the story to understand why the "Milwaukee Miracle" went south.
272 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 27, 2018
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June 26, 2018
Dad gave me a baseball book every year for my birthday, which falls on or near opening day. Dad’s long gone. But his gift of baseball survives.
Dad grew up near Wrigley Field. He and Grandpa took me to ball games there.
I grew up knowing the Cubs, in particular, and baseball, in general. Over the years, I enjoyed ball games at Comiskey Park in Chicago, Cleveland Stadium, Crosley Field in Cincinnati, Busch Stadium in St Louis, Municipal Stadium in Kansas City and Camden Yards in Baltimore as well as two parks in Milwaukee, the new Miller Park and the old County Stadium, which plays a big part in the story of this book. .
I moved to Milwaukee forty years ago and naturally began following the Brewers, triumphant with a pennant four years later.
THIS BOOK fills in the early story of major league baseball in MIlwaukee.
For openers, Milwaukee enjoys bragging rights as the only city with two teams in each league since nineteen hundred, including its status as a charter member of the American League, founded here.
But from there, how did a love affair between a city and its baseball team turn toxic? This book grapples with that question. Patrick Steele takes us on his journey to understand why the Braves left, focusing on the professional post-war ball club and the relationships of the team to the public.
Without a team in hand, ground broke in nineteen fifty for the Milwaukee County Municipal Stadium.
The county bought a hundred acres around the site for parking, “unlike other landlocked teams in decaying urban centers.” Wait a minute. What about Fenway Park and Wrigley Field, for example, which enjoy thriving activity and neighborhoods including vital transit in all directions. Milwaukee developed a tailgate culture, but the massive acreage of parking on a gigantic surface lot still stands as excessive. The Brewers recently offered to give up some of those acres when the state floated a plan to add lanes to a bordering highway.
In fifty-three, the National League approved the transfer of the Braves from Boston to Milwaukee. And that’s when the B on the caps became an M.
By July, the Braves drew more fans than any other team. The success of moving a franchise to Milwaukee, the only one in fifty years, opened the eyes of others in major league baseball. The successful story became known as The Milwaukee Miracle. Cities suddenly saw that they could lure teams with a stadium funded by the public. But the owner’s early refusal to sell television rights harmed the Braves by the early sixties, a loss that would become Atlanta’s gain.
After the World Series victory in fifty-seven over the Yankees, things began to unravel, writes Steele. Relations deteriorated between the team and the county during negotiations to renew the lease at the stadium.
While the stadium was “a public facility in one sense, it operated as a proprietary function,” wrote the attorney for Milwaukee County. And it is that conflicted reality that gets us into the confused policy argument of today about sports facilities funded by the public. The discussion began here fifty years ago. Modern economists today find little net benefit to the community flowing from sports facilities funded by the public.
Meanwhile, in the mid-sixties, the rise of televised football altered the sports landscape, especially in Wisconsin. The trend lines crossed. More Americans counted themselves as football rather than baseball fans. The Packers won five championships in the sixties. The success of the Packers under Vince Lombardi displaced fan interest in baseball during that period.
September sixty-five, the Braves played their last game at County Stadium. Atlanta, as the capitol of the south, offered a huge, untapped market for major league baseball, a ten-year lease, food and drink concessions as well as television rights in a large region.
But a year later, it became obvious to many that the owners oversold the Braves to Atlanta by promising a pennant contender while delivering a mediocre ball club, writes Steele.
In the end, Milwaukee County shares much of the blame for losing the Braves to Atlanta, Steele writes. The Braves paid more to lease the stadium than any other team. And the county controlled too much of the revenue, including concessions and souvenirs.
A good history and baseball book, including a thirty-six page appendix with notes but a skimpy index. The author misplaces Chicago, at one point describing it as an hour away and elsewhere describing it as fifty miles from here. In fact, Chicago will always remain ninety miles away while travel time hovers around ninety minutes, whether by train or by car.
A good and detailed review of the story: https://www.jsonline.com/story/entert...
Grandpa, in his teens, moved from Dayton to Chicago to coach baseball at the YMCA. One day he played catcher, not wearing a mask for the game. A bat broke his nose. After I came along, Dad pitched while Grandpa played catcher, without a mask, for my batting practice. “Keep your eye on the ball,” a mantra I will hear forever. But, alas. I was already lost to the world of books and music.
I grew up with baseball in quieter and more leisurely days when the organ, announcer and crack of the bat provided all the sound we needed. These days the experience includes a constant audio assault, although that seems to have lessened in the past few years. I wear earplugs, which lower the shrill decibels in the stadium while allowing me to visit with friends.
I look forward to minor league baseball when it begins in the Ballpark Commons, with seating for twenty-five hundred, under construction in Franklin, a suburb a few miles from Miller Park.
Dad lived his final years in Davenport, on the Mississippi River. I regret not taking him to a ballgame of the Quad City River Bandits, a Class-A affiliate of the Houston Astros, in a stadium built for four thousand spectators. We would have liked that. The lesson: Do not put things off until it’s too late.
In high school English class, Mr Moore spend an entire springtime period examining “play ball.” We diagrammed it and discussed it, concluding that, thanks to the understood you, it serves as a complete sentence.
Now, play ball!
Dad grew up near Wrigley Field. He and Grandpa took me to ball games there.
I grew up knowing the Cubs, in particular, and baseball, in general. Over the years, I enjoyed ball games at Comiskey Park in Chicago, Cleveland Stadium, Crosley Field in Cincinnati, Busch Stadium in St Louis, Municipal Stadium in Kansas City and Camden Yards in Baltimore as well as two parks in Milwaukee, the new Miller Park and the old County Stadium, which plays a big part in the story of this book. .
I moved to Milwaukee forty years ago and naturally began following the Brewers, triumphant with a pennant four years later.
THIS BOOK fills in the early story of major league baseball in MIlwaukee.
For openers, Milwaukee enjoys bragging rights as the only city with two teams in each league since nineteen hundred, including its status as a charter member of the American League, founded here.
But from there, how did a love affair between a city and its baseball team turn toxic? This book grapples with that question. Patrick Steele takes us on his journey to understand why the Braves left, focusing on the professional post-war ball club and the relationships of the team to the public.
Without a team in hand, ground broke in nineteen fifty for the Milwaukee County Municipal Stadium.
The county bought a hundred acres around the site for parking, “unlike other landlocked teams in decaying urban centers.” Wait a minute. What about Fenway Park and Wrigley Field, for example, which enjoy thriving activity and neighborhoods including vital transit in all directions. Milwaukee developed a tailgate culture, but the massive acreage of parking on a gigantic surface lot still stands as excessive. The Brewers recently offered to give up some of those acres when the state floated a plan to add lanes to a bordering highway.
In fifty-three, the National League approved the transfer of the Braves from Boston to Milwaukee. And that’s when the B on the caps became an M.
By July, the Braves drew more fans than any other team. The success of moving a franchise to Milwaukee, the only one in fifty years, opened the eyes of others in major league baseball. The successful story became known as The Milwaukee Miracle. Cities suddenly saw that they could lure teams with a stadium funded by the public. But the owner’s early refusal to sell television rights harmed the Braves by the early sixties, a loss that would become Atlanta’s gain.
After the World Series victory in fifty-seven over the Yankees, things began to unravel, writes Steele. Relations deteriorated between the team and the county during negotiations to renew the lease at the stadium.
While the stadium was “a public facility in one sense, it operated as a proprietary function,” wrote the attorney for Milwaukee County. And it is that conflicted reality that gets us into the confused policy argument of today about sports facilities funded by the public. The discussion began here fifty years ago. Modern economists today find little net benefit to the community flowing from sports facilities funded by the public.
Meanwhile, in the mid-sixties, the rise of televised football altered the sports landscape, especially in Wisconsin. The trend lines crossed. More Americans counted themselves as football rather than baseball fans. The Packers won five championships in the sixties. The success of the Packers under Vince Lombardi displaced fan interest in baseball during that period.
September sixty-five, the Braves played their last game at County Stadium. Atlanta, as the capitol of the south, offered a huge, untapped market for major league baseball, a ten-year lease, food and drink concessions as well as television rights in a large region.
But a year later, it became obvious to many that the owners oversold the Braves to Atlanta by promising a pennant contender while delivering a mediocre ball club, writes Steele.
In the end, Milwaukee County shares much of the blame for losing the Braves to Atlanta, Steele writes. The Braves paid more to lease the stadium than any other team. And the county controlled too much of the revenue, including concessions and souvenirs.
A good history and baseball book, including a thirty-six page appendix with notes but a skimpy index. The author misplaces Chicago, at one point describing it as an hour away and elsewhere describing it as fifty miles from here. In fact, Chicago will always remain ninety miles away while travel time hovers around ninety minutes, whether by train or by car.
A good and detailed review of the story: https://www.jsonline.com/story/entert...
Grandpa, in his teens, moved from Dayton to Chicago to coach baseball at the YMCA. One day he played catcher, not wearing a mask for the game. A bat broke his nose. After I came along, Dad pitched while Grandpa played catcher, without a mask, for my batting practice. “Keep your eye on the ball,” a mantra I will hear forever. But, alas. I was already lost to the world of books and music.
I grew up with baseball in quieter and more leisurely days when the organ, announcer and crack of the bat provided all the sound we needed. These days the experience includes a constant audio assault, although that seems to have lessened in the past few years. I wear earplugs, which lower the shrill decibels in the stadium while allowing me to visit with friends.
I look forward to minor league baseball when it begins in the Ballpark Commons, with seating for twenty-five hundred, under construction in Franklin, a suburb a few miles from Miller Park.
Dad lived his final years in Davenport, on the Mississippi River. I regret not taking him to a ballgame of the Quad City River Bandits, a Class-A affiliate of the Houston Astros, in a stadium built for four thousand spectators. We would have liked that. The lesson: Do not put things off until it’s too late.
In high school English class, Mr Moore spend an entire springtime period examining “play ball.” We diagrammed it and discussed it, concluding that, thanks to the understood you, it serves as a complete sentence.
Now, play ball!
July 8, 2018
A very well researched book on the history of the Milwaukee Braves, as it relates to the purchase, residence and sale of the team in Milwaukee. The book was very relevant for me, as I grew up in Milwaukee. I was about five when the team came and about 17 when they left for Atlanta.
I remember a lot of the newspaper articles and newscasts about this issue back then. I can't say that I was a huge fan of either the Braves, or the present team, the Brewers. I had only been to one Braves game, and have never seen the Brewers play. Too me, baseball is boring, I'd rather watch paint dry.
The book reads much like a text book. It is loaded with details from many dozens of resources. The author did a great job in compiling and completing his task. It's a bit "dry" but is still very readable.
If you were a fan of the Milwaukee Braves you will love this book.
I remember a lot of the newspaper articles and newscasts about this issue back then. I can't say that I was a huge fan of either the Braves, or the present team, the Brewers. I had only been to one Braves game, and have never seen the Brewers play. Too me, baseball is boring, I'd rather watch paint dry.
The book reads much like a text book. It is loaded with details from many dozens of resources. The author did a great job in compiling and completing his task. It's a bit "dry" but is still very readable.
If you were a fan of the Milwaukee Braves you will love this book.
June 3, 2018
Written with the skill of a historian, the heart of a baseball fan, and the soul of a Wisconsinite, Home of the Braves chronicles the saga of the Milwaukee Braves. Covering their move from Boston and their eventual move to Atlanta, the book is the story of a city and team falling in love with each other... and the subsequent heartbreak of a romance gone wrong.
It's important to know what you're getting with this book. It is not, primarily, a story of the team's on-the-field exploits. The Braves' pennant runs and World Series championship – and later lean years – are covered to the extent that they contextualize the evolution of the relationship between the town and the city. The book is, rather, principally a history of the politics, economics, and relationships that determined the arc of the Braves in Milwaukee.
Professor Steele's exhaustive research is evident in the richly sourced narrative. The chain of events of the Braves' move from Boston, their gradually souring relationship with their new hometown, and their eventual move to Atlanta are presented in such a way that invites readers to make their own conclusion as to who was the most to blame.
For me, it was a genuinely thought-provoking work not just because I spent my undergraduate years in Milwaukee and still have relatives in Wisconson, but because the same fate nearly befell two of my own favorite teams. In the mid-1990s, word was the Seattle Mariners may move to Florida and the Seattle Seahawks were owned by a businessman who couldn't move them to Los Angeles fast enough (and in 2008, Seattle would lose its professional basketball franchise). Following the story of Milwaukee and its Braves invited me to make my own comparisons and contrasts. How professional football and baseball were saved in Seattle would probably make for fascinating books as well, assuming they had an author as gifted as Professor Steele.
I thoroughly enjoyed the book (and while I have the good fortune to know the author, I bought my own copy – and would happily do so again). I think knowing what you're getting into when you start reading it is critical: a reader who is looking for a vibrant recreation of the exploits between the foul lines and in the dugout may well be frustrated (even though the forward is pretty clear about what the book is and what it isn't). On the other hand, readers curious about the events and decisions that determined the franchise's fate in Wisconsin will be richly rewarded.
It's important to know what you're getting with this book. It is not, primarily, a story of the team's on-the-field exploits. The Braves' pennant runs and World Series championship – and later lean years – are covered to the extent that they contextualize the evolution of the relationship between the town and the city. The book is, rather, principally a history of the politics, economics, and relationships that determined the arc of the Braves in Milwaukee.
Professor Steele's exhaustive research is evident in the richly sourced narrative. The chain of events of the Braves' move from Boston, their gradually souring relationship with their new hometown, and their eventual move to Atlanta are presented in such a way that invites readers to make their own conclusion as to who was the most to blame.
For me, it was a genuinely thought-provoking work not just because I spent my undergraduate years in Milwaukee and still have relatives in Wisconson, but because the same fate nearly befell two of my own favorite teams. In the mid-1990s, word was the Seattle Mariners may move to Florida and the Seattle Seahawks were owned by a businessman who couldn't move them to Los Angeles fast enough (and in 2008, Seattle would lose its professional basketball franchise). Following the story of Milwaukee and its Braves invited me to make my own comparisons and contrasts. How professional football and baseball were saved in Seattle would probably make for fascinating books as well, assuming they had an author as gifted as Professor Steele.
I thoroughly enjoyed the book (and while I have the good fortune to know the author, I bought my own copy – and would happily do so again). I think knowing what you're getting into when you start reading it is critical: a reader who is looking for a vibrant recreation of the exploits between the foul lines and in the dugout may well be frustrated (even though the forward is pretty clear about what the book is and what it isn't). On the other hand, readers curious about the events and decisions that determined the franchise's fate in Wisconsin will be richly rewarded.
November 2, 2023
A deep dive into a relatively untold story about the Braves baseball franchise and their moves from Boston to Milwaukee, and then Milwaukee to Atlanta.
It is clear that author Patrick Steele put in a lot of time researching this subject, and found a mountain of information that helped explain why the Braves, who found a passionate fan base in America's Dairyland and won a World Series there, could leave their city within a decade of arriving.
It should be noted that this book focuses more on the business side of baseball, looking at the Braves and their relationship with Milwaukee County, local sponsors, media outlets, the rest of Major League Baseball, etc. It's not a story about the on-field Braves, the players, games, box scores and statistics.
While some of the book's passages dealing with financial records, stadium lease details and court testimony began to get a little dry and weighed down by heavy facts and figures, the total story that Steele tells is compelling and sheds light on a subject that gets pushed aside, especially since baseball returned to the Cream City in 1970 with the establishment of the Milwaukee Brewers (ironically, again taking a team from another city - this time, the Seattle Pilots - and moving it to MKE).
For fans of Milwaukee baseball, and Milwaukee history in general, this is a must-read. Steele allows the history of the Milwaukee Braves to be given center stage, and rightfully gives the battle for baseball in Milwaukee its place in Wisconsin sports lore.
It is clear that author Patrick Steele put in a lot of time researching this subject, and found a mountain of information that helped explain why the Braves, who found a passionate fan base in America's Dairyland and won a World Series there, could leave their city within a decade of arriving.
It should be noted that this book focuses more on the business side of baseball, looking at the Braves and their relationship with Milwaukee County, local sponsors, media outlets, the rest of Major League Baseball, etc. It's not a story about the on-field Braves, the players, games, box scores and statistics.
While some of the book's passages dealing with financial records, stadium lease details and court testimony began to get a little dry and weighed down by heavy facts and figures, the total story that Steele tells is compelling and sheds light on a subject that gets pushed aside, especially since baseball returned to the Cream City in 1970 with the establishment of the Milwaukee Brewers (ironically, again taking a team from another city - this time, the Seattle Pilots - and moving it to MKE).
For fans of Milwaukee baseball, and Milwaukee history in general, this is a must-read. Steele allows the history of the Milwaukee Braves to be given center stage, and rightfully gives the battle for baseball in Milwaukee its place in Wisconsin sports lore.
July 19, 2022
As someone who grew up in Milwaukee rooting for the Braves, this book is a painful read. The chain of events that ultimately caused the team to be pulled from Milwaukee do not always reflect well on the old hometown. But they reflect even more poorly on the team's out-of-town owners, who had their sights set on riches elsewhere from the time they bought the Braves. Steele, who is not the liveliest writer you'll come across, covers the Braves' odyssey in detail. He sticks primarily to the off-the-field facts, and the narrative moves along quickly. There are some minor problems with editing, which is disappointing in a book published by a university press. That aside, Steele is perhaps best at describing how the Braves, not once but twice, were at the forefront of the modern pro sports tradition of robbing fans of their favorite teams in order for rich owners to seek greener financial pastures elsewhere.
July 10, 2020
A well researched account of the Milwaukee Braves. It is a heart breaking account of the battle between the front office and the county. It doesn't have a lot on field detail, but captures the heartache of Milwaukee's loss when their team left them.
March 4, 2025
Excellent reading of the rise and decline of the Milwaukee Braves. Less a telling of on field exploits and more of the behind the scenes financial struggles. Great laying out of "The Milwaukee Miracle" from its beginning to demise.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews