Thursday, May 26, 2022

COLLECTING MILWAUKEE: 70 YEARS OF TOPPS MILWAUKEE BASEBALL CARDS By Russell Streur

 

COLLECTING MILWAUKEE:  70 YEARS OF TOPPS MILWAUKEE BASEBALL CARDS  

 

By common practice, baseball is passed on from father to son.  Not so in my case.  My mother’s marriage busted up when I was at a young age and in the absence of any other alternative in the mid-1950s, mom moved out of a Chicago apartment with me and Nean, the best older sister in the history of the world,  back to live with her parents, our grandparents, in a country house on Pine Lake in Waukesha County, Wisconsin.  And so I learned baseball not from a father, but from my grandmother, Esther Risley.  Grandma Esther knew everything.  She drove powerboats, sailed and rowed, played a mean hand of contract bridge and could pour a cocktail with either hand.  She knew the songs of all birds in the neighborhood, the names and growing habits of all the plants in the neighborhood, and everything about baseball a five-year old boy could want to know.  Especially, back then, everything about the Milwaukee Braves.

 

Every day, we would listen to the Braves on a Zenith 500 Royal transistor radio, maroon in color, with a gold mesh screen over the speaker, tuned to the team’s flagship station, WTMJ 620 on the AM dial, Earl Gillespie and Blaine Walsh calling the action.  Sundays were the best days, with double-headers on the schedule, and Mondays the worst, being travel days in an era when clubs rode the rails from series to series and city to city.

 

If the Braves were rained out, we would tune in the Chicago Cubs.

 

Every so often, Grandpa Russ and Grandma Esther would bundle me and Nean off to see the Braves play in Milwaukee at County Stadium, taking the train from the Oconomowoc station to the Milwaukee Depot on the morning Hiawatha.  On real special days, Grandpa would find us seats in the Dome car.  Going to a game in that kind of style was enough to faint half-dead away from the pure excitement of it all.  Even today, a lifetime later, going to a game is the better joy of the day.  Being at the game comes in second.

 


 

The Hiawatha, Postcard, 1956

 

The Braves finished a game behind the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1956 but grabbed the National League pennant the following year, capping the season with a World Series win over the New York Yankees.  Lou Burdette powered the Braves in the seven-game set, winning three games.  The Yankees won a rematch in 1958.  In 1959, the Braves lost a three game playoff series for the National League pennant to the relocated Los Angeles Dodgers.

 

I could follow standings, but I knew nothing about baseball cards until 1961, when Mom remarried and the family moved to a quiet suburb of Milwaukee.  And there on an elm-lined Idlewild Avenue, I learned the collecting business from the cool kid down the block, Danny Rumelt.

 


Topps 1953.  Left:  Bill Bruton, Card 214.  Right, Del Crandall, Card 197.

 

Topps considered the move of the Braves from Boston to Milwaukee one of the biggest sports stories of all time.

 


Braves Go to Milwaukee, Topps Scoops 1954, Card 130

 

My favorite Braves issue was the 1959 design.

 

 


Topps 1959.  Clockwise from upper left, Hand Aaron, Card 380; Lou Burdette, Card 440;

Warren Spahn, Card 40; Ed Mathews, Card 450.

 

 

And there were favorite cards from other years, too.

 


Top: Juan Pizarro, Topps 1960, Card 59.  Bottom: Braves’ Fence Busters, Topps 1958, Card 351.

 

 


Left: Frank Bolling, Topps 1964, Card 115.  Right: Rico Carty, Topps 1965, Card 305.

 

Now of course, I only touch the cards through protective plastic sheets and sleeves.  I miss the feel of that old cardboard.

 

After the Braves defected South for the 1966 season, there wasn’t any reason to keep collecting. 

 


Atlanta Braves, Topps 1966, Card 326.

 

In 1967, car dealership owner and former Braves minority stakeholder Bud Selig arranged an exhibition game in Milwaukee between the Minnesota Twins and the Chicago White Sox.  Played on Monday night, July 24, the event drew a record 51,144 fans through the turnstiles at County Stadium, far above the stadium’s official capacity of 43,678.

 


Minnesota Twins, Topps 1967, Card 211.

 

 

By then, the attention of the boys on the block had already turned away from baseball to girls, the Vietnam War, and marijuana, not necessarily in that order.  But Bud Selig had all the proof he needed to believe he could bring the game back to Milwaukee.

 


 

Bud Selig, Topps 2019, 150 Years of Baseball, Card 150-54.

 

 

The Milwaukee White Sox

 

And so the Chicago White Sox became—at least for a few nights in 1968 and 1969—the Milwaukee White Sox.  How Selig lured every American League team to give up a precious off-day to come to Milwaukee to play the nomadic Sox isn’t easy to figure, but it happened.  County Stadium hosted nine games in 1968 as the part-time home of the Pale Hose; the White Sox lost all except one, a 2 to 1 victory over the Cleveland Indians in June 17.  The results on the field counted less to the Chicago brass than the fans streaming through the gates—the few dates in Milwaukee accounted for almost a third of the total White Sox attendance for the year.  

 

Eddie Matthews had something to do about those numbers.  The legendary Milwaukee third baseman, then nearing the end of his playing career as a veteran presence on the Detroit bench, was honored in a pre-game ceremony when the Tigers faced the Sox on August 26.  42,808 fans paid respects to the slugger.  Not yet fully recovered from surgery for a ruptured disk, Matthews suited up but did not play in the game. 

 

For the Sox, the lure of big crowds and much-needed paydays guaranteed an encore season in Milwaukee.  They played better, winning five straight games to open the Milwaukee share of the season, their fifth win coming on June 16 against the Seattle Pilots, making their first—but as it turned out, not their last—trip to Milwaukee. 

 

Average attendance at the games dipped slightly from 1968, but the Wisconsin turnstile count represented an even larger percentage of the season gate for the Windy City team than the previous year.

 

It’s said that Selig had a handshake deal to move the White Sox to Milwaukee on a full-time basis for 1970, but the American League vetoed the sale, unwilling to abandon its Chicago turf to the National League Cubs.

 


Clockwise from upper left: Walt Williams, Topps 1968, Card 172; Luis Aparicio Topps 1968, Card 310; Sandy Alomar, Topps 1969, Card 283; Tommy John, Topps 1969, Card 465.

 

The Pilots Crash and Baseball Comes Home to Milwaukee  

 

Selig got the break he needed when the underfinanced 1969 Seattle Pilots went broke after their first and only year in outdated Seals Stadium.  Selig grabbed the team off the auction block and moved the club to Milwaukee a few days before the start of the 1970 season.  From 1971 to the present day, Topps has issued Milwaukee Brewers baseball cards—1,425 regular season, traded, update cards (plus 2022 season) more or less.  With the help of a few ringers thrown in here and there, the cards tell the history of the Brewers franchise.

 


Last to First. Left: The last Seattle Pilot baseball card, Gus Gil, Topps 1970, Number 651.  Right: The first Milwaukee Brewer baseball card, Phil Roof, Topps 1971, Number 22.

 

It took a while for the new team to gain a following.  Game attendance dropped sharply from 1970 to 1971 to barely half the league average.  The strike-shortened 1972 season was worse.  Hank Aaron’s return to Milwaukee provided a much-needed boost in 1975, but the team didn’t really catch on with the fans until the end of the decade.

 

The Last Hanks

 


 

Left:  Hank Aaron, Topps 1975, Card 660.  Right:  Hank Aaron, Topps 1976, Card 550.

 

Hank Aaron returned to the Brewers from the Atlanta Braves to finish his major league playing career where it began, in Milwaukee County Stadium, for the 1975 and 1976 seasons.

 

The Money Infield

 


Clockwise from upper left:  Robin Yount, Topps 1975, Card 223; Jim Gantner, Topps 197,9 Card 154; Don Money, Topps 1975, Card 175; Paul Molitor, Topps 1979, Card 24.

 

It took a while for the Brewers to figure out where to play everybody left of first, but eventually things settled down to Molitor at third, Yount at short, and Gantner at second.  The trio set a major league record by playing together for 15 consecutive seasons from 1978 through 1992.  The record held until the Yankees' Mariano Rivera, Derek Jeter, and Jorge Posada reached 16 seasons in 2010.

 
The Bombers and the Wallbangers




Clockwise from upper left:

Harvey Kuenn, Topps 1983, Card 726; George Bamberger, Topps 1987, Card 468;

Larry Hisle, Topps 1979, Card 430; Cecil Cooper, Topps 1980, Card 95.




Clockwise from upper left:

Gorman Thomas, Topps 1981, Card 135; Ben Oglivie, Topps 1979, Card 519;

Rollie Fingers, Topps 1982, Card 586; Pete Vuckovich, Topps 1982, Card 643.


Bambi‘s Bombers and Harvey’s Wallbangers tattooed American League ballparks with hundreds of homeruns between 1978 and 1982, many by the four sluggers pictured above. Pitching wasn’t bad either. Pete Vuckovich recorded 32 wins against only 10 losses in 1981 and 1982 and Rollie Fingers rang up 57 saves during the two campaigns. But it wasn’t enough to take home the flag in the Brewers first and thus far only World Series appearance. The Brew Crew fell in seven games to the St. Louis Cardinals in 1982.


The Return to the National League



The Brewers returned to the National League in 1998. In equal parts promptness and irony, the team lost the season opener on the road to: the Atlanta Braves. A few days later, the Brewers reversed direction, defeating the Montreal Expos in their home opener. Jeromy Burnitz blasted his fourth home run of the young season, a three-run shot in the fifth, to power the win. Burnitz would finish the season with 38 homers for the club and 125 RBIs, but it was strictly a one-man show. Jose Valentin was second on the team in homers, far behind at 16 homers and with just 49 RBIs to show for the swings. The best the club could do on the mound was Bob Wickman, who earned 25 saves in the late innings, and a pair of ten-game winners in starters Scott Karl and Steve Woodard, each of whom finished the season with losing records. The Brewers finished last in their division. 





Clockwise from upper left: Bob Wickman, Topps 1999, Card 151; Jose Valentine, Topps 1998, Card 158;

Scott Karl, Topps 1997, Card 58; Jeromy Burnitz, Topps 1998, Card 126.


The Prince of Diamonds
 



Top to Bottom:

Thunder on the basepaths. Fielder runs down Albert Pujols off first base, Topps 2008, Card 536;

All Star MVP, Topps 2011, Card US21. Fielder bowls over his teammates, Topps 2010, Card 1.


Prince Fielder was one of the biggest—as in big—favorites with Milwaukee fans of all time during his seven seasons with the Brewers. The 275-or-thereabouts-pound giant led the National League with 50 homers in 2007 and the major leagues two years later with a whopping 141 RBIs. He won the State Farm Home Run Derby in 2009 and was selected as the All-Star MVP in 2011, the first Brewer to win the honor in the history of the franchise.

Topps Heritage.  The modern, glossy action photographs on baseball cards create an immediacy and an excitement that earlier cards certainly lacked.  But sometimes, a portrait or a pose give an insight to the player’s personality that the action shots can’t capture.  Heritage cards bring continuity to a Topps collection, building a bridge between the present and the past. 


 

Topps Heritage (2020), duplicating the design of the original 1971 Brewers set.  Clockwise from upper left:   Lorenzo Cain, Card 435; Brandon Woodruff, Card 374; Eric Thames, Card 397; Orlando Arcia, Card 34.

 

Orlando Arcia was my favorite Brewer of recent years because of his enthusiasm, team commitment and clutch hitting.  He was traded in April 2021 to:  the Atlanta Braves.

 


 

Topps Heritage 2021.  Clockwise from upper left:   Adrian Houser, Card 583; Willy Adames, Card 662; Christian Yelich, Card 251; Luis Urias, Card 512.

  

 

 Topps 2022.  The 2022 set marks the 70th season of Topps covering Milwaukee baseball.  The cards have come a long way.  This year’s set looks pretty good.

 


 

Topps 2022.  Clockwise from upper left:   Omar Narvaez, Card 139; Freddie Peralta, Card 13;

Aaron Ashby, Card 78; Corbin Burnes, Card 240.

 

Topps Now.  In the past four seasons, Brewer pitching arms have lifted the club into post-season competition.  Devin Williams won the NL Rookie of the Year award in 2020; Josh Hader won NL Reliever of the Year for the third time in his young career in 2021; and Corbin Burnes won the Cy Young award in 2021.  That season, Burnes and Hader collaborated on a combined no-hitter.

 

 


 

 


Top Row.  Left to right: Topps Now 2021, Corbin Burnes, Card OS-39; 
Topps Now 2020, Devin Williams, Card OS-39; Topps Now 2021, Josh Hader, Card 0S-25.

Bottom:  Topps Now 2021, Burnes Hader No Hitter, Card 792.

 

But the bats haven’t kept pace, and the Brewers have been eliminated in each of the last four years without winning a league pennant.  In 2021, the Brewers were pushed aside by:  the Atlanta Braves.

 

Atlanta.  There’s that word again.  Somewhere in the world, a weary traveler is turning, turning slowly, step by step, inch by inch.

1 comment:

  1. Great stuff. Milwaukee will always be close to my heart, because my parents met and married there (while attending college).

    ReplyDelete

2024 Topps Series 1