THE MILWAUKEE BREWERS
In 1913, the Milwaukee Brewers had their first 100-win season. It was also their first American Association championship.
Under newly-placed player-manager Harry “Pep” Clark, the Brewers responded to the call of their new manager by plying their trade in first-rate form. Clark had occupied a steadfast position with the Brewers as a third-baseman since 1904 when he covered the hot-corner in 134 games. He is unique among American Association players for playing in more games in the league than any other player, a grand total of 1,834 contests, all for one team, the Milwaukee Brewers.
With their 100-win season in 1913, the Brewers lost 67 games (.599) and barely escaped with their lives, as Minneapolis beckoned all season, ending up 3 games in back of the Brew Crew.
Two 20-game winners graced Athletic Park, later to be named Borchert Field, during the 1913 campaign. Cy Slapnicka led all Association pitchers with his 25 wins. His final record of 25-14 (.641) was among the best in Brewers’ history. Through 321 innings of work, Slapnicka struck out 129 batters while walking 113. He gave up 311 hits while appearing in 47 games. (ERA’s weren’t recorded until the 1914 season)
On Slapnicka’s boot-heels was a dairy farmer from New Hampshire by the name of Ralph Cutting, whose pet goat was a steadfast mascot of the team, and a source of problems with the press. Cutting’s 21-9 record (.700) gave him the league’s top winning percentage in 1913. Tom “Sugar Boy” Dougherty’s wins were also in double figures (14) as were Joe Hovlik’s (11) and Alfred Braun’s (10) as Milwaukee put together a balance pitching attack.
On offense, the Brewers featured the strong hitting of Larry Chappelle who brought a .349 batting average (high league) in 350 at-bats to Clark’s crew. Chappelle would later be involved in the trade which brought Shoeless Joe Jackson to the Chicago White Sox from the Cleveland Indians in August of 1915.
Other members of this historic team include shortstop Lena Blackburne who hit .266 and stole 31 bases; Canadian outfielder Newt Randall who hit .288 and hit 14 triples along with 21 doubles; and outfielder Larry Gilbert who hit .282 and hit a team-leading 10 home runs. Harry Clark appeared in 165 games at third-base while posting a .286 batting average and swatting out 19 triples to lead the Brewers in that category.
In 1914 the Brewers would return to form by capturing the American Association’s top spot for the second year running. With Clark again at the helm, Milwaukee posted a 98-68 record in a tough league which featured the hot hitting Kansas City Blues (.275 team) and Minneapolis Millers (.275 team). The Brewers poked out 51 homers to lead the league during a normally sedate home-run hitting period (the deadball era) and hit for average with a .272 team mark.
Newt Randall capped the Crew’s hitting with his impressive .321 average in 651 at-bats while stealing a team-high 29 sacks. A young Oscar “Happy” Felsch demonstrated the talent that would take him into the realm of the big-league’s upper echelon by swatting 19 home runs and hitting .304 as a stick-happy outfielder. John Beall, outfielder, brought a heavyweight .312 average in 603 at-bats to Clark’s Brewers while swiping 27 bases.
The Milwaukee mound corps consisted of two 20-game winners in 1914, Joe Hovlik (24-14, 2.54 ERA) who lasted 323 innings, and Irving “Young Cy” Young (20-16, 2.87 ERA), the Crew’s second-leading workhorse with 304 innings. Tom Dougherty went 14-4 to prove his worth. Red Shackelford had a record of 11-2 to post on his mantle.
Over 20 years would pass before Milwaukee would earn another American Association pennant.
In 1936, Al Sothoron held the reigns on a team which produced a record of 90-64 (.584) to capture the top spot in the Association. Hitting .295 as a team, the Brewers met the league average. The St. Paul Saints finished in the league’s second spot under manager Gabby Street, five games behind the Brew Crew.
Among the Brewers’ heaviest hitters were first-baseman and league MVP Rudy York (.334), local boy Chet Laabs in the outfield (.324), outfielder and crowd favorite Tedd Gullic (.329) and outfielder Bernie “Frenchy” Uhalt (.322). Laabs clobbered 42 home runs, taking advantage of Borchert Field’s intimate surroundings. York had 37 long-balls, while third-sacker Lin Storti had 31 dingers to assist in the Milwaukee cause.
Milwaukee had three 19-game winners in 1936: Forest “Tot” Pressnell (19-9), Joe Heving (19-12) and Luke “Hot Potato” Hamlin (19-14). Kentucky native Clyde “The Mad Hatter” Hatter’s record of 16-6 (.727) was his best yet in his American Association career. Hatter led the league in strikeouts with 190. Hatter died from an apparent heart attack in 1937.
In the playoffs, the Brewers defeated Kansas City and Indianapolis, paving their way to the Junior World Series where they met the Buffalo Bisons of the International League. Sothoron’s Brewers defeated the Bisons four games to one to claim top honors in the minor leagues for 1936.
With World War II in full stride, the Brewers next captured first-place in the American Association in 1943 under manager Charlie Grimm. Posting a 90-61 record, Grimm kept the Indianapolis Indians at bay by 5.5 games. Joe Berry and Wes Livengood came away with duplicate records of 18 wins, 10 losses. Third-baseman Grey Clarke captured the league batting crown with a .346 mark in 534 at-bats while newcomer Ted Norbert (acquired in a trade with the Pacific Coast League’s Portland Beavers for Brewer mainstay Tedd Gullic) took the Association’s home run honors with 25. The Brewers were defeated by Columbus, 3 games to 1, in the first-round of the play-offs to spoil Grimm’s great season.
Milwaukee’s next bout with American Association honors came during the following season.
In 1944, Charlie Grimm started out as manager, but the Chicago Cubs came along with a more enticing offer. Needing a manager, the Brewers sought out Casey Stengel who was with the Oakland Oaks of the Pacific Coast League at the time. He agreed to come to Bill Veeck’s Brewers and put together a memorable team for Milwaukee fans who saw their team capture 102 wins against 51 losses.
Leading the hit parade for the Milwaukees was first-sacker Heinz Becker, native of Germany, who posted a crepuscular .346 in 526 at-bats while driving in 115 runs. Both Dick Culler and Bill Nagel, at short and third-base, respectively, hit .308 to boost the Brewers. Nagel’s 23 homers topped the team.
The Brewers’ top performer on the mound was Earl “Teach” Caldwell who posted a boisterous record of 19-5 (.792, tops in the American Association) and a slender ERA of 2.97. Charlie Gassaway’s 2.75 ERA along with his 17-8 record would have been any team’s envy that year, but Georgia native Charlie Sproull led the Brewer starters with a 2.50 ERA in combination with a record of 16-7.
But the same hoo-doo that robbed Grimm of a Junior World Series appearance came back to haunt Stengel and his Brewers who were defeated in the first round of the playoffs by third-place Louisville. Grim was probably the mood in Milwaukee in September of 1944.
Never a team to wallow in their own suds, the Brewers came back to capture the Association’s top spot in 1945 with a record of 93-61 under new manager Nick “Tomato Face” Cullop, sneaking past Bill Burwell’s Indianapolis Indians by 2.5 games.
With a hitter like outfielder Lew Flick, the Brewers had the first ingredient for a successful season. Flick led the league with his monumental .374 batting average (575 at-bats) which included a league-topping 215 hits. Along with 32 doubles and 92 RBI, the diminutive Flick was a pitcher’s nightmare.
Leading the Milwaukee mound corps was Owen Scheetz, a Freemason, who put up a league leading 19 wins against only 8 losses (.704) and held Association hitters at bay while compiling a gold-plated ERA of 1.95 through a league-leading 226 innings of work. No MVP candidate here.
In the playoffs, the same fate met the Brewers as it had the previous two season as they were eliminated in the first round, again to third-place Louisville who had finished 10 games in back of the Milwaukee men.
The 1951 season saw Milwaukee’s Brewers take another first-place berth in the American Association. Charlie Grimm returned to Milwaukee as skipper, leading his Brew Boys to a 94-57 season after the team’s disappointing sixth-place finish the previous year.
George Crowe held the big stick for the Brewers in 1951. The big first-sacker led the Association in hits (189), RBI (119) and doubles (41) while assembling a .339 batting average. With 24 home runs, Crowe had something to crow about.
But the team leader in the long-ball department was outfielder Jim Basso whose 25 dingers kept pitchers searching for the right lure.
Ernie Johnson and Murray Wall each won 15 games. Johnson’s record of 15-4 combined to create a league leading winning percentage of .789, while his 2.62 ERA was good for tops in the league. Wall’s 15-5 (.750) record really brought the suds to the top of the mug for Milwaukee moundsmen while leading the league in games started (30). Bert “Bobo” Thiel wound up with 14 wins against 9 losses while Virgil Jester’s 13 wins came against only 6 losses (.684).
The Brewers finally had the right recipe to bring a Junior World Series performance to the table by defeating Kansas City in the first round of the A.A. playoffs and then taking the St. Paul Saints to task in the finals.
Grimm's’ Brewers met Walter Alston’s Montreal Royals in the Junior World Series, 4 games to 2, behind the hitting of shortstop James “Buzz” Clarkson whose .458 average and 16 total bases ensured the Milwaukee franchise of their third and final Junior World Series Championship.
In 1952, Milwaukee’s froth again rose to the top as the club suffered through three managers while winning an American Association best 101 wins against 53 losses. Charlie Grimm, Bucky Walters and Red Smith combined to help the Brew Crew along in their winning ways.
Behind Billy Bruton, the Brew Crew Bombers topped the league in team batting with a .292 mark. Bruton was a fleet-footed outfielder before making a name for himself in the majors. In 1952, he led the Association with his 650 at-bats, 130 runs and 211 hits while posting a batting average of .325 and appearing in all 154 regular season games for Milwaukee.
Another future major league star, Don Liddle, posted 17 wins against a meager 4 losses (.810) and posting a league-leading 2.70 ERA. His 5 shutouts led Association pitchers. Murray Wall was back with Milwaukee as he put up 16 wins alongside 10 losses, leading the team with 38 appearances. The lengthy Donald “Gene” Conley, who played in the National Basketball Association during the off-season, put 11 victories on the board for the Brewers while losing 4 (.733) with a tidy ERA of 3.15.
But the Brewers couldn’t pass the gates through the playoffs. Taking the first-round against St. Paul in four games, they lost in the finals to Kansas City in a tight round, 4 games to 3. This season ended the Brewers’ tenure in the American Association as the Milwaukee Braves would capture the city’s heart in 1953 after moving to the Cream City from Boston. Their new digs was known for years as Milwaukee County Stadium, a fine baseball park which was originally built to house the old American Association Milwaukee Brewers. The Brewers moved to Toledo to become the Toledo Sox for the 1953 season where they captured the league crown.
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Copyright by Rex Hamann (2005). Contact him at Pureout@msn.com
