No longer needed, Borchert Field razed
County Stadium construction begins
Maybe it was all the excitement over getting a new stadium — and the attending rumors that a major-league team would follow — but the dismantling of Milwaukee’s longtime home for professional baseball didn’t attract a lot of attention at the time.
In December 1952, while construction went forward on County Stadium, crews began, quietly, dismantling Borchert Field, the beat-up stadium at N. 8th and W. Chambers streets.
Considering it had been the home of the minor-league Milwaukee Brewers through 1952 — and, briefly, the home field for Milwaukee’s short-lived NFL team (the Badgers, from 1922’26), Negro League team (the Bears, 1923), the Green Bay Packers (for one game in 1933), and the Milwaukee Chicks, which won an All-American Girls Professional Baseball League championship (1944) — you’d think there would have been more hand-wringing about the end of an era. Not so much. “Its future use is uncertain, but city workmen started Monday to clear the stands and equipment from Borchert Field, the city’s old ballpark bounded by N. 7th, N. 8th, W. Burleigh and W. Chambers streets,” The Milwaukee Journal noted in a caption with a standalone photograph published on Dec. 1, 1952. “… Proposals to date for the use of the block are: playground, housing project, junior high school and northbound expressway.”
That lone photo was all that marked in print the beginning of the end for Borchert Field, an end that was a long time coming.
Crammed into one city block, Borchert seated about 13,000 people. Named after former Brewers owner Otto Borchert — the park was sometimes called “Borchert’s Orchard” — the stadium had unusual dimensions. According to the invaluable Borchert Field blog (borchertfield.com), the outfield measured 267 feet down the left field line, 268 down the right field line and 392 feet to straightaway center, with deep power alleys between the corners and center field. It was built in 1888, and when Milwaukee’s entry in the fledgling American League moved to St. Louis after the 1901 season, Borchert became home to a new American Association franchise, the Brewers.
By 1952, however, it didn’t seem like anyone minded much that the ballpark was leaving the scene — especially with majorleague-class County Stadium due to open in 1953. When the Common Council approved a deal to buy Borchert Field, The Journal, reporting the move on Jan. 3, 1952, referred to it as “the ancient ballpark of the Milwaukee Brewers.” The city was the Brewers’ landlord in the team’s final season at Borchert; on Aug. 26, 1952, the team held a lease-burning ceremony, with Mayor Frank Zeidler lighting the match.
So by December 1952, eclipsed by the new stadium and rumors (later true) of a big-league team moving to Milwaukee, Borchert Field’s fate seemed all but forgotten.
On Dec. 30, 1952, The Journal published a photo of the dismantling in progress: “A couple of old bottles, a woman’s old shoe and, perhaps, some memories among ABOUT THIS FEATURE
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the tombstone-like uprights of a section of Borchert Field’s bleachers are all that are left of the crowds that once filled the now-missing seats.”
Journal sportswriter Sam Levy hadn’t forgotten Milwaukee’s soon-to-be-departed field of dreams, however.
In a wistful year-end entry in his “On the First Bounce” column, Levy described Borchert Field, which wouldn’t be completely demolished until the following June, as “one of the most desolate spots in Milwaukee County at the moment.”
“An eerie feeling comes over you when you look out across the old home of the Brewers, which is being razed,” Levy wrote in his Dec. 28, 1952, column. “Gone are the center field bleachers, where thousands of early Brewers rooters watched stars of the past. The old plank grandstand seats, too, are coming down piecemeal. The old bleachers! What fun it was to watch a game from there as a kid.”
After Borchert Field was torn down, the city replaced it with a tot lot, but only for a while. That, too, was cleared, as part of the construction of I-43: If you take the northbound on-ramp or southbound off-ramp at Locust St., you’re in Borchert’s Orchard.