Glory Days T he story of the Milwaukee Brewers actually began almost 2,000 miles away in Seattle Washington In 1969 four new teams joined the big leagues One of them was the Seattle j Pilots They were named after the harbor Pilot Pilo pilots who guided ships in and out of that ppi pp city’s busy port The Pilots had some good players including Marty Pattin and Tommy Harper However they did not attract enough fans to creaky Sicks Stadium which was in need of repair Just before wh w the start of the 1970 season Seattle’s owners t th gave up on the team and sold it to a young automobile dealer named Bud Selig He would later become commissioner of baseball Selig and his partners moved the club to Milwaukee and renamed it the Brewers The town was excited about its new team The Braves had played in Milwaukee from 1953 to 1965 The fans were sad when they left for Atlanta Georgia Even though the Brewers lost 6
97 games their first year almost one million people bought tickets to cheer them on The Brewers built an exciting team during the 1970s They found young players who blossomed into great stars Robin Yount Paul Molitor Darrell Porter Gorman Thomas Sixto Lezcano Charlie Moore and Jim Slaton all grew up together as Brewers George Scott Cecil Cooper Ben Oglivie Sal Bando Don Money Ted Simmons and Mike Caldwell joined Milwaukee from other teams Many of those players became All-Stars and Yount and Molitor would later be voted into the Hall of Fame In 1982 the Brewers were champions of the American League AL They were a hard-hitting bunch led by Molitor and Yount The fans nicknamed the team Harvey’s Wallbangers after manager Harvey Kuenn Newcomers Pete Vuckovich Rollie Fingers and Don Sutton gave the Brewers great pitching They met LEFT The team’s first mascot reminded young fans of the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz ABOVE Paul Molitor led the league in runs scored three times as a Brewer 7
the St Louis Cardinals in the World Series and lost in seven exciting games The Brewers went through some ups and downs in the 1980s and 1990s After Molitor and Yount left the club no one stepped up to fill their shoes Teddy Higuera Dan Plesac Cal Eldred B J Surhoff Greg Vaughn Jeromy Burnitz Geoff Jenkins and Jeff Cirillo were all fine players but they could not bring a pennant back to Milwaukee In 1998 the American League and National League NL voted to add one team each That would make 30 teams in all The Brewers agreed to move from the AL to the NL so that each league had an even number of teams It was the first time in the 20th century that a team switched leagues Milwaukee fans began the 21st century looking forward to new rivals new opportunities and a new group of rising young stars The first star to arrive was a talented pitcher named Ben Sheets By 2008 he had been joined by Rickie Weeks Corey Hart LEFT Robin Yount led the Brewers to the pennant in 1982 ABOVE Geoff Jenkins topped the team in home runs in 2002 and 2004 9
