The Green Bay Packers at Milwaukee County Stadium

For 62 years the Green Bay Packers played a portion of their regular-season home games in Milwaukee. They were an anachronism, the Packers; the last of the small-town football teams that had spawned what became a behemoth in American sports, the multibillion-dollar National Football League. As the league grew in popularity, so too did its desire to shed that small-town image, by placing teams in the nation’s biggest cities and reaping ever-increasing profits for those select few wealthy enough to be admitted into the inner circle of franchise ownership.

With limited financial resources, competing on equal footing with the likes of Chicago, New York, and St. Louis was always a challenge for Green Bay. It was perhaps natural, then, that the Packers would turn, albeit reluctantly, to Milwaukee, their big-city neighbor 100 miles to the south, for both a steady revenue stream as well as a fervent urban fan base. Yet from the outset, it became clear that though Milwaukee would provide a much-needed financial lifeline to Green Bay, it would also often pose the same big-city threat as those teams against whom the Packers were seeking relief. So as the Packers frequently gained glory on the field, they likewise kept a watchful eye to the south. For not only did Green Bay’s opponents line up against them on the gridiron; at times they could be found in the small city’s own backyard.

At the heart of Green Bay’s dilemma was its business model. In 1919 Earl “Curly” Lambeau, home from Notre Dame due to severe tonsillitis after just one semester of collegiate football, assembled a ragtag outfit with whom he could play against other local teams, and persuaded his employer, the Indian Packing Company, to provide uniforms and a playing field. The fans of Green Bay were immediately smitten by their local team and passed the hat to collect money to pay their boys. Two years later, with the Packers now a member of the two-year-old American Professional Football Association (the league formed in 1920; the Packers joined in 1921; and in 1922 the name was changed to the National Football League), Green Bay was booted from the league for using college players under assumed names, but the citizens of Green Bay came to the rescue and anted up $2,500, the amount needed for the Packers’ reinstatement.  Thus was born Green Bay Packers Inc., a nonprofit corporation with over 1,600 stockholders, a board of directors and an executive committee, which ultimately ran the club. And thus would it always remain.

Green Bay provided for the team just a pittance in contrast to her big-city rivals. The Packers played at tiny City Stadium, a rickety high-school field with wooden-slatted seating and an initial capacity of 5,700, while the big-city teams played in modern arenas built of concrete and steel. With such disparity, and with only half the population density, it was difficult for the Packers to make money; and in fact, they rarely did. Despite putting a winning product on the field (under coach Lambeau, Green Bay won three consecutive championships, from 1929-31), the Packers were usually desperate for funds. More than once Green Bay’s fans dipped into their pockets to keep their beloved team solvent.

By 1932 only Portsmouth, Staten Island, and Green Bay remained as small-town entries in the NFL. The league was fielding offers from big cities throughout the country thirsting for a franchise. Anxious to comply, prior to that season NFL Commissioner Joe Carr and the league owners drew up plans to divest the NFL of the small-city markets, Carr stating, “No other small city will be admitted to the National League. We have too many big cities knocking at our door.”1 Ominously, one of those cities was Milwaukee.

One event in particular was instrumental in the eventual Green Bay/Milwaukee alliance. Early in the 1932 season, Willard J. Bent, a spectator at a Packers home game, fell from the City Stadium stands. He sued the team for $20,000. The following March, the court awarded Bent $5,000 in damages, money the Packers didn’t have; their liability insurance company had gone bankrupt in 1932. After losing an appeal, the Packers went into court-ordered receivership. The only thing that saved them was another round of financing by their intrepid fans.

How differently things might have turned out. With the Packers a three-time champion, the league had a desire to keep the team in Green Bay despite the team’s financial straits. Yet, the NFL also wanted to strengthen the franchise. Behind the scenes, the league had already shown its allegiance to the Packers. In 1930 and again in 1931, D.C. Haderer, a Milwaukee businessman who owned the city’s independent professional football team, applied for membership in the NFL. Both times he was denied; Green Bay, the league was adamant, would claim the Milwaukee market. From the league’s perspective Milwaukee seemed a logical solution to the Packers’ financial distress, so it strongly urged Packers management to play at least a portion of their games there. Given their plight, the Packers reluctantly agreed. Beginning in 1933, the Green Bay Packers announced they’d play one of their six home games in Milwaukee. It became an arrangement that would last through several generations.

October 1, 1933, Borchert Field, Milwaukee: The First Home Game

The 1933 National Football League season opened with an alignment that would remain intact for the next 34 years; although the number of teams would fluctuate, that season 10 teams were evenly divided into East and West Divisions.2 The Packers, geographically the farthest west, were in the latter. In September the Packers announced that the team would play its October 1 home game in Milwaukee, at Borchert Field, an antiquated wooden stadium that served as the home of minor-league baseball’s Milwaukee Brewers.3

In their first two games, both played at 22,000-seat City Stadium in Green Bay, the Packers drew roughly 5,000 fans per game. On this day, 12,227 Milwaukeeans paid admission to the 18,000-seat Borchert Field to watch the 0-1-1 Packers take on the 1-1-0 New York Giants. It was, wrote the Milwaukee Journal the next day, a “slovenly contest.”4 On an afternoon in which the Giants failed to net a first down and completed just one pass, New York nonetheless produced the only scores of the first half. In the first quarter, future NFL Hall of Famer Ken Strong booted a 39-yard field goal.  In the second quarter, Giants wingback Dale Burnett took a toss from tailback Harry Newman, eluded the Packers’ Hank Bruder in the end zone, and scored from 19 yards out, the Giants’ lone touchdown of the afternoon; Newman’s point-after kick gave New York a 10-0 lead at the half. In the second half Green Bay scored its only points, as dynamic Johnny “Blood” McNally, destined for the NFL Hall of Fame, scored on a 30-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Bob Monnett. Monnett’s successful point-after kick made the score New York 10, Green Bay 7, and that was how the game ended.

Despite the loss, it had been a successful day for the Packers. The team simply wanted to appease the league by playing in Milwaukee; instead the large crowd at Borchert Field only served to increase the league’s pressure on Green Bay to permanently relocate the Packers. By midseason, stories about possible relocation were rampant; the Chicago Tribune reported that the “Green Bay Packers will move to Milwaukee next fall [1934] and if the change is not made then it certainly will be made in 1935.”5 For their part, Packers management admitted that tapping into Milwaukee had only been intended to generate additional revenue and expand the team’s fan base. A permanent move, however, was never considered. Nonetheless, the league’s pressure to move the Packers wasn’t going to abate anytime soon.

*****

State Fair Park was a 32,000-seat stadium in the 200-acre Wisconsin State Fairgrounds, in West Allis, on the western outskirts of Milwaukee. Given the Packers’ relative success at Borchert Field, the following season Commissioner Carr, determined to try to rid the team of its small-town status, mandated that the Packers again play a portion of their games in Milwaukee. This time the team announced that two of its six home games would be played there, and arrangements were made to play the games at State Fair Park.

That decision drew an outcry from fans in Green Bay. Recently, City Stadium’s seating capacity had been increased to 22,370, so the thought of losing another game to Milwaukee was roundly condemned. Eventually, though, “Green Bay residents accepted the fact that they had to share the Packers in order to keep them,”6 and the furor subsided. State Fair Park would be the Packers’ Milwaukee home for the next 18 years.

*****

On the field, the decade that began with the Packers’ home games at State Fair Park was hugely successful. Indeed, from 1934 to 1944, the Packers amassed a record of 88-31-4 and won three championships. For most of that period the team was led by a trio of future Hall of Famers: receiver Don Hutson, a brilliant route-runner; Green Bay native and quarterback Arnie Herber; and tailback Clarke Hinkle. After winning the West Division with a 10-1-1 record in 1936, the Packers soundly defeated the Boston Redskins, 21-6, in the championship game, which was played at New York’s Polo Grounds. In 1938 the Packers returned to the championship game, but lost to the New York Giants, 23-17. Having led in the third quarter, 17-16, the latter was a particularly bitter defeat for the Packers, yet as it turned out, one they needed just one year to avenge.

December 10, 1939, State Fair Park, Milwaukee: NFL Championship

On December 3, 1939, in the final week of the regular season, the Packers defeated the Lions in Detroit, 12-7, and for the second year in a row clinched the West Division. In the East, the Giants, too, repeated as division champions, and the stage was set for a repeat of the previous year’s championship contestants. When the Packers beat the Lions, Green Bay’s fans took to the streets in celebration. In short order, though, their excitement was muted when Packers management announced that the championship game would be played not in Green Bay but in Milwaukee, at State Fair Park. Anticipating a backlash, the team stated, “Green Bay fans overlook the great debt owed to Milwaukee. Without the support we receive from our Milwaukee games annually, we would be unable to maintain a National Football League franchise in Green Bay.”7

Almost 11,000 fans traveled south from Green Bay to Milwaukee to support the Packers at the title game. Among a record crowd of 32,279, they were treated to a devastating display of powerful Packers football. After winning the coin toss, the Packers began the game with the wind at their back, and from the opening kickoff totally dominated the game. The following morning this colorfully worded game recap appeared in the Milwaukee Journal:

“It was a sort of concert of revenge for the Packers, who opened with the simple instruments of assault, weaved in a passing note, folded up and reversed the Giant runners as though they were coursing through a tuba, exploded Giant passes back into their faces, then began pouring a crescendo of four, five and six men through the Giant front wall every time the New Yorkers had the ball. It was a triumph of assault which finally had even the Giant attack almost completely on the defensive. Any man who put his mitts on the ball was likely to be thrown over the goal posts.”8

The only time the Giants proved a match for the Packers was at 0-0. In the first quarter, with the Packers inside Giants territory, Arnie Herber threw a 15-yard bullet to Hutson, who eluded three defenders and advanced to the 7-yard line. On the next play, Hutson lured three defenders into a corner of the end zone as Herber fired a pass to an open Milt Gantenbein for a touchdown. After the extra-point kick, the Packers led 7-0. They took that score into the locker room at halftime.

In the second half the Giants got more of the same. Advancing up the field, Giants fullback Tuffy Leemans was battered by Gantenbein, who stormed from his defensive-end position and leveled Leemans with a hit that left him “clutch[ing] at his hair to see if his head was still on.”9 On the hit, Leemans fumbled the ball. On the next play, Packers fullback Clarke Hinkle bulled forward on a carry and slammed into Giants defensive back Ward Cuff, the result of which was that “you could see Cuff fold up in the middle.”10 Those two plays took the air out of the Giants. After the Packers kicked a 29-yard field goal, their tailback Cecil Isbell found halfback Joe Laws for a 31-yard touchdown strike, and the point-after kick made the score 17-0 after three quarters. Finally, the Packers scored twice in the fourth quarter, on an Ernie Smith 42-yard field goal, and a one-yard plunge by fullback Ed Jankowski. The final score was Packers 27, Giants 0.

It had been another huge success in Milwaukee. In all, the championship game produced record revenue of $83,510, with each Packer taking home a winner’s share of $703. Such was the excitement in Milwaukee that the next day the city council formed a special stadium committee to discuss the erection of a municipal stadium. Once again, the hue and cry from team owners and the league that the Packers should relocate reverberated across all of northeastern Wisconsin.

*****

In the years following, the Packers won one additional championship (1944) before the franchise entered into a gradual and prolonged period of decline. After the 1940 season, for one of the few times in their existence, management announced at the annual stockholders meeting that the club had actually earned a profit, due primarily to the extra revenue generated by hosting games in Milwaukee. That reality was not lost on the league’s owners. Astute businessmen all, they realized that Milwaukee attracted larger crowds; they also knew that traveling the extra 100 miles north to Green Bay cut into their visitors’ share.  Chicago Cardinals owner Charley Bidwill no doubt echoed the sentiments of his peers when he proclaimed, “I lose money every time I play at Green Bay and I make money every time I play the Packers in Milwaukee.”11 As a result, whenever possible the Packers’ Eastern Division foes (the Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, Washington Redskins, Pittsburgh Steelers, and Brooklyn Dodgers) avoided playing in Green Bay.

As if the owners’ enmity toward the small city weren’t enough, Green Bay soon faced another challenge. From 1946 through 1949, the NFL’s supremacy was challenged by the upstart All-America Football Conference. With teams in eight major cities, the AAFC engaged in open bidding with the NFL for players, which drove up salaries. Realizing the two leagues couldn’t coexist, they merged after the 1949 season – the AAFC dissolved, and the Cleveland Browns, San Francisco 49ers, and Baltimore Colts joined the NFL to begin play in 1950.

*****

As the 1950s dawned, the Packers were beset by myriad challenges. Not the least of these was City Stadium, which continued as the team’s home. While the big-city teams drew tens of thousands of fans to their modern stadiums, the Packers struggled to draw 10,000 per game. Moreover, their support facilities were outdated and inadequate: they held training camp at remote Stevens Point, Wisconsin, on a high-school field with dim lights, where punts disappeared into the sky during evening scrimmages. Other players referred to Green Bay as the “Siberia of the NFL.”12

With the AAFC-NFL merger, Green Bay was now viewed as a growing burden to the league’s revenue-sharing structure. To compensate, the league again pushed the Packers toward Milwaukee by unofficially stipulating that the team had to guarantee other teams would make money by drawing well in Wisconsin or Green Bay would be thrown out of the league. Consequently, the Packers launched another stock drive and raised $120,000, the amount needed to guarantee six home games in 1950. During the drive, Packers president Emil Fischer stressed the importance of statewide support, assuring, “We want Milwaukee and we need Milwaukee as well as other communities in the state,” then added, “There will be two league games at State Fair Park next fall, and we will continue to play there or at the new stadium when it is completed. We’re certainly hoping Milwaukee wants us.”13 That “new stadium” was to be Milwaukee County Stadium, a state-of-the-art facility due for completion in 1952.

*****

If the revenue generated from playing games in Milwaukee was vital to the Packers’ survival, equally so was the infusion of another Milwaukee revenue source. At the beginning of the decade (1950), the Packers had yet to fully realize the financial potential of televising their games. Until then, radio still predominated. But in 1950 the team signed an agreement with Milwaukee TV station WTMJ to broadcast all their games throughout Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Sponsoring the 12-game slate would be the Miller Brewing Company. Miller’s president, Fred Miller, one of the Packers’ biggest boosters, understood the marketing of professional sport teams; over the years his commitment to the team provided the Packers with much-needed advertising revenues and the benefit of being associated with one of Wisconsin’s most influential companies.14

*****

The Packers’ final season at State Fair Park was 1951. That year, for the second consecutive season, they finished with a 3-9 record. The club had fallen on hard times and trotted out consistently abysmal teams. After a personal-worst 2-10 mark in 1949, legendary coach Curly Lambeau resigned to take a similar position with the Chicago Cardinals, and that ushered in a nine-year period during which five coaches produced an overall record of 32-74-2. In 1951 the Packers posted an $18,000 loss. To eliminate some of their growing debt, management announced that Milwaukee would host a third game beginning in 1952. Naturally, that raised the ire of Green Bay’s citizens.

“This move was taken solely with the best interest of the Packers in mind,” explained the team’s board chairman, Lee Joannes. “We are not moving the Packers to Milwaukee. The Packers can only survive as a Green Bay team, but we are asking all of Wisconsin and particularly Milwaukee to help us support the Packers so that Green Bay will always be in the National Football League.”15

Now the Packers had to focus on selling tickets to the 37,000-seat Milwaukee County Stadium. Completion, originally scheduled for 1952, was delayed by a construction strike in May of that year, so that season the Packers played at Marquette University’s stadium. In June 1953 they launched their season-ticket sales drive for County Stadium.

The first stadium built entirely with civic funding, Milwaukee County Stadium had been designed for one purpose: to lure a major-league baseball team to Milwaukee. In 1953 that purpose was served when the Braves relocated from Boston. For the Packers, though, there was one glaring problem:  Milwaukee County Stadium had been built with no thought given to accommodating a football field. So for the next 41 years, the team made do with a playing field that had almost literally been shoehorned into the stadium.

It was a cramped configuration; the playing surface was barely large enough to fit a football field. Running parallel with the first-base line, the gridiron was laid out over the baseball infield and right field. One end zone spilled onto the warning track in right field, the other onto foul territory on the third-base side; and the latter was so close to the third-base dugout that often a player would disappear into the dugout after scoring. If that happened he had to be careful, because players could enter and exit the field only by way of the dugouts.  Perhaps the most unique result of the field’s alignment, however, was the piece of tape that ran perpendicular from the field and split the east sideline in half; that was the line that divided the teams, as each had to share the same sideline. There was nothing remotely like it anywhere else in the NFL.

September 27, 1953: The First Home Game at Milwaukee County Stadium

 

On Sunday, September 27, the Packers played their first home game at Milwaukee County Stadium, taking on the powerful Cleveland Browns, who would finish the season 11-1 but lose to the Lions in a taut 17-16 championship game. During this 2-9-1 season there were few highlights for the Packers, and none in this opening game. Indeed, the next day the Milwaukee Journal offered only the sparse headline, “Packers Disappointing in Loss to Graham and Browns, 27-0.”16 On an afternoon when the Packers, behind quarterbacks Tobin Rote and Babe Parilli, were outgained 366 yards to 148, the Browns quarterback, future Hall of Famer Otto Graham, scored two rushing touchdowns of one yard each, and another future Hall of Famer, Lou “The Toe” Groza, kicked field goals of 15 and 29 yards, plus an extra point after a Ken Carpenter five-yard touchdown run, as the Browns were never challenged.

*****

Now that the Packers were playing their Milwaukee home games in County Stadium, it was inevitable that football’s powers that be would yell even louder for the Packers to relocate. With Milwaukee now hosting as many home games as Green Bay, it was perhaps also somewhat predictable that a clamor would arise to rename the team. Soon, Milwaukeeans began a push to do just that: Change the name from the Green Bay Packers to the Wisconsin Packers. But Green Bay fought back.

Their answer was resounding; with City Stadium now a clear liability, civic leaders decided to build a new stadium. Just as County Stadium had been built with civic funds for baseball, Green Bay also would build its new stadium for football  with civic funds. So with the team promising to pay for half of the construction, the Packers floated a bond for almost a million dollars. When Green Bay’s citizens voted overwhelmingly to approve the financing, a new City Stadium, with capacity for 32,500 fans, was built.

City Stadium opened on September 29, 1957, and was an immediate success. By the next season the team was profitable, so Packers management decided to take back one of their home games from Milwaukee, in order to reap the parking and concessions revenues. This time Milwaukeeans protested. Among those was Charles “Buckets” Goldenberg, a former Packer player.

“Milwaukee is a good football town,” Goldenberg remonstrated, “and if the Packers don’t want anything to do with Milwaukee, you can bet there will be some negotiating for a pro franchise.”17 (It was rumored that the Chicago Cardinals were shopping for a new home.) It wouldn’t be the last time that Milwaukee threatened to pursue its own professional football team.

*****

In 1958 the Packers, under first-year head coach Ray “Scooter” McLean, finished the regular season with a 1-10-1 record. Immediately after the season, McLean resigned.18 On January 28, 1959, the team hired Vince Lombardi, the New York Giants offensive coach, as head coach and general manager. Thus began one of the most storied coaching careers in American sports history.

August 15, 1959: Exhibition game at Milwaukee County Stadium; when the Lombardi-era Packers first took the field

On Saturday, August 15, following a brutal Packers training camp, the soon-to-become-legendary Lombardi team took the field for the first time against an opponent. Largely comprising holdovers from the previous regime, over the next nine seasons this core group of Packers would amass an overall record of 89-29-4, win three NFL championships and the first two Super Bowls. Few teams would ever replicate such a record of overwhelming superiority.

August 15 was warm and cloudy in Milwaukee, with a light mist falling. Before the game, at midfield, Lombardi shook hands with George Halas, head coach of the Packers’ opponent, the Chicago Bears. Twenty-eight thousand fans, the largest crowd to watch the Packers in Milwaukee since 1956, filled Milwaukee County Stadium to watch the exhibition game, whose receipts would benefit charity. The Packers kicked off, Paul Hornung drilling the ball through the end zone, and the Packers’ defense took the field. In four downs, they forced a punt, and the teams switched units.

Onto the field came the Packers’ offense, led by future Hall of Fame quarterback Bart Starr. On the baseball infield, which had become muddy from the rain, the Packers failed on their first possession, and Max McGee punted. A few moments later, though, once again on offense, the Packers “began to pound the ball in the straight-ahead, physical style Lombardi had been preaching since day one of training camp.”19 Following hard running by backfield mates Hornung and Jim Taylor, both bound for the Hall of Fame, Hornung was short on a 45-yard field goal try. Late in the quarter, though, Hornung ran left out of the backfield, circled behind the linebackers, and caught Starr’s pass as he crossed the goal line. Hornung’s kick made it 7-0, Packers. On the next drive the Bears kicked a 20-yard field goal to pull within 7-3, and that ended the first-half scoring.

In the third quarter, the Packers struck again. From the Chicago 9-yard line, tight end Gary Knafelc faked a block, ran to the goal line and turned just as Starr’s low pass arrived at his knees. As Knafelc reached down to catch the ball, he fell backward into the end zone, capping a 62-yard scoring drive. Although Hornung’s extra-point try hit the upright, the Packers led, 13-3. Immediately the Bears answered, charging 70 yards for a touchdown. On the scoring play, a one-yard plunge by fullback Rick Casares, he stepped on safety Emlen Tunnell’s hand, an accident that would later impact the game’s outcome.

As the fourth quarter began with Green Bay leading 13-10, the Packers drove deep into Bears territory. At the 5-yard line, however, Starr’s pass was intercepted and Chicago subsequently mounted a long drive before settling for a field goal to tie the game, 13-13. Seven minutes remained.

Now veteran Packers quarterback Lamar McHan replaced Starr. Over the next five minutes McHan tossed a pitchout to rookie tailback Tim Brown; Max McGee took a pass 19 yards down the left sideline; and on fourth down and 4, Brown took another pitchout and gained eight yards. After the Bears’ defense stiffened, Hornung kicked a 46-yard field goal, and the Packers went in front, 16-13. There were two minutes left.

Chicago’s Willie Galimore returned the kickoff to the 50-yard line. He stayed in the game as the Bears’ tailback. On the first play from scrimmage, quarterback Zeke Bratkowski, trying to pass to Galimore in the right flat, badly overthrew his target and the ball went right into the hands of Tunnell. Unbeknownst to Tunnell, he was playing with a broken hand thanks to his encounter with Casares, and dropped the easy interception. Given another chance, Bratkowski threw to Casares, who had slipped behind the linebackers; Casares caught the ball, turned, and ran untouched into the end zone. After the extra point, the Bears led 19-16. Only 41 seconds remained.

On the Packers’ final drive, McHan lobbed a pass toward Brown, but the Bears intercepted as the clock ran out. Chicago had won, 19-16.

Immediately, the coaches met again at midfield and shook hands. Despite the loss, Lombardi was beaming. His team had played hard and given their all, particularly the defense.

Coach Halas remarked, “Once the season begins, the Packers are going to give a lot of teams a lot of trouble, starting with us.”20

Indeed they did.

*****

December 3, 1961: Milwaukee County Stadium; Packers win second consecutive Western Conference title

By 1961 Lombardi’s Packers were a juggernaut. Following a 7-5 record in 1959 (the Packers’ first winning season since 1947), they went to the NFL championship game in 1960, losing to the Philadelphia Eagles, 17-13. Lombardi vowed after that game that his team would never again lose a championship, and on December 3, 1961, his 9-2 Packers took their first step toward returning to the title game when they faced the 9-2 New York Giants at Milwaukee County Stadium. With a win, the Packers would claim their second consecutive Western Conference title.

It was 38 degrees in Milwaukee. A record Wisconsin professional football crowd of 47,012 filled the stands. With each team in first place in its conference, the game was “billed as a possible preview of the league championship game.”21 Going into the game, the Packers and Giants ranked one-two in most points scored and fewest points allowed. However, it was the offenses that shined first, as the two teams scored on five of their first six combined possessions. First, the Packers drove from their 20 to the Giants’ 15, where Hornung, on a weekend pass from the Army, booted a 23-yard field goal to put the Packers ahead, 3-0. On the next drive, though, the Giants, led by future Hall of Fame quarterback Y.A. Tittle, marched 71 yards in seven plays (assisted by a penalty); Tittle sneaked across for a touchdown from the 1-yard line. Pat Summerall’s kick made it Giants 7, Packers 3.

With their second possession, the Packers, starting again at their 20-yard line, efficiently pounded the ball down to the Giants’ 17. Then on third down Starr threw a perfect pass to Taylor out of the backfield, but with a wide-open field before him, Taylor dropped the ball. The Packers settled for a Hornung 25-yard field goal, and the Giants still led, 7-6.

The ensuing kickoff resulted in the game’s first turnover. As Giants kick returner Joel Wells started up the field, the Packers’ 240-pound backup center, Ken Iman, hit him and caused a fumble, which the Packers recovered on the Giants’ 34. From there, Hornung ran left, and then stopped and lobbed an option pass to tight end Ron Kramer, who made a one-handed catch for a 20-yard gain. On the next play, Jim Taylor drove off left tackle, cut back toward the middle of the field, bowled over Giants safety Jim Patton at the 5, and scored. “Patton reeled back from the impact with Taylor as if he had tried to enter a revolving door going the wrong way.”22 With Hornung’s kick, the Packers led, 13-7. That ended the first-quarter scoring.

In the second quarter the Giants struck quickly. From his own 30-yard line, Tittle passed twice to Kyle Rote for a total gain of 57 yards. Later, from the 2-yard line, halfback Bob Gaiters smashed over for a touchdown. In just 1:44, the Giants had gone 70 yards in seven plays. After Summerall’s kick, the Giants again led, 14-13.

Later in the second quarter, New York’s Don Chandler shanked a short punt and the Packers took over on the Giants’ 46. They advanced the ball to the Giants’ 3, but as Taylor bulled forward off right tackle, he fumbled at the 1. The Giants recovered and returned the ball to their 10-yard line. On the final drive of the first half, the Giants advanced to the Packers 34 in six plays and an unnecessary roughness penalty, and  then Summerall kicked a 41-yard field goal as time expired. At the half, the Giants led, 17-13.

In the third quarter the defenses rose to the challenge. Early in the quarter, Starr broke loose from a tackler and scrambled to the Giants’ 5. On the next play, the Packers fumbled the handoff, but recovered the ball for a three-yard loss. Starr then attempted a pass, but the ball was tipped and intercepted by New York. The quarter expired with neither team scoring and the Giants maintaining their four-point edge.

Fifteen minutes remained in the tightly fought contest. In the final quarter, the Packers had possession and were advancing when they were assessed two 15-yard penalties. Punter Max McGee got off a long punt, which was downed at the Giants’ 8-yard line. Then came the play that largely decided the game. On first down, fullback Alex Webster ran over left tackle for a first down. However, Packers cornerback Jesse Whittenton, running alongside Webster, stripped the ball away. That gave the Packers possession at the Giants’ 30-yard-line, and they quickly capitalized. On the first play, the Packers benefited from a roughing-the-passer penalty, and the ball was advanced to the 15-yard line. From there, Hornung ran down to the 8; Taylor five more to the 3; then Taylor went left and raced untouched into the end zone for what became the winning touchdown, as the extra point made the score Packers 20, Giants 17.

Both teams had additional scoring chances. The Giants got to the Packers’ 25, but Summerall missed a field goal. Then the Packers advanced to the Giants’ 11, but Starr was intercepted. On the Giants’ final drive, Tittle led the team to the Packers’ 22, but a fumble on a double reverse was recovered by the Packers, and the game was ended.

Taylor set a new single-game Green Bay record with 186 yards rushing.

One month later, the Packers defeated the Giants again, in the NFL Championship Game. This time the outcome was never in doubt; the Packers won, 37-0.

*****

By the time of the Packers’ victory over the Giants at Milwaukee Stadium, the football landscape had for a year been undergoing dramatic changes. In 1960 a group of businessmen who had been refused admittance to the NFL had formed their own league to compete directly with the older league. They called the upstart entity the American Football League. It began play in the fall of 1960 and for the next six years went head-to-head with the NFL for professional football supremacy. The AFL would once and for all cement the relationship between Milwaukee and the Packers.

*****

In 1965 Milwaukee lost its baseball team, the Braves, to Atlanta. That year the NFL also placed an expansion team, the Falcons, in the same city. During their battle with the AFL, the NFL had previously placed teams in Dallas and Minneapolis, so it now had teams in the country’s top 10 TV markets, blocking the AFL from those cities. Milwaukee was then the 11th largest market in the country. With the loss of the Braves, the city was anxious to remain a major-league location. Soon the AFL made overtures about placing an expansion franchise in Milwaukee, and controversy arose between those who supported such a move and those who felt Milwaukee belonged to the Packers.

One supporter of expansion was local businessman Marv Fishman (who later became an original owner of the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks). He believed strongly that Wisconsin could support a second team, as the Packers had now developed a season-ticket waiting list that exceeded 15,000. With the NFL season now 14 games long and the Packers selling out three games in Milwaukee plus four in Green Bay, Fishman believed Milwaukee would support seven sellouts. “And if the leagues ever did get together,” speculated Fishman about an AFL-NFL merger, “what would be a greater rivalry than between a Milwaukee team and the Packers?”23

That summer, though, Fishman found his aspirations obstructed by a rather formidable force – Vince Lombardi. When he tried to reserve County Stadium for an AFL exhibition between the New York Jets and Miami Dolphins in August 1966, Fishman found the request lost in administrative red tape. The Packers, he learned, had exclusive rights in their contract with the stadium and had denied the request.

“If I couldn’t get the stadium for an exhibition game,” Fishman later related, “I certainly would not be able to get a contract for seven regular-season games. … Challenging Lombardi in Wisconsin was like challenging God. We might have overcome the hold that the magic of Lombardi had on public opinion, but we could not overcome the hold Lombardi had over public officials.”24

Said Eugene Grobschmidt, Milwaukee County Board chairman and also chairman of the board’s special sports committee, “I wouldn’t do anything that would hurt the Packers down here. Unless Vince Lombardi okays it, I won’t go along with it.”25

Thus ended any further efforts to bring another professional football team to Milwaukee. In September 1966, Lombardi, in his role as Packers general manager, signed a contract guaranteeing his team exclusive rights to County Stadium through the 1975 season.

December 23, 1967: Milwaukee County Stadium; Packers defeat Los Angeles Rams in first round of NFL playoffs

Since 1933 the NFL had consisted of two divisions, East and West. In 1967 that alignment was changed, as the 1966 merger of the two leagues created an unwieldy 16-team NFL and 9-team AFL, with the winners of each league to play each other in a championship that would become known as  the Super Bowl. Now the NFL was reformatted to four divisions of four teams each, with the Packers in the Central Division, and a two-round playoff format was instituted that would provide the NFL’s representative for the second Super Bowl. With a 9-4-1 record, the Packers won the Central Division, and on December 24 hosted the Coastal Division winner, the 11-1-2 Los Angeles Rams, at Milwaukee County Stadium.

On paper, the game promised to be an epic contest. Two weeks earlier, on December 9 in Los Angeles, the Rams had defeated the Packers 27-24 on a fourth-quarter touchdown pass. Throughout the season, the Rams’ dominant defensive front, appropriately nicknamed the Fearsome Foursome, had stifled opposing offenses, finishing first in the league against the run. Indeed, in that game the Packers managed just 98 yards rushing on 32 carries, a paltry 3.0 yards per attempt, while the Rams totaled 324 total yards of offense. If the Packers were to win, they were going to have to produce a better offensive performance.

In the end, the playoff game was no contest. Los Angeles struck first, scoring what turned out to be their only points of the game, as quarterback Roman Gabriel, who had riddled the Packers’ secondary in Los Angeles, found flanker Bernie Casey for a first-quarter 29-yard touchdown pass, giving the Rams a 7-0 lead after a successful point-after kick. From that point on, the Packers’ stifling defense shut down the Rams, and Green Bay’s offensive line manhandled the Fearsome Foursome. In the second quarter, speedy Travis Williams, the Packers’ kick returner, who had logged only 35 carries all season but was thrust into duty by injuries to the starters, took a handoff, shot off-tackle, and raced 46 yards for a touchdown. So fast was Williams and so far ahead of the defense that Packers Jerry Kramer and Chuck Mercein raised their arms signaling a touchdown when Williams was at the 25-yard line. Later in the quarter Bart Starr, who was masterful (222 yards on 17-of-23 passing), found flanker Carroll Dale for a 17-yard touchdown pass. When Don Chandler added the extra point, the Packers went to the locker room with a 14-7 halftime lead.

The second half was all Packers. In the third quarter, with the Packers at the Los Angeles 6-yard line, Mercein, who had fumbled in the first quarter and totaled only 14 carries for 56 yards during the regular season, scored on a draw play, increasing the score to Packers 21, Rams 7 following the point-after kick; and in the fourth, Williams scored his second touchdown of the game, a two-yard run. The point-after kick was the game’s final score, as the Packers won, 28-7.

The final game statistics bore out the Packers’ dominance. In all, the offense totaled 163 yards rushing, a game-high 88 by the unheralded Williams, and 374 total yards. Meanwhile, the defense held the Rams to just 75 rushing yards and 217 total yards. The game plan that had been implanted was followed to perfection, and when the final whistle blew, the Packers carried Lombardi off the field on their shoulders.

*****

Over the final 27 years that the Packers played in Milwaukee, the team realized few moments to compare with their glory years; for most of that time, they were just not very good. During that period, too, the NFL underwent dramatic changes that would forever alter Green Bay’s fortunes and lead inevitably to the Packers abandoning Milwaukee altogether. Chief among those changes was television revenue. In 1970, the year that the AFL and NFL merged, the merged league received a four-year TV contract worth $185 million. All teams divided the revenue equally. By 1993, when the Packers turned a $1 million profit, the NFL’s TV contract was worth a staggering $4.38 billion split evenly among the teams. The Packers no longer needed the extra revenue that Milwaukee provided.

In addition to the TV money, the Packers’ stadium arrangements had radically altered. While Milwaukee County Stadium had once been the shiny new state-of-the-art complex, by the early 1990s the 40-year old facility, which lacked modern amenities like luxury boxes and club seats, had been eclipsed by the modernization of Green Bay’s beloved New City Field, which had been rechristened Lambeau Field in 1965, upon the death of the Packers’ patriarch. In 1995 Lambeau’s seating capacity was raised to 60,000 and 90 new luxury boxes were added. For ever-loyal Milwaukee, the writing was on the wall.

As the 1994 season approached, the team could no longer justify splitting its home games (now eight) between the two cities. Doing so, the Packers’ treasurer reported to the board of directors, would cost the club $12 million in revenue over a four-year period. So with no plans to replace County Stadium, the decision was made to play all the Packers home games in Green Bay.

As Packers president Bob Harlan explained, “We just had so many more sources of revenue at Lambeau Field then we did at County Stadium, that the financial numbers were overwhelming. … With no stadium on the horizon … we had to start thinking about leaving.”26

December 18, 1994: Milwaukee County Stadium – The last game

The Packers’ last game in Milwaukee was played on December 18, 1994, against the Atlanta Falcons. It was the 15th of 16 regular-season games. As the game began the 7-7 Packers were very much in the NFC playoff race. The 6-8 Falcons were not.

The Packers were first to score. In the first quarter, quarterback Brett Favre found receiver Sterling Sharpe open and delivered an eight-yard pass for a touchdown. Packers kicker Chris Jacke delivered the extra point, and the Packers went in front, 7-0. Later in the first, Atlanta’s Norm Johnson booted a 20-yard field goal to cut the Packers’ lead to 7-3. Finally in the quarter, Favre connected for his second touchdown pass as Anthony Morgan broke free for a 15-yard scoring strike down the sideline. When Jacke again kicked the PAT, the Packers led, 14-3.

In the second quarter, Atlanta’s 260-pound running back Craig Heyward scored on a run from two yards out, but Atlanta’s subsequent two-point conversion attempt failed, leaving the Falcons trailing 14-9.

Neither team scored in the third quarter. Early in the fourth, Atlanta took its first lead of the afternoon when receiver Terance Mathis caught a five-yard pass from quarterback Bobby Hebert, to put the Falcons in front, 15-14. On the ensuing attempt at a two-point conversion, receiver Andre Rison pulled in a pass from Hebert, and the Falcons pushed their lead to 17-14. There the score remained until two minutes were left.

After each team tried but failed to score, the Falcons were forced to punt, and the Packers got the ball back at their own 33-yard line, with 1:58 left on the clock. Now Favre brought the offense back onto the field. In 1991 the Falcons had selected Favre, from Southern Mississippi University, in the second round, the 33rd overall pick, of the NFL draft. After Favre had played in just two games for Atlanta, with four pass attempts, the Packers acquired him before the 1992 season. That season Favre became the Packers’ starting quarterback, and he had already impressed the team and the fans with his leadership, bravado, and gunslinger’s mentality. All of that would be on display this day.

On the first play of the crucial drive, with both Packers receivers double-covered, tight end Mark Chmura ran free down the middle of the field and made a stumbling 25-yard catch. On the next play, Chmura dropped a 13-yard pass, stopping the clock with 1:33 to play. On second down, Favre completed a three-yard pass to wide receiver Robert Brooks, then on third down he connected again with Brooks on a 10-yard out pass, giving the Packers a first down but failing to stop the clock. With time running out, Favre threw incomplete to running back Edgar Bennett. That play stopped the clock, and on the next play Favre threw a bullet toward Morgan, who dived and gained four yards, but again kept the clock running.

Now, with less than a minute left, Robert Brooks came up with a timely catch. Cutting across the defense, he made a short catch, made a hard pivot, and headed downfield before he was caught at the Falcons’ 17-yard line. With a first down, 29 seconds left in regulation and the Packers trailing 17-14, Favre stepped to the line and spiked the ball to stop the clock.

With the Falcons in a zone defense, Favre once again passed to Chmura, who ran for eight yards, down to the 9. There was time for one more play.

Over the course of his 20-year career, Favre, a surefire first-ballot Hall of Famer, scored 14 rushing touchdowns. None would be bigger than the one on this day. With three receivers in the game, the Packers flooded Atlanta’s zone defense with five men running routes. As Atlanta’s linemen pushed the Packers’ offensive line back into the pocket, Favre, feeling the pressure, took off, stumbled at the 6-yard line, and then from the 3 lunged for the goal line. He landed just across the line, once again giving the Packers the lead. Jacke’s extra point made the score 21-17. When Atlanta’s Hail Mary pass fell incomplete as time expired, the Milwaukee crowd of 54,885 stood as one in a final show of support after 62 years of watching the Packers.27

*****

In 126 home games played in Milwaukee, the Packers posted an overall record of 76-47-3 and won their lone playoff game in the city, the Christmas Eve 1967 triumph over the Rams.

CHIP GREENE, a management consultant, has been a SABR member since 2006. A regular contributor to the Biography Project book series and website, Chip also edited Mustaches and Mayhem: Charlie O’s Three-Time Champions, a forthcoming SABR publication about the 1972-74 Oakland Athletics. Beyond his writing, Chip is also co-leader of SABR’s Games Project. Chip lives in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, with his wife, Elaine, and daughters, Anna and Haley.

 

Sources

Eisenberg, John. That First Season: How Vince Lombardi Took the Worst Team in the NFL and Set It on the Path to Glory (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt, 2009, ebook version).

Povletich, William. Green Bay Packers: Trials, Triumphs and Tradition (Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2012).

pro-football-reference.com

profootballhof.com/history

packershistory.net

football.ballparks.com

packers.com/lambeau-field/stadium-info/history/other-homes.html

Milwaukee Journal

Milwaukee Sentinel

 

Notes

1 William Povletich, Green Bay Packers: Trials, Triumphs and Tradition (Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2012), 32.

2 The 10 teams in the NFL in the 1933 season were aligned into East and West divisions. East division: Brooklyn Dodgers, Boston Redskins, New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, Pittsburgh Pirates; West division: Chicago Bears, Chicago Cardinals, Cincinnati Reds, Green Bay Packers, Portsmouth Spartans.

3 From 1922 to 1926 the Milwaukee Badgers were a member of the NFL and played their home games at Athletic Park, later renamed Borchert Field. Throughout that period, the Packers and Badgers played each other yearly on their respective home fields.

4 Milwaukee Journal, October 2, 1933.

5 Povletich, 38.

6 Povletich, 39.

7 Povletich, 49.

8 Milwaukee Journal, December 11, 1939.

9 Milwaukee Journal, December 11, 1939.

10 Milwaukee Journal, December 11, 1939.

11 Poveletich, 52.

12 John Eisenberg, That First Season: How Vince Lombardi Took the Worst Team in the NFL and Set It on the Path to Glory (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt, 2009), 32.

13 Povletich, 83.

14 Povletich, 85.

15 Povletich, 89.

16 Milwaukee Journal, September 28, 1953.

17 Povletich, 109.

18 In 1953, McLean had also coached two games as the Packers interim head coach.

19 Eisenberg, 111-118 (ebook version).

20 Eisenberg, 118 (ebook version).

21 Milwaukee Journal, December 4, 1961.

22 Milwaukee Journal, December 4, 1961.

23 Povletich, 143.

24 Povletich, 143.

25 Povletich, 143.

26 Povletich, 249.

27 Milwaukee Journal, December 19, 1994.