Foran: The last opening day at Milwaukee’s Borchert Field

From Chris Foran at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on March 28, 2017:

It was the end of an era, but at least it was warm and sunny.

On April 16, 1952, the minor-league Milwaukee Brewers played in what everyone knew was going to be the last opening day ever at Borchert Field against the Minneapolis Millers.

“Borchert’s Orchard” had been the home of Milwaukee baseball for half a century. But the wood-framed stadium — rickety, worn out, its roof ripped off by a windstorm eight years earlier — was making way for a new baseball palace. Workers were in the home stretch on County Stadium, the Menomonee Valley ballpark being built ostensibly to house the 1953 Brewers but really to lure Major League Baseball back to Milwaukee.

But on this spring day, with sunny skies and temperatures in the upper 60s, Borchert Field, at the corner of N. 8th and W. Chambers streets, was where the national pastime returned for one final opener.

Read the full article here: http://www.jsonline.com/story/life/green-sheet/2017/03/28/our-back-pages-last-opening-day-milwaukees-borchert-field/99575154/



Originally published: March 29, 2017. Last Updated: March 29, 2017.