The Birth Pangs of Bernie Brewer

Bernie Brewer is one of baseball's oldest mascots. (via Steve Paluch)

Bernie Brewer is one of baseball’s oldest mascots. (via Steve Paluch)

Typically, the inaugural season of a major league franchise, whether through expansion or transfer, inspires robust attendance. Such was not the case in Milwaukee in 1970, however.

When the Brewers opened for business that year, it was on short notice. The expansion Seattle Pilots were in big financial trouble after just one year (chronicled by Jim Bouton in Ball Four) and the fate of the franchise was in limbo. As a result, the team started spring training not knowing where it would end up during the regular season.

A bid from a Milwaukee group (headed by Bud Selig) was finally accepted late in the day on March 31 (narrowly escaping the stigma of an April Fool’s Day birthday), just one week before Opening Day. The team’s equipment truck had been parked in Provo, Utah, awaiting the order to go northeast or northwest. It was too late to design new uniforms, so the team had to use old uniforms with “Pilots” ripped off and “Brewers” sewn on, and caps with “M” subbed for “S.”

Obviously, there was very little time to promote the new team, distribute pocket schedules, manufacture merchandise, etc. Since the Chicago White Sox had played some “home” games in Milwaukee the previous two seasons, County Stadium was still functional.

Even so, the departure of the facility’s initial tenants, the Milwaukee Braves, was still fresh in the minds of local fans. The Braves’ move to Atlanta was announced after the 1964 season, leaving the team with a a lame duck Milwaukee season of 1965 with a dismal attendance of 555,584, dead last in the NL, just a tad north of 25 percent of the peak attendance year of 1957, when the Braves won a title. In a sense, the Brewers were moving into a nest that been fouled.

Nevertheless, when the Brewers’ plane arrived at Mitchell Field in Milwaukee, 8,000 people were on hand to greet them. The Opening Day crowd of 36,107 on April 7 was not bad, but it was a long way from a sellout (the capacity of County Stadium in 1970 was 45,768). The game itself, however, was not likely to kindle any enthusiasm, as Andy Messersmith and the Angels shut the Brewers out, 12-0. The next day, attendance dropped off to 7,575.

Before climate-controlled Miller Park opened in 2001, early-season weather in Milwaukee was not conducive to large crowds even in the best of times. Given that most Brewers games in April 1970 were on the road, it took a while before the hometown fans got to witness a victory. In fact, it did not occur until the season was almost a month old. The Brewers’ May 6 4-3 victory over Boston was witnessed by just 5,320.

The disappointing attendance did not sit well with a retired aviation engineer, 69-year-old Milt Mason, a die-hard Brewers fan from day one. So he and Marvin Milkes, the Brewers’ operations manager, who had made the move from Seattle, devised a stunt to hype attendance. In late June, it was announced that Mason would dwell in a trailer atop the County Stadium scoreboard in right-center field until the Brewers had a sellout. “I’m kind of a loner anyway,” he noted. That was definitely a prerequisite.

Mason might have been inspired by the flagpole sitters of his youth. The flagpole sitting craze started in 1924 with a stunt man named Alvin “Shipwreck” Kelly, who remained aloft for 13 hours and 13 minutes. As the decade wore on, more flagpole sitters joined the fray until 1929, when an Iowan by the name of Bill Penfield set the record of 51 days and 20 hours. The fad succumbed to the Depression but occasionally a lone sitter carried on the tradition. The current record is held by H. David Werder, who remained aloft from late 1982 to early 1984 as a way of protesting the price of gasoline.

Living in a high-rise trailer (albeit with free access to Brewers games) was inconvenient but it was hardly roughing it. The trailer came equipped with a stove, an exercise bike, a refrigerator, and a 21-inch color TV (a nice amenity at the time). He had two telephone lines, one that connected him with the media, and one that connected him to the fans. During games, he was donned in traditional Bavarian garb, including a Tyrolean hat and lederhosen.

Mason moved into his roost on July 6. The game that day resulted in a 3-1 victory over the White Sox but with a crowd of just 11,364. Mason soon realized that he had set the bar too high, so he announced that as soon as the Brewers had a game that hit the 40,000 mark (which would, in effect, be their best crowd of the season), he would vacate his trailer.

Despite Mason’s willingness to compromise, the fans would not cooperate. In fact, he couldn’t get within 10,000 of the reduced goal. The closest was a crowd of 29,661 for a July 3 contest against the Royals. But Mason had become a fixture at Brewers games. Somehow the nickname Bernie Brewer was coined.

Mason’s vigil finally ended on Aug. 16, when a Sunday afternoon crowd of 44,387 showed up for a game against the Indians. Since the Brewers entered the contest with a 45-74, record, one might suspect that something else had put all those butts in the seats. Indeed, it was bat day, which had been a proven crowd-puller at major league parks during the 1960s. The icing on the cake was a 4-3 walk-off Brewers victory, thanks to pinch-hitter Tomas Gustavo (better known as Gus) Gil, who singled in the bottom of the ninth, scoring Roberto Peña with the winning run. It was arguably the high point of the season – or at least the highest point since Opening Day.

So Mason was free at last! Unfortunately, as he slid down the rope toward the warning track, he got a bad case of rope burn. It was a rude ending to Mason’s marathon. His ordeal was hardly of Biblical proportions, but he had been up there for 40 days and 40 nights… plus one.

A Hardball Times Update
Goodbye for now.

A good thing that the Brewers scheduled that giveaway, as the next best crowd they had the rest of the season was on Sept. 1, when they drew 16,670 for a game against the Twins. If not for Bat Day, Mason might have been stuck in his trailer all through the offseason. Not the greatest place to spend a Wisconsin winter, but at least he could have seen a few Green Bay Packers games.

Total attendance in Milwaukee for 1970 was just 933,690; the team record was 65-97. Admittedly, this was better than 677,944 at Seattle the year before, even though the record was almost identical (64-98).

Despite Mason’s superfan status, the cold weather finally got to him and, like many of his fellow Badger State denizens, he headed for the southwest. During spring training, he worked in the Brewers’ clubhouse in Tempe. He died on June 12, 1973 in San Diego.

Though Mason was gone, his memory lingered on in the form of a Bernie Brewer mascot, attired similarly to Mason, who debuted after Mason’s death. This time, however, Bernie had a chalet and not a trailer, and his domain was in center field rather than right-center field. This slight change of address made a big difference less than a month after Mason’s death, when the integrity of his successor (Dan McCarthy, a member of the grounds crew and a student at Marquette University was the inaugural Bernie mascot) was called into question.

The Texas Rangers came to town for a weekend series in early July. After a 5-2 Friday night victory on July 6, it all went south for the Rangers. They lost the Saturday contest by a score of 17-2 (this was phenom David Clyde’s third start and first major league loss). The first game of the Sunday double-header resulted in a 6-4 Brewers victory.

During that game, Rangers first base coach Jackie Moore thought he saw someone with binoculars in Bernie’s chalet and told manager Whitey Herzog about it. The chalet was such a perfect perch for stealing signs, one had to wonder if it had been designed for just that purpose.

Herzog noticed that Bernie wore white gloves when the Brewers were at bat but not when the Rangers were at bat. He brought the matter to the attention of home plate umpire Bill Haller, who told Bernie to remove his gloves and ordered his assistant and his binoculars to evacuate the chalet.

The excuse for the gloves was that Bernie had to go down the 40-foot slide after a Brewers home run, so he needed to wear the gloves only when the Brewers were at bat. His assistant was ostensibly there to blow up balloons and launch them after Brewers home runs.

Herzog felt that the balloon guy was using binoculars to steal the signs and pass the info on to Bernie, who would clap his hands whenever a curve was coming. It never was officially determined whether any sign-stealing was taking place, or even if Bernie’s assistant actually had binoculars.

The stakes were a tad lower than they were in the Polo Grounds in 1951 when the New York Giants were stealing signals. At the start of the Rangers-Brewers series, the Brewers were 39-40 and the Rangers, in only their second year in Arlington, were just 28-50. “Can you imagine a team having to cheat to beat us?” wondered Herzog.

Indeed, the Rangers lost the second game 7-3, even though the gloveless Bernie was flying solo in his chalet. On the other hand, the 1973 season was the first time the Brewers drew more than a million fans (1,092,158 put them No. 6 out of 12 AL teams), the ballpark got a new lighting system, and the team reeled off a 10-game winning streak (including nine games on the road) from June 8-18. The overall record was just 74-88, but clearly the franchise was making progress.

So Milt Mason had a memorable rookie season in 1970, as did his namesake, Bernie Brewer, in 1973. As one of the oldest mascots in baseball, Bernie enjoys senior citizen status. He was on hiatus from 1985 through 1992, and today he has to share the spotlight with the Brewers’ famed racing sausages, but he is still a venerable figure in mascot lore.

At Miller Park, Bernie is ensconced in a high-rise dugout (it actually looks more like a porch). His old chalet is on display at the Lakefront Brewery in downtown Milwaukee. What could be more fitting than to house Bernie Brewer’s former digs in a brewery?

When it comes to what made Milwaukee famous, Bernie deserves at least an honorable mention after beer.


Frank Jackson writes about baseball, film and history, sometimes all at once. He has has visited 54 major league parks, many of which are still in existence.
5 Comments
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Paul Blocklyn
8 years ago

Great article! Now how about one on the Phillie Phanatic? The way the Phillies are doing this season, they could use a lift!

rubesandbabes
8 years ago

Nice article – 40′ slide!

The best overall explanation about the early 70ies baseball attendance I’ve heard was from a an A’s ticket seller of the era:

“In those days, everyone worked.”

“Mason might have been inspired by the flagpole sitters of his youth.”

Or maybe the relatively more concurrent Native American Alcatraz Occupation?

..roll out the barrel…

Bpdelia
8 years ago
Reply to  rubesandbabes

Except that Americans work much longer now than they did in the seventies. And are more productive than ever. And make less in compensation than they did in the seventies.

The problem was that baseball had be become somewhat boring. Still not out of the scoring doldrums. Terrible venues. For the first time games were all on television.

It was also an inflationary period in the american economy.

Teams had been moving out of the cities for decades as a result of the post war boom, cheap gas, and expanding roads.

The economy stagnated, inflation became a monster, gasoline prices especially jumped up.

It certainly wasn’t because people worked then and not now. Americans work just as hard now as ever.

joser
8 years ago

Regardless of who inspired Mason, Mason clearly inspired the “Hungry Hungry Homer” episode of the Simpsons, and that episode in turn caused the Calgary Canons to adopt the “Isotopes” name when they moved to Albuquerque, so the half-life of his influence is surprisingly long.

Bpdelia
8 years ago
Reply to  joser

Classic episode. “You know me. I’ll be quirky. I’ll be quirky? Alberquerque!”. And “I am the MAYOR of ALBERQUERQUE”