Brewers Play the Blues? 1936

This Milwaukee Journal photo was filed in May of 1936, and shows a home game at Borchert Field.

There's a lot to take in here.

The photographer is unidentified, although Journal library stamps adorn the reverse of the photo. It has been assigned negative number 521241.

The ballpark is identified both as "Borchert field" and as "Athletic park", its moniker before being renamed upon team owner Otto Borchert's death.

Every time I see them, I'm struck by the huge light standards placed on the edge of the field, between the fans and the action. When this photo was taken, they were less than a year old, installed in early June of 1935. Night baseball was the fashion of the day, and the Brewers were eager to bring it to their fans. So eager that they were willing to impact the Orchard's sightlines, which were already challenging at best. Shame they weren't able to mount the lights on top of the roof, although that might have resulted in tragedy in 1944 when a storm took off part of the roof on the first base side of the park.

Taking a closer look, you can see that the center line of the photo has been touched up in the classical style. I don't know what had happened to the picture, but somebody felt it necessary to enhance and define the image. The end result is something out of a Pointillistic painting.

This editing wouldn't have been so visible when reproduced in the paper, but on the original it's ethereal and otherworldly.

The uniforms are somewhat obscured by the retouching, but the men in the first base dugout, and the man at bat, seem to be wearing gray or similarly light-colored caps. The Brewers wore navy blue in 1936, indicating that was the visitors' dugout at the time, as we know it was in other seasons.

The artist has also outlined the pitcher's mound and baselines, to pull them out from the background.

I also like the peek at the concession vendor in the lower-left corner.

This photo, which doesn't appear to have been published by the Journal, was stamped "filed" on May 18, 1936. On the day, the Brewers were beginning a road trip in St. Paul. The series before had involved three games against Kansas City at the Orchard, it's possible that this photo was taken then.

The Brewers took the first game 1-0 on Friday, May 15, behind the solid pitching of knuckleballer "Tot" Pressnell. The Blues came back to win the second, 6-5, before drubbing the Brews in the rubber game, 12-2. This was a rare blemish on Milwaukee's record, the first series the Brewers had dropped in a month. Even counting those two losses, the Brewers had a record of 11-5 within the wooden walls of Borchert Field.

It's also possible that the photo comes from the Opening Day game a few weeks earlier. The visiting team's uniforms look like the Louisville Colonels, who were the Brewers' opponents for that home opener.

In the absence of a clear identification, we can't tell for sure. We'll just have to appreciate the photo as a glimpse of Borchert Field in its prime.