1970 program cover

Lew Krausse

Lew Krausse played 14 years in the majors for five teams. He was the starting pitcher in the first Milwaukee Brewers game, a 12-0 loss to the California Angels on April 7, 1970 at County Stadium. He took that loss that day ... and then he took 17 more losses.

Krausse, 1970: 13-18, 4.75 ERA.

That's just astounding from a 2010 perspective, isn't it? Thirty-one decisions. He made 35 starts, which suggests he was one of the few reliable starter options Manager Dave Bristol had. He also had a career-high eight complete games in 1970.

Control wasn't his issue: He only walked 67 batters, an average of 2.8 walks per 9 innings. He struck out 130 (5.4 per 9 innings).

Trivia: His father, Lew Krausse Sr., also was a major leaguer, pitching for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1931-32.

Santos Alomar, aka Sandy Sr.

One man played in both the last Braves' game at County Stadium and the first Brewers' game at County Stadium: Sandy Alomar Sr.

(How'd I learn this bit of trivia, you ask? Back issues of The Sporting News -- back when they still had all the MLB box scores.)

County Stadium, September 1970

The photo is from the DrBear collection on Flickr.

Atop the scoreboard in the photo is a trailer. From the Brewers' website:

The 69-year-old Milt Mason, as "Bernie Brewer", goes into a trailer atop the stadium scoreboard in late June, vowing not to descend until the team draws a home crowd of 40,000, which occurs on August 16.

Opening Day, 1970

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel file photo of the Brewers being introduced on opening day, April 7, 1970.

DIY

Here in the Brewers' 40th anniversary season, I've been casting about, looking for material on the team's history. You know, the way the Packers do it. Granted, the Packers have much more history worth celebrating, and the Brewers go long stretches between winning seasons.

So, let's see how much attention I give to this project. I have a job and kids, you know?

We'll start here: The 1970 team photo. The first American League Brewers roster included many of the members of the 1969 Seattle Pilots -- excluding Jim Bouton, who'd been traded to Houston in the middle of the '69 season. (Bouton, of course, wrote about the '69 season in his legendary book Ball Four. So it's little wonder that at 65-97, they were exactly one game better than the Pilots (64-98).

Tommy Harper was the 1970 Brewers' only All-Star. He batted .296, leading the team, and his 38 stolen bases were four behind league leader Bert Campaneris' 42.

The 1970 Brewers didn't exactly pack them into County Stadium: Their season attendance of 933,690 was seventh-best of the 12 AL teams. Milwaukeeans don't turn out for noncontenders; just ask the Braves of the '60s about that. Also, I read that Bud Selig theorizes that Wisconsin baseball fans were still angry about being dumped by the Braves, and that that was a factor in turnout the first few years.

In a 1995 interview for the PBS series "I Remember Milwaukee," longtime Milwaukee Sentinel sportswriter and columnist Bud Lea said that, in the Brewers' early years, people would call the Sentinel office and ask "What time is the Braves game?", i.e. slipping up on the Brewers' name. So the Braves were still on the minds of area fans, it would seem.