Photos: When the Chicago White Sox called Milwaukee home

Chris Foran | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

If you can't get a team, rent one.

That was the idea in 1968, when Milwaukee, still smarting from the loss of the Braves to Atlanta in 1966, lured the Chicago White Sox to play at County Stadium for 10 games.

While making an unsuccessful pitch to get one of baseball's four expansion franchises, Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Inc., the group led by Bud Selig, talked the owners of the Chicago White Sox and Minnesota Twins into playing an exhibition game at County Stadium in the summer of 1967. That game, on July 24, 1967, drew 51,144 fans — 3,000-plus more than County Stadium's capacity.

A crowd that size got the White Sox's attention.

In 1967, Chicago's American League team was in the tightest pennant race in more than a half-century. But off the field, the White Sox were hurting, drawing fewer than 1 million fans at Comiskey Park for the second straight year.

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After the 1967 season, White Sox owner Arthur Allyn announced that the team would play 10 games in 1968 — one game against each A.L. team, and a preseason exhibition game against the crosstown Cubs — at County Stadium. The games were "sponsored" by the Brewers, the Milwaukee Sentinel reported on Oct. 31, 1967.

Milwaukee Sentinel

Some saw the games as a prelude to the White Sox actually moving to Milwaukee.

(It wasn't the first time a major-league team had played some of its home schedule in a different city; the Brooklyn Dodgers played games in nearby Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City, N.J., in 1956 and '57. Then again, the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles in 1959, so the concerns of White Sox fans at the time are understandable.)

Despite chilly temperatures — during the game, it was in the low 40s, with a biting wind off the lake — 20,759 baseball-hungry Milwaukeeans turned out to see the White Sox and Cubs play an exhibition game on April 6.

But that was just an exhibition game.

On May 15, 1968, the California Angels came to Milwaukee to play the White Sox in the first regular-season game at County Stadium since the Braves' last home game on Sept. 22, 1965.

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Photos: Milwaukee in 1968 - the year in pictures

Managed by Eddie Stanky — who had been a favorite of Milwaukee fans when he played for the minor-league Brewers in 1942, leading the American Association in batting — the White Sox were in last place at the time.

"We're not dead yet," Stanky told the Milwaukee Sentinel's Lou Chapman in a May 15 story.

In fact, Stanky argued that the 1968 White Sox were better than the previous year's model. The team had one of the best pitching staffs in baseball; had added Tommy Davis, one of the 1960s' top run producers; and brought back Luis Aparicio, the speedy shortstop who had been the heart of the 1959 White Sox team that went to the World Series.

But so far in 1968, the Sox had among the worst attendance in baseball, drawing little more than 7,000 fans per game at home.

Even with a forecast including a 90% chance of rain, 23,510 fans came out to County Stadium to see the struggling Sox.

In addition to Stanky, the game had a number of connections to Milwaukee's baseball past.

Fred Haney — the manager who led the Braves to the World Series in 1957 and '58, and in 1968 was the Angels' general manager — was honored in a pregame tribute. The Angels' starting pitcher, George Brunet, got his start as a Brave, as did California second baseman Bobby Knoop, whose bloop double in the eighth inning figured in the Angels' 4-2 victory.

During the game, Allyn told The Milwaukee Journal's Chuck Johnson that rumors the White Sox would move to Milwaukee were "silly."

The White Sox's home away from home proved a mixed blessing for the team in 1968. In nine games, the Sox went 1-8 in Milwaukee, on their way to finishing tied for eighth place in the 10-team league. Stanky resigned as manager July 12, one day after the Sox lost to the Yankees, whose main attraction was Mickey Mantle, who was hobbling through the final season of his Hall of Fame career.

Journal Sentinel files

But at the turnstiles, the White Sox were a big winner in Milwaukee. The team drew 265,552 fans in their nine games at County Stadium, vs. 538,323 for 59 dates at Comiskey.

"I see no reason why we can't play here next season," White Sox owner Allyn told The Journal's Cleon Walfoort in an Aug. 27 story after the final game at County Stadium, a 3-0 loss to the Detroit Tigers on Aug. 26. There were 42,808 fans at the game, in part because the Tigers' roster included Eddie Mathews, the former Braves slugger in his final season in the majors.

The White Sox did play at County Stadium again in 1969 — 11 games, one against each team in the league, which had expanded to 12 teams for the season.

The Sox finished 7-4 at County Stadium that year; one of the wins was an 8-3 victory June 16, 1969, over the Seattle Pilots — a struggling expansion team that, less than a year later, was sold out of bankruptcy, moved to Milwaukee and became the Brewers.

Additional research for this story came from "The Chicago White Sox, 1968-'70: Three Years in Hell" by Sam Pathy, first published in 2015 by the Society of American Baseball Research (sabr.org).

Our Back Pages: 1968

About this feature

On Wednesdays this year, the Green Sheet's Our Back Pages will look back at 1968 in Milwaukee, sharing stories of the events that shaped and reflected a changing city as reported and photographed by the Journal Sentinel's predecessor newspapers, The Milwaukee Journal and Milwaukee Sentinel.

Special thanks and kudos go to senior multimedia designer Bill Schulz for finding many of the gems in the Journal Sentinel photo archives.