There aren’t many baseball diamonds where a deep drive to right field could bounce off a moving train. Mitchell Park had one of them, shown here in a 1947 photograph by Lyle Oberwise. For more than a century, the field was a popular venue for what our ancestors called sandlot baseball.
The diamonds were rarely as primitive as the name might suggest, but “sandlot” was the catch-all term for organized amateur hardball, whether it was played in beer-soaked tavern leagues or by teams good enough to draw spectators who weren’t related to the guys on the basepaths.
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Sandlot sport at Mitchell began soon after the park opened in 1891, but it was fairly informal until 1919, when the Milwaukee Amateur Baseball Association was founded. The association brought together 174 teams and 2,500 players from all the municipal, industrial and commercial leagues in the city.
Mitchell Park became a primary MABA venue, sharing the spotlight with Washington and Humboldt parks. On any summer weekend, spectators could watch the Red Star Yeasts take on the Ryczek Morticians, the Indian Motors play the National Homes, or the Milwaukee Valves go to bat against the Maynard Steels.
The caliber of play was high enough to attract thousands of fans, especially in the cash-strapped, entertainment-starved Depression years, when as many as 23,000 people filled Mitchell Park’s bleachers and overflowed the sidelines.
The fun continued into at least the 1970s, when newer venues, shrinking budgets and flagging interest spelled the end of Mitchell Park’s sandlot era. Today the bases, the bleachers and the backstop are all gone, and the hillside from which this picture was taken is covered with brush. More than a century after “Play ball!” first echoed off the bluffs, even the slowest train can now pass the valley diamond in complete safety.
- Polluted air was a lung-searing fact of life in the coal era.
- The Schroeder Hotel on Sixth and Wisconsin (today’s Hilton Milwaukee) was the largest landmark on the north side of the Menomonee Valley.
- The Kieckhefer box factory was one of many plants that made the Valley Wisconsin’s leading industrial center.
- Mitchell Park’s first bleachers were installed in 1924.
- Towering cranes were kept busy unloading coal shipped by boat from eastern mines.
