'History is worth preserving': Proposed downtown hotel concerns baseball historian
A proposed hotel development on the old Milwaukee Journal Sentinel parking lot has gotten the attention of baseball history fans.
The hotel would be built at the site where the American League was founded, an event memorialized by a plaque on a stone barrier on the southeast side of the property, according to members of the Society of American Baseball Research.
It's unclear what will happen to the plaque — or the historic importance of the site — if the development moves forward.
Milwaukee’s Historic Preservation Commission is planning to hear the proposal by developer HKS Holdings Inc., to build an eight-story hotel on 308 W. Kilbourn Ave. The meeting is scheduled for Monday at 3 p.m. in Milwaukee’s City Hall.
The Milwaukee County Historical Society, located across the street from the plaque, said it would be "happy to work with the developer to ensure this history continues to be told."
In 2001, the baseball research group's annual convention was coming to Milwaukee and Bob Buege, member of SABR, wanted to do something memorable. He heard from a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee that MLB’s American League may have been formed in Milwaukee.
“I started looking and one thing led to another and there it is,” Buege said. “In researching it, I went to newspaper articles, a lot of them from the Journal ... I basically stumbled onto it through many hours of research.”
Buege said that in March 1900, at the Republican Hotel and Haus, a meeting was held between Milwaukee attorney Henry Killilea, his brother Matt, Charles Comiskey, Connie Mack and Bryon “Ban” Johnson who started the American League, which was then a minor league. It wasn’t a major league until 1901.
“Chicago was the hub of everything in Midwest baseball,” Buege said. “And they did this, kind of in a clandestine way because they didn’t want the (Chicago) newspapers to pick it up and the National League going to work to defend itself and so on. They wanted to spring this on the world.”
Also at that meeting, the Chicago White Sox, then White Stockings, was incorporated.
Buege even found the articles of incorporation.
“I got that from the librarian at UWM,” Buege said.
At the 2001 SABR convention, in a ceremony that included Comiskey’s grandson, the plaque was unveiled officially marking the place where the American League was founded. The event took place on the league’s 100th anniversary.
“It’s one of the critical moments in the structure and history of baseball,” Buege said. “I’ve always been a baseball fan since I was 7 and attended my first (Milwaukee) Braves game. And I had never heard of the American League being formed in Milwaukee. So I figured if someone who’s really close to the game, follows it closely, if I don’t know about it, the average person doesn’t know anything about it and I think they should.”
It’s unclear if the developers of the hotel are planning to preserve the plaque or the baseball history of the location.
“I think history is worth preserving,” Buege said. “There are so many institutions and landmarks and places where something memorable happened and I think this is one of the major developments that occurred in Milwaukee.”
Buege has written several sports historical books including “Borchert Field: Stories from Milwaukee’s Legendary Ballpark,” which existed from 1888 to 1952.
During those years Milwaukee residents watched baseball legends of the era play.
“It’s easier to answer – who didn’t play there,” Buege said. “Babe Ruth played there three times ... October 28, 1928, was his first time.”
Did Jackie Robinson play there?
“He did, one game with the Kansas City Monarchs, 1945,” Buege said.
Buege enjoys diving into Milwaukee history and finding nuggets that people don’t know and go unrecognized.
One in particular involved the famous Appleton-native Harry Houdini, who suspended himself upside down in a strait jacket above the intersection of 4th and State streets in 1916.
“That’s great stuff but you don’t read about it,” Buege said. “Things like that I think deserve to be commemorated.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Baseball historian worried about downtown hotel proposal at key site
