1897 Milwaukee (Milwaukees, Brewers)
Left: This rendering is based on partial visual documentation for uniform style and written documentation for color. Important details may be undocumented or difficult to determine. An educated guess is made to complete the rendering.
Rendering accuracy:Year: documented Team: documented
Right: This rendering is based on written documentation for uniform style and color. No visual documentation is known and an artist’s conceptualization is used to create the rendering.
Rendering accuracy:Year: documented Team: documented
Visual documentation on these uniforms:
Photo A
Dated mid-August 1897 to mid-September 1897. Cabinet card montage of player portraits, full view at left, detail view of C Mack (97, mgr WL 97-99, AL 00), at right. Year of issue can be confirmed by the appearance of players Blake, Myers, Jones and Smith, all of whom only played for Milwaukee in 1897. A mid-August to mid-September issue date for this cabinet card can be determined by Smith, who joined the team by August 21 when player Myers became injured, and by the fact that the Western League season ended September 21, 1897. Based on similarities in studio lighting and background, the majority of these portraits were made during the same session. Players wore a white or light gray uniform shirt in these portraits with the city name arched across the chest. Newspapers described the home uniform as white with light blue accents. The color of the shirt lettering, based on these portraits, may have been more of a middle blue or even black. Note that the artist who created the montage background reversed several letters by accident, most notably the last “N” in the word “Season” in the middle of the artwork.
Clockwise from top left: A Terry (Mil 97, 98, Chi 98), F Weaver (95-99), B Reidy (WL 97, 98, AL 00, 01), H Blake (Mil 97, Cle 97), B Myers (97), C Jones (97), T Daly (97, 98), C Smith (Mil 97, WB EL 97, Roc/Mon EL 97), E Lewee (97, 98), F Barnes (97 98), R Stafford (96-99), J Taylor (97, 98), G Speer (WL 96-99, AA 02-04) and G Nichol (95-99). Center: C Mack (97, mgr WL 97-99, AL 00). Player IDs from item. Years with team from baseball-reference.com. Info on Smith joining the team from The Sporting Life, August 28, 1897. Date of last game of season from The Sporting Life, October 2, 1897. Image scan from Robert Edward Auctions. Original portraits by Henry Hercher, Milwaukee.
Dated mid-August 1897 to mid-September 1897. Two detail views of photo A. Portraits of E Lewee (97, 98) at left, and R Stafford (96-99) at right. Detail views showed that a shirt button partially overlapped the top portion of the letter “A” in the city name. Detail views also showed that the “W” in the city name was wider and thicker than most of the other letters on the shirt.
Written documentation on these uniforms:
February 1897: “The Brewers home uniforms were white trimmed with light blue, with caps and stockings of the same color. The traveling uniforms were gray with light blue trim.” From Dennis Pajot, The Rise of Milwaukee Baseball, 1859-1901 (2009), citing the Milwaukee Sentinel, December 26, 1896, February 11, 1897 and April 2, 1897; the Evening Wisconsin, February 27, 1897; and the Milwaukee Journal, February 12, 1897.
February 1897: “The Brewers will wear white shirts and pants, with light blue trimmings, light blue cap and stockings as home. The uniforms for abroad have not been definitely decided upon.” From The Sporting Life, February 27, 1897. Research from Chuck McGill and also from Ed Morton.
March 1897: “The traveling uniforms of the several Western League teams this season will be as follows: Indianapolis, gray with brown trimmings; Milwaukee, gray with light blue trimmings; St. Paul, dark blue with black trimmings; Minneapolis, gray with black trimmings; Kansas City, dark blue throughout; Columbus and Detroit, gray with maroon trimmings; Grand Rapids, gray with black trimmings. All the clubs will wear white at home, with the same colored trimming as used on the road uniform.” From St. Paul Globe, March 21, 1897, research from Peter Reitan and from Chuck McGill. This same report was published in The Sporting Life, March 27, 1897, research from Chuck McGill.
Team genealogy: Milwaukee 1894-1901
Milwaukee joined the Western League (WL) in 1894 when the league reformed. The reorganized WL operated between 1894 and 1899 and reformed again as the American League (AL) in 1900. Milwaukee played in the WL between 1894 and 1899 and in the AL in 1900 and in 1901, the year the league declared major-league status. The team was replaced by St. Louis for the 1902 season. Information from wikipedia.com.
Rendering posted: May 4, 2020
Diggers on this uniform: Chuck McGill, Dennis Pajot, Ed Morton, Peter Reitan,