The Milwaukee Badgers, a short-lived NFL franchise.
Wisconsin has been home to three “major league” sports franchises for nearly 50 years. But while the Brewers, Packers and Bucks—as well as the long ago departed Braves—all established deep roots in the state, they are not the only top-level professional franchises to call the state home. Let’s take a look back at some of the lesser-known big league teams of Wisconsin.
Baseball
Although they gained the title (it wasn’t even a title when the team existed) posthumously, the 1884 Milwaukee Brewers are now acknowledged as Wisconsin’s first major league team. These Brewers, the first of five teams to use the nickname, were a late-season addition to the Union Association, a single-year league that is considered by most baseball historians to be a major league. The Brewers only played 13 games, but finished with an 8-5 record—technically good enough for second place in the 12-team league.
The third incarnation of Milwaukee Brewers also played a single season, members of the American League during its inaugural 1901 season. The club played their home games at the Lloyd Street Grounds, between 16th and 18th streets. Managed by future Hall of Famer Hugh Duffy, the Brewers placed dead last in the league with a 48-89 record. The team moved to St. Louis for the 1902 season to become the Browns, who themselves relocated to Baltimore in 1954 to become the Orioles.
Basketball
The Oshkosh All-Stars were such a basketball force in the 1930s that they faced off against the legendary New York Rens all-African American team in 1937 to determine the “world’s champions of basketball.” After the Rens won the series three games to two, two more games were added, which the All-Stars won to claim a four to three “extended” series victory. The All-Stars became charter members of the National Basketball League—the forerunner of the NBA—and participated in the league’s first five championship series and won the league title for the 1941-42 and 1942-43 seasons. The team folded after the 1949 merger between the NBL and the Basketball Association of America that formed the modern-day NBA.
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The Sheboygan Red Skins trace their roots to a barnstorming club formed in 1933 known as the Ballhorns. The team joined the NBL in 1938 and, with the All-Stars, made Wisconsin a pro basketball powerhouse. In all but two of the 12 NBL seasons, either the Red Skins or the All-Stars appeared in the championship series. Sheboygan topped the Fort Wayne (now Detroit) Pistons in 1943 to win their only league title, the first of four straight title series in which they played. The Red Skins survived the merger to play in the NBA’s inaugural season in 1949-50, even making the playoffs despite a 22-40 record, but were dropped from the loop after the season.
The Milwaukee Hawks played in the NBA between 1951 and 1955 before relocating to St. Louis. (More Shepherd coverage of the team can be found here.)
Football
In 1922, the American Professional Football Association changed its name to the National Football League and expanded its ranks to 18 clubs. Among the new teams were the Milwaukee Badgers (read more about the Badgers here) and the Racine Legion. With teams in cities like Rock Island, Ill.; La Rue, Ohio; and Hammond, Ind., the new NFL was not afraid of mid-sized Midwestern cities like Racine (the Green Bay Packers happened to be the only of these teams to survive). For 1922, the Legion actually placed ahead of the Packers in the standings, while splitting the three-game season series 1-1-1. The team played three seasons in the NFL before they suspended operations for the 1925 season. In 1926, the franchise returned as the Racine Tornadoes, but played only five games before folding for good.
In September 1924, the Toledo Maroons franchise either became or was replaced by the Kenosha Maroons. The shift gave Wisconsin four NFL teams in the 18-team league. But the quartet would not last long. The Maroons folded after just five winless games, having managed only a 6-6 tie at home against the Hammond Pros. The tie would be the only home game the team played and only about 600 fans were on hand to witness the event. The four Maroons losses came at a combined score of 111-6. No team in NFL history has ever played so many games without registering a victory.
