Baseball and politics
More than 3 million fans watched the Milwaukee Brewers this season at Miller Park, and that may have surprised some of the political figures who participated in the 1995 debate on providing taxpayer help to help build the new ballpark.
The Legislature and then-Gov. Tommy Thompson approved a one-tenth of one percent sales tax in five Milwaukee area counties to help build the new baseball stadium. Thompson has said it was the toughest challenge in his 34 years in Wisconsin elective office.
Baseball had been a factor in Wisconsin’s gubernatorial elections in 1982 and 1986, first helping a Democrat and then aiding Republican Thompson.
Give credit where it is due for this year’s 3 million-plus attendance. After getting to the playoffs in 2008, the Brewers ended up mired in the middle of the standings. But the team seemed to enjoy itself. The Brewer management won awards for marketing. Almost all of its games were on television. But the stadium itself was a key factor. It had a roof, and you knew the game would be played. That made for significant early season attendance.
The toughest part of the 1995 baseball tax fight focused on the state Senate.
Passage of the baseball sales tax failed twice, but it won a reprieve when there was a “call of the house” shortly after midnight.
Senate rules under a call of the house bar any action until all members are in their seats. A final defeat of the bill was avoided. About 3 a.m., Thompson ducked into the Senate Republican caucus room. Sen. George Petak, R-Racine, who had vowed to oppose the tax, changed his mind. Racine County was one of the five to be taxed.
The Senate review of the idea had been colorful. It attracted figures like Hank Aaron, Robin Yount and Bob Uecker. The Brewers didn’t provide any baseballs, but a lot of politicians and hangers-on got autographs. Giving baseballs would have violated ethics law about providing “anything of value” to legislators.
Petak would become the first and only, to date, legislator to lose a recall election. Racine voters had remembered his earlier promise to vote against the baseball stadium sales tax. Democrats took the seat and the Senate majority. Petak later would become a lobbyist.
Baseball played a role in both the 1982 and 1986 gubernatorial elections. Businessman Terry Kohler, a newcomer candidate, won the Republican nomination in the September primary. Former Assembly Majority Leader Tony Earl won in the Democratic nomination in a mild upset. Earl’s name was familiar to many voters.
Kohler had trouble getting people to pay attention. Baseball, not politics, was the main topic in taverns, barbershops, church basements and everywhere else Wisconsin people gathered. Kohler’s statements were played on inside pages even in Republican-leaning newspapers.
Veteran sportswriter Bill Brophy wrote of baseball fever, saying “a bad case of the disease had overtaken the state of Wisconsin.” The Brewers lost the seventh and final game of the World Series just 12 days before the November election. Earl was elected governor.
Earl would lose a bid for re-election in 1986 in part because he refused to budge from the idea of building a maximum-security prison near where Miller Park now stands. Brewer owners suggested that would hurt baseball attendance at County Stadium, then home of the Brewers. Republican gubernatorial candidate Tommy Thompson used powerful TV ads showing a prison dropping on County Stadium.
Thompson would be governor for 14 years.
