Why American Family Field Matters

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The quick read

American Family Field opened on April 6, 2001, as Miller Park, built around the feature that still defines it: a fan-shaped retractable roof of 7 panels, 5 of them movable, that pivots from a single point and can close in about 10 minutes. The roof is why a cold, lake-influenced Wisconsin spring or a rainy night does not take the game away.

The building is the newest thing in this story, and the rest of it is heavier and much longer. Three ironworkers died when the crane called Big Blue collapsed during construction in 1999, and the park opened a year late because of it. The franchise arrived in 1970, when the Seattle Pilots became the Brewers. Hank Aaron came home to Milwaukee to finish his career. The 1982 team, Harvey’s Wallbangers, won the only pennant in franchise history and lost the World Series in 7. And the current Brewers, NL Central champions in 2023, 2024 and 2025, are a sustained contender still chasing the first World Series title the franchise has ever had.

From the Pilots to the Brewers

The move happened in 1970: the Seattle Pilots relocated to Milwaukee in an effort led by Bud Selig, the man whose No. 1 is among the park’s retired numbers. The renamed Brewers played their first 31 seasons at Milwaukee County Stadium, from 1970 through 2000.

County Stadium is also where Bernie Brewer started: the original debuted there in 1971 and slid into a beer mug. More on him below, because he outlived the building.

The 1982 pennant

The franchise peak is still 1982. Harvey Kuenn managed a lineup that hit its way to the nickname Harvey’s Wallbangers, won the AL East by 1 game, and beat California 3-2 in the ALCS. In the World Series the Brewers lost to St. Louis in 7.

That is the only pennant in Brewers history, and it came in the American League; today’s Brewers would have to win their first National League pennant to get back. More than half a century of Brewers baseball, one World Series appearance, zero titles.

Building the park and the crane collapse

The replacement for County Stadium was designed by HKS Inc., cost about $382 million, and had the fan-shaped retractable roof as its headline feature from the start.

Building it turned tragic. On July 14, 1999, the crane known as Big Blue was lifting a roof section of roughly 400 tons when it collapsed in high winds. Three ironworkers, Jeffrey Wischer, William DeGrave, and Jerome Starr, were working from a man-basket about 200 feet up, and all three were killed. The park’s opening was pushed back a full year.

The park opened on April 6, 2001, with a 5-4 Brewers win over Cincinnati. Richie Sexson broke the tie with a home run in the 8th, and President Bush and Commissioner Selig threw out first pitches.

The roof

The roof is the building’s whole identity: 7 fan-shaped panels, 5 of them movable, that pivot from a single point and fan out over the bowl. The span runs about 600 feet, the peak reaches about 330 feet, the structure weighs around 12,000 tons, and it opens or closes in about 10 minutes.

What the roof is not is climate control. The building has no air conditioning, and shutting it circulates air rather than cooling it, leaving the interior roughly 30 degrees up on the outdoor reading. That makes the roof a cold-and-wet tool, the thing that keeps April and rainy nights playable, not a summer cooler. Which way it goes is a game-day judgment by the club, weighted toward a comfortable temperature at first pitch, and it is published on an official roof-status page.

The legends

The Home Plate Gate carries 4 statues: Hank Aaron, Robin Yount, Bud Selig, and Bob Uecker.

Aaron broke in with the Milwaukee Braves, and he came back to the same city to finish his career with the Brewers in 1975 and 1976. His No. 44 is retired here.

Yount is a Hall of Famer and a 2-time MVP, with No. 19 retired.

Selig brought the team to Milwaukee in 1970, owned it, and later became Commissioner of Major League Baseball. His No. 1 is retired.

Uecker was the Brewers’ radio voice for 54 seasons, from 1971 through 2024, and won the Ford C. Frick Award. He died on January 16, 2025, at age 90. His second statue is the one to go find: it sits behind the last row of Section 422, dedicated in 2014, spoofing his Miller Lite front-row commercial. The obstructed-view seats around it, about 103 of them with the roof pivot in the sightline, sell for $1 on game days.

The full retired-numbers list: 1 (Selig), 4 (Molitor), 19 (Yount), 34 (Fingers), 44 (Aaron), and 42 (Robinson, retired across all of baseball).

Bernie and the sausage race

Bernie Brewer still slides after every Brewers home run and after wins, from a chalet about 100 feet above left field. The chalet was rebuilt in 2021 with a red roof nodding to the American Family logo, and the slide runs about 25 feet tall and 75 feet long. The 1971 original at County Stadium landed in a beer mug.

The sausage race is the other every-game ritual: 5 racing sausages, the Bratwurst, the Polish, the Italian, the Hot Dog (added 1996), and the Chorizo (added 2006), running before the bottom of the 6th at every home game. It started as a scoreboard animation in the early 1990s and has been run live on the field since 1993. Longtime fans still call them the Klement’s sausages, and that was true from 1995 through 2017; Johnsonville took over the sponsorship in 2018, so the current name is the Johnsonville Famous Racing Sausages.

Miller Park becomes American Family Field

The park opened as Miller Park and carried that name from 2001 through 2020. The brewery it was named for dates to 1855 and sits minutes away in Miller Valley. Since January 1, 2021, the building has been American Family Field, under a 15-year naming-rights deal with American Family Insurance.

The recent postseason runs

After 1982 the drought ran 26 years. The 2008 team, the one with CC Sabathia, ended it with the franchise’s first postseason berth since the pennant.

The deeper runs came after:

• 2011: a 96-win team reached the NLCS and lost to St. Louis in 6, with Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder at the middle of it.
• 2018: an NL Central title, won in a game-163 tiebreaker against the Cubs, then an NLCS that went to Game 7 against the Dodgers, in Christian Yelich’s MVP season.
• 2021: another NL Central title and an NLDS appearance.
• 2023: an NL Central title, 92-70, clinched on September 26.
• 2024: an NL Central title, then a Wild Card round loss to the Mets.
• 2025: the NL Central again, a 97-65 record that was the National League’s best, the No. 1 seed, a Division Series win over the Cubs, and a sweep by the Dodgers in the NLCS.

As of midseason 2026 the Brewers sit first in the NL Central, so a September trip here is likely to have stakes attached.

The Brewers have never won a World Series. A pennant now would be the second in franchise history and the first in the National League, and that, more than the roof or the statues, is the weight a Brewers October carries.

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