The travels of the de facto Traveling Correspondent have begun, and we are now sorting through the highlights and lowlights of the experiences while providing in-person coverage for True Blue LA during the 2026 season.
Admittedly, I have a bit of a nostalgic soft spot in my heart for Cream City. All those years ago, Milwaukee was the first new place I visited. If we are being technical, the first new city was Chicago, where I picked up the rental car, to drive the hour north to Milwaukee. As a native
Californian, the fact that Milwaukee and Chicago are only about an hour apart by car still blows my mind because I am used to major, disparate urban centers being much farther apart.
The story of how I found things in Milwaukee that had virtually no appeal to me but that my mother and now-deceased stepfather would have loved is known, and prompted my mother to join me on my August travels. Even with a return visit in 2022, I still had some unfinished business in Cream City. Word of Molly Knight’s subscriber outing to Wrigley, AmFam, and Rate Field provided an excellent opportunity to satisfy this year’s theme of settling all outstanding business in Milwaukee.
Unlike most of the field reporting I have done, the baseball will be immaterial to this post. Roki Sasaki was wobbly until he locked in, Teoscar Hernandez was raking (and then got hurt a couple of days later), and watching Yamamoto is always a treat as the denizens of AmFam had PTSD: Post Traumatic Shutdown Disorder. Was he as sharp as he was in Game 2 of the ‘25 NLCS? No. Did he need to be? Also, no.
Burger Time
Normally, I go to Solly’s Grille in nearby Glendale, WI, when I visit Milwaukee. This time, I knew that since I had some extra time and would need to rent a car anyway, I could spare a couple of hours to go to Madison and get another Plazaburger from the Plaza Tavern.
You aren’t there for the meat; what sells this burger is the sauce, which is a unique, chunky sour tzatziki-like sauce. Is it good enough for essentially three hours of driving, round-trip, through the heart of Wisconsin? I think the results speak for themselves.
My only regret is that I did not have time to do a detour to the small town of Jefferson, WI, which had a delightful burger cart and reeked of onions. But we’re not here for burgers; we’re here, in part, for ghosts.
The Alleged Ghosts in the Pfister Hotel
As we covered in 2023, much to Mookie Betts’ annoyance, Betts chose to stay at an Airbnb, and again in 2024, this time at Ms. Betts’ insistence, and Teoscar Hernandez also stayed away. Why, you ask? The Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee is allegedly haunted. So I had to see for myself, and yes, it’s time to cue the music.
Betts has publicly declared that he will not change his position. At the time, I first stumbled upon this story in 2023, I had the following to say:
In 2001, then-Dodger Adrian Beltre claimed that “he heard knocking at his door while staying at the Pfister, even with the TV and air conditioner turned off.” The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel compiled a compilation of these happenings in 2021, which is worth your time. Most notably, Cardinals pitcher Carlos Martinez and then-teammate Marcell Ozuna believed that they had seen a floating ghost at the hotel, so they roomed together…
…Betts is renting an AirBnB with friends and staying there “just in case” the ghost stories are true, Per Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register, who also noted this from Betts regarding an earlier stay the Pfister: “I couldn’t sleep … Every noise, I’d be like, ‘Is that something?’”
Does Betts believe in ghosts? Who is to say? I would not say that I am superstitious but rather that I am regular-stitious. I acknowledge that there are things outside of my philosophy, Horatio. Maybe Betts does the same.
The Pfister Hotel is the hotel where teams typically stay when they visit Milwaukee. The Giants recently finished a four-game set in Milwaukee, and local media got mileage out of the old familiar ghost stories.
Honestly, the hotel is fairly upscale, which is a bit of an understatement considering the major league clientele that comes to stay.
I was even given an unexpected complimentary glass of champagne upon checking in. The gesture was so unexpected, I did not even have time to make my usual remarks: Champagne is much like mental illness; unless these feelings come from a certain region of France, it’s just sparkling anxiety.
I stayed in the historic part of the hotel. Where others have reported strange sounds and fluke occurrences with electronics, I can only sadly report that I had no close encounters of any kind, much less the supernatural.
I did injure my thumb on the door because I was careless, but other than that, I have nothing interesting to report, as I never touch the hotel television, and I tend to sleep like the dead.
Generally, I recommend in the Guide to not stay at the team hotel, as I am a huge believer in keeping baseball and my personal life separate. When I am back at the hotel, I want to veg out; I don’t want to potentially interact with anyone.
So when I saw Orel Hershiser in the lobby, entertaining friends while I was sweaty from being out and about, I had to pretend not to notice him and his group and continue with my evening, so I could get up early and not miss my appointment with Bernie’s Slide. There is a dignity in not encroaching on one’s personal space, regardless of how badly you would like to interact with them.
What if it was Stephen Nelson in the lobby instead?
Yeah, forget what I just said. You heard the interview; Stephen is funny as hell. I’m doing the BBC interrupting-kid meme walkover because there’s shared history on the road there. Do as I suggest, not as I do, people.
In the end, I saw no ghosts, and I paid more for a luxury room when I could have 75% of the amenities and been within walking distance of actual gambling. Said gambling is less than five minutes from AmFam Field. It generally does not go well when I mix casino gambling and baseball trips (minor spoiler for the upcoming Detroit Guide). It seems like a no-brainer to stay elsewhere to me unless one wishes to cosplay some Great Gatsby nonsense while staying in Milwaukee.
Should we mock Betts and Teoscar for their alleged fear of the supernatural? There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophies. Seems to me you could conquer the alleged ghosts by either melatonin or being a deep sleeper.
Anything beyond that, well, you might very well think that, I couldn’t possibly comment.
Molly’s Group, Bernie’s Slide, and Uecker’s Chair
The next three anecdotes are mixed together like stew, and there is no good way to separate them, so we proceed chronologically. Molly Knight’s subscriber outing started at Wrigley on Friday. I didn’t leave for Milwaukee via Minneapolis until late Friday night, arriving early Saturday morning.
I had no idea what Molly’s subscribers were doing or meeting, so I did my own thing, going to Madison and back before taking a nap and heading to the ballpark. I will admit that I was a bit grumpy once I got to the ballpark, but I am glad I got to socialize with some of these folks after the game at the Pfister Hotel lobby. The folks I chatted with were a nice bunch, and once I explained I wasn’t some random grump, things went swimmingly.
I still have no idea why I look like Stephen Hawking in the group photo. Everyone takes a bad photo, now and then.
Why was I grumpy? The ordeal of trying to confirm whether I could have the Bernie’s Slide experience. But first, some history.
The Slide’s Past and the Legacy of David Vassegh
Bernie Brewer’s slide has a history as one of baseball’s most distinctive fan attractions.
Few fans in all the years at County Stadium and Miller Park/American Family Field were more devoted than 69-year-old retired aviation engineer Milt Mason. He was the original Bernie Brewer.
Mason was an acquaintance of Brewers general manager Marvin Milkes, and in June 1970, mere months after the team moved from Seattle, he vowed to live in a trailer atop the County Stadium scoreboard until the fledgling Brewers drew a sellout crowd.
It wasn’t all bad. Mason’s trailer was outfitted with a color television, a gas stove — which he used to cook his signature leg of lamb — a refrigerator, an exercise bike and a bathtub. There were two telephones — one to talk to fans, and another to answer questions from the media. Clad in lederhosen, he watched games from a balcony.
When a sellout seemed unlikely, the attendance goal was lowered to 40,000. A big crowd for bat day on Aug. 16, 1970, freed Mason from his 40-day perch, and he celebrated by sliding down a rope — rather badly burning his hands in the process.
“It was a great experience,” Mason said, “but I wouldn’t do it again.”
On August 17, 2022, reporter David Vassegh had his now-infamous encounter with Bernie’s Slide in Milwaukee. Naturally, challenging this near-slayer of reporters was on my to-do list on a return trip to Milwaukee. Oddly enough, the locals had mostly forgotten about Mr. Vassegh’s misadventure, which makes sense as it’s more of a traveling Dodger story than anything that should be recalled by the locals.
We had a lot of fun covering the aftermath of Mr. Vassegh’s slides with Nick Pesch, a then-tour guide and future batboy of the Brewers for 2023 and 2024, who shared his insights about running the slide tour and correctly thought that I was being too hard on Mr. Vassegh.
MJE: Based on what you have seen and your personal experience, do you have a reaction to Mr. Vassegh’s slide where he injured himself?
NP: Yes, I think you’re being too hard on him. I’m not quite sure how he picked up so much speed. Clearly, his sitting up and his size worked against him, but apart from where he got out of position, he wasn’t necessarily doing anything wrong. Sometimes accidents happen. I think the Brewers were a little hard on [Mr. Vassegh] too, putting that tape on the wall the next day.
[Author’s note: I pointed out to Nick that the Brewers did not have anything to do with the tape, recounting the tale of Gavin Lux and his encounter with the right field wall at Dodger Stadium last year. I suspected that Justin Turner was the culprit as he had an alternate angle of Mr. Vassegh going down the slide. A subsequent Tweet confirmed my hunch.]
People tend to forget that Mr. Vassegh had a successful slide before he was injured. One who participates in the Bernie’s Slide experience can go up to five times, time permitting.
Eli versus the Slide
So, needless to say, once I finally got confirmation that it was time for me to take on Bernie’s Slide, I signed the waiver, paid my fee, and got to AmFam well in advance of the Sunday finale. As an aside, I have set up special events at other ballparks before, but I cannot recall a more whipsaw experience of trying to confirm that I could go sliding over a two-week period. Thankfully, the situation never devolved into a “oh Lord, I’ve paid for something, and now the other side is renegging” situation.
It was just a bizarre situation of sending emails back and forth, having voicemails go unreturned, and a final in-person inquiry at Customer Service in the ballpark asking whether I was going sliding on Sunday being met with “we don’t offer the Slide Experience on Sunday,” which not only nearly set me off in-person, but made me late to my seat just in time to watch Roki throw a ball to the Minnesota border.
I was on the aisle for the Saturday game, as Molly Knight assigned me the seat randomly. A large person in a tiny chair who constantly has to get up because people literally will not wait until inning changes (god forbid) or at-bat endings to get up, combined with disappointment, equals one grumpy, silent, traveling correspondent.
The Dodgers’ winning helped. Eating something helped. Molly’s charm during our first in-person meeting helped. I was preparing to return my rental car after a quick Culver’s pit stop when I finally got an email from AmFam Customer Service that I had finally confirmed a-go for Bernie’s Slide on Sunday.
If I sound exasperated, it’s because I was, but then I realized I should just extend my car rental and pay for another parking pass to make this happening happen. ESPN Milwaukee vaguely referenced Mr. Vassegh’s mishap in a 2024 how-to video for safely going down on Bernie’s Slide.
First thing, it was Adric, me, and two distinctive sets of fathers and young sons (8 and 12 was my approximate guess at their ages) on an abbreviated tour of the ballpark that ended at Bernie’s Slide. We even made a stop in the Press Box, where again I had to pretend I did not know or see Joe Davis and Orel Hershiser (again!) while our tour guide was speaking.
Davis has a more youthful quality that the camera seems to overlook. Maybe it’s because he’s far more relaxed when the camera is off. It’s not a criticism by any means; it’s just an acknowledgment that there is a difference between work-you and off-the-clock-you.
The slide itself is quite straightforward. One accesses it via a secure stairway that leads to another stairway, then a hybrid ladder-and-steep stairway that one must navigate while carrying a burlap sack over one’s shoulder before reaching the top of the slide. If one is going to experience a catastrophic injury, it’s at this point by falling off the ladder/stairway hybrid. Why the Brewers don’t keep a box of sacks at both the top of the slide and before climbing is beyond me.
At the top, there’s a bench in a little room where Bernie the mascot presumably hangs out during games. What I had not counted on was my vertigo kicking in and the steel grating at the top of the slide being see-through. Maybe not quite big enough for a dropped phone to fall through, but I really did not want to take the chance. Nor did I want to bother the fathers and sons having an outing, because I heard echoes of “Holy crap!” in my head.
The photos tell the tale. I didn’t trust myself not to drop my phone during the attempts. I had set a goal of three slides without major injury to try to surpass Mr. Vassegh. The kids went twice, their dads went once, and I was like the semi-truck on the freeway; I let them pass me.
Ultimately, I probably should have done something quite obvious in retrospect: go down a slide of any kind for the first time since childhood. The slide was slicker than anticipated (think damp bathtub), and I ended up going flat, my arms and elbows instinctively flying out to try to serve as a brake.
It stung a little with more damage to my pride than anything else. The second attempt was a bit smoother, but I still ended up on my back while trying not to swear with young children present. I mostly succeeded. I asked one of the dads to photograph me to prove I had done it.
Tying Mr. Vassegh, who was an excellent sport about it privately, in attempts with no injury seemed like enough of a win. I had fun, but I would never do the slide again unless dared by Nelson or Vassegh in a slide-off.
The last bit of unfinished business was tracking down the Bob Uecker statue in section 422 in the upper deck. Back on my last visit to American Family Field, during Nick Pesch’s tour, I snuck away to pose Adric in Bob Uecker’s chair. It wasn’t forbidden, but it definitely wasn’t allowed. After Mr. Uecker’s passing, it felt appropriate to find the statute and “apologize,” if only to bring this memory full circle.
By this point, the park had just opened to people, so it was little effort to find the life-sized monument to the legend of Brewer broadcasting. As you can see, I literally dwarf the man. While alive, Uecker was the only person who was allowed to park his car inside AmFam. The final note of this little jaunt is that life is sometimes funny. When I got back to my rental car after the Sunday game, Apple Music, which was previously set to random, kicked on.
The first song that played was the Brewers’ victory song by Hall and Oates, which I did not hear at any point during my two games in Milwaukee, which was a nice change of pace. All told, it was a successful trip, wrapping up unfinished business in Cream City, even catching up with Nick Pesch after the Dodgers had vacated the Pfister Hotel.
Next up is a return to the Southside to see Munetaka Murakami…oh wait, he’s injured. I’ll think of something.
