The Milwaukee Bangers grew out of the worst recreational men’s flag football team that our city has (probably and hopefully) ever seen. We played one season in Fall 2021 and were so bad that we didn’t score a single point until our seventh game of the season. It would’ve otherwise been a complete waste of time if not for a single conversation during pregame warmups that revolved around a group of guys who used to go to Breitlow Field in Wauwatosa and play pickup baseball early on weekend mornings before little leaguers and high school teams took over the fields for their own practices. With that conversation, the concept that would eventually become the Milwaukee Bangers was born!

Already looking at other options outside of traditional men’s softball leagues and for a way to get back into playing baseball, our team’s founder got to work over the winter in preparation to launch a new pickup baseball league called “Milwaukee Sandlot Baseball” by Spring 2022. The vision was to create a league where the game was played casually, the results came secondary to having a good time, and the goodwill and participation of players created positive community impact.

A few months into working on this project, the founder of another blooming sandlot team, the Paper Valley Pike from Appleton, Wisconsin, reached out via our freshly-established Instagram page. As things often happen in sandlot, he asked if we’d like to travel to Nashville and team up with them in a few weeks to play in a charity baseball event, the Nashville Sandlot Jamboree. With no players signed up for our league yet and an empty roster for the trip, the answer was a confident and resounding “Yes!” 

Over the next few weeks, our founder sent out news releases, put up recruiting flyers around Milwaukee, and made posts on social media letting it be known that Milwaukee Sandlot Baseball was in business and that we needed players for a trip to Nashville. This resulted in two of his friends committing to the trip, which brought our roster to three players. On the Thursday night before the Jamboree, we loaded up a vehicle with our one-third of a baseball team and some gear and hit the road for Nashville to play ball with complete strangers.

The next day, our two club’s founders, as well our players, met each other in person for the first time at Shelby Park in East Nashville, the site of the Jamboree. We took the field with each other over the next two days and played our first games together as the “Midwest Sandlot” baseball team. We went on to lose both games, but it didn’t matter to us (not that it ever does) because we knew we were leaving Nashville with new, cherished friendships, lifetime memories, and the beginning of something that was going to become truly special.

We returned to Milwaukee and hosted our first pickup game at Wick Field two weeks later. Twelve players, including a few from our infamous flag football team, showed up to our first event that, over the years, have become known as “Sandlot Saturdays.”

Player participation ebbed and flowed throughout our first season, with some events drawing enough turnout to throw together two baseball teams for a pickup game, while others resulted only in simple games of catch or batting practice. Toward the end of the year, it became evident that our players wanted to be part of something that felt more like a team, rather than a random assortment of baseball players. This lead to us rebranding our club from Milwaukee Sandlot Baseball to the Milwaukee Bangers. The Bangers name pays tribute to Milwaukee’s 1982 World Series team, affectionately known as Harvey’s Wallbangers. Despite the name change, our style of baseball remained the same, along with our vision of giving people the opportunity to play the game in a friendly, carefree environment.

We’ve stuck with it since then, all while staying true to our sandlot roots. Our sandlot journey has taken us all around the United States - from the Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa to Tulsa, Minnesota, San Diego, and right back here to Wisconsin. Through the game, we’ve been blessed with friendships, opportunities, and experiences that we never imagined we would get.

We’re proud that many of our players have remained with us since our first full season, and that most of our players who have moved away still maintain a relationship with our team. We’re also proud to see that the Milwaukee Sandlot community has continued to grow. We now have three teams playing in our city and more than eighty active players. We’re thrilled to see the growth of the game here in our city, and we’re looking forward to seeing where our sandlot journey takes us in the future!