Ghost stories
A haunted Milwaukee hotel has caused sleepless nights for many major leaguers for decades
Have you heard the one about…
…the popular major league hotel where some guests check in but might never check out?
NOTE: This story is adapted from a piece I wrote for my old View From the Bleachers Substack in 2023.
If baseball players were to gather around a campfire to toast s’mores and tell spooky stories, many of those tales would have a Milwaukee dateline.
The Pfister Hotel, just 3 blocks from the shores of Lake Michigan, is a classic old hotel, a Milwaukee icon that opened its doors in 1893.
The vision of businessman Guido Pfister and his son Charles, it was billed as “the grand hotel of the West,” when it was built at the cost of $1 million more than 130 years ago. The Pfister was innovative in its time, featuring electricity throughout--with individual thermostats in every room. It was even constructed to be fireproof.
It’s not surprising The Pfister is said to have hosted every U.S. President since William McKinley. Entertainers and musicians are known to frequent the hotel when they’re in town. Even Elvis stayed there in 1977, 4 months before his death.
And for decades, most Major League teams visiting town to play the Brewers have stayed at The Pfister as well.
The Pfister is posh. It’s home to the largest collection of Victorian art of any hotel in the world, the works curated personally by members of the Pfister family.
Entering the lobby (pictured above) is like taking a step back in time. You’re immediately struck not just by the works of art but also by the high ceilings, the grand staircase, the magnificent chandeliers, the gold trim and the elegant hotel bar.
But it’s what you don’t see that has gained the attention of many players across the major leagues.
The Pfister is said to be haunted. And many big leaguers have taken notice.
Dodgers star Mookie Betts, for one, has stayed at an Airbnb on every one of his team’s visits to Milwaukee since 2022.
“You can tell me what happened after,” the 8-time All-Star and 2018 AL MVP told the Orange County Register. “I just don’t want to find out myself.”
While Betts said he doesn’t believe in ghosts, he added that, when he had previously stayed at The Pfister, he’d had trouble sleeping. “Every noise, I’d be like, ‘Is that something?’ ”
Why would visiting big leaguers rather face young Brewers phenom Jacob Misiorowski throwing 103 mph than a night alone at The Pfister?
What players and other guests have reported experiencing over the years includes unexplained noises, flickering lights, electronics behaving strangely and clothes--and even furniture--being moved around in rooms.
And the word has been out for years.
On a 2009 visit to The Pfister with the Marlins, I saw Hanley Ramirez, Renyel Pinto, Emilio Bonifacio and Alfredo Amezaga give up their single rooms to stay together…just in case.
I’ve seen players take their bats back to the hotel after games…just in case.
Many players have been known to have their wives or girlfriends meet them in Milwaukee rather than face The Pfister alone…just in case.
Players from many teams routinely ask their traveling secretary to book them rooms at different hotels. They’d rather not stay at The Pfister because of the stories they’ve heard.
Stories like these:
In 2018, Cardinals pitcher Carlos Martinez posted a video on Instagram in which he said in Spanish,
“We are here in Milwaukee. I just saw a ghost. In (Marcell) Ozuna’s room, he saw another one. We are all here. We are all in (Francisco Pena’s) room. We are all stuck here. We are going to sleep together. If the ghost shows again, we are all going to fight together.”
In 2016, then Pirates manager Clint Hurdle shared this with MLB.com:
“I have not seen that ghost. I have not had any relationship-building with that ghost. I had a player call me one night assuring me that there was a ghost, and the ghost had turned on his TV twice in one night. I actually had him come into my room. I settled him down. Went back to his room with him. Sat for a while. The TV did not come back on. I exited. Everything was OK. It’s real to some people, there’s no doubt.”
Ji-Man Choi, who played with 6 clubs over an 8-year career, shared stories with MLB.com in 2016, dating to his time as a member of the Angels.
He said he was once awoken by a spirit on his chest that caused his bed to slump.
Another time, Choi said he was lying on his side when he felt a spirit crawl up behind him, hug him and murmur in his ear.
Former big league outfielder Carlos Gomez, a 2-time All-Star over 13 seasons, shared tales of hearing voices in his room. In another instance, after getting out of the shower, he heard static coming out of his iPod. He’s said to have raced out of his room and down to the hotel lobby, carrying his pants and shoes.
Hall of Fame third baseman Adrian Beltre recounted hearing banging on his door and in the hallway, but seeing no one there when he checked. Then his TV and air conditioner repeatedly turned on and off. After later hearing banging on his headboard, Beltre said he got a total of 2 hours of sleep over 3 nights at The Pfister.
Former Cardinals infielder Brendan Ryan saw a mysterious streak of light move across his room.
Long-time Rangers infielder Michael Young, a 7-time All-Star and batting champion, shared this experience with ESPN the Magazine:
“Listen, I’m not someone who spreads ghost stories, so if I’m telling you this, it happened. A couple of years ago, I was lying in bed after a night game, and I was out. My room was locked, but I heard these footsteps inside my room, stomping around. I’d heard all these stories about this hotel, so I was wide awake at that point. And then I heard it again, these footsteps on the floor. So I yelled out, ‘Hey! Make yourself at home. Hang out, have a seat, but do not wake me up, OK?’ After that, I didn’t hear a thing for the rest of the night. I just let him know he was welcome, that we could be pals, that he could marinate in there for as long as he needed to, just as long as he didn’t wake me up.”
Here’s a story from 2-time MVP Bryce Harper from 2012, also from ESPN the Magazine:
Before going to sleep, he had laid out his shirt and pants on a table at the end of the bed.
“When I woke up in the morning--I swear on everything--the clothes were on the floor and the table was on the opposite side of the room against the wall. I was so flustered. I honestly thought there might be someone in my room. I had no idea what the hell just happened, so I actually looked around, and then I checked to see if the door was still latched, and it was.”
Former Rangers pitcher Colby Lewis reported seeing a skeletal apparition in his room at 1:30 a.m. He went to see the team chaplain the next day.
After a while, it makes you start to wonder.
One thing about the mere threat of a hotel being haunted is it can plant seeds of doubt and fear in anyone. Here’s a video from the 2012 Showtime series The Franchise in which former Marlins Mike Dunn and Brett Hayes had some fun with team closer Steve Cishek at The Pfister.
As for who (other than Dunn and Hayes) might be doing the haunting, there are 2 official theories that have been floated by Milwaukee historians.
The first has to do with historical reports of the hotel having been built on the site of a private burying ground.
In an interview late in his life, long-time Milwaukee resident Charles Milwaukee Sivyer talked about living in a log cabin on the site where The Pfister would eventually be built. Years later, when ground was broken on the hotel, he returned to the site to look for bones of the people he knew had been buried at the site. He found none.
That’s where many suspect the legend of the haunted Pfister was born.
The other theory is this: Because some who claim to have laid eyes on the ghost report him to be a “smiling, portly gentleman,” many are of the belief it is Charles Pfister himself. Pfister, who died in 1927, they suggest is simply making the rounds to make sure guests at the hotel he and his father built more than 130 years ago are getting the caliber of service the family would expect.
From personal experience, having stayed at The Pfister close to 2 dozen times over the years, I can report I’ve never experienced any paranormal activity at the corner of E. Wisconsin Ave. and N. Jefferson St.
In recent years, several major league clubs have moved to other hotels in Milwaukee, although none have publicly said the switch was due to a fear The Pfister is haunted.
But fear not. There are at least 2 other hotels at which many major league clubs stay that are also suspected of being haunted: The Vinoy in St. Petersburg and the St. Francis in San Francisco.
So if you’re planning to follow your favorite team to any of these cities any time soon, you might want to act fast. Airbnb availabilities are dwindling.
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