Breese Stevens Field is still breaking the rules, 100 years later | Entertainment

In its 100 years, Breese Stevens Field, the city-owned field smack in the middle of Madison’s isthmus, has lived a hundred different lives.

“Every time somebody tries to tell Breese what it’s going to do, it doesn’t,” said Tristan Straub, Breese’s general manager.

The field’s official centennial is this week. It first opened on May 5, 1926 as a field for the city’s high school sports games and as the home field for the Madison Blues, the city’s semi-pro baseball team. Around 4,000 people were in attendance.

The field’s namesake, Breese Stevens, was the 20th mayor of Madison. The city purchased the land for the field from his widow in 1923 under two conditions: that they’d name the field after Stevens, and that it would be used solely for sports, said David Michael Miller, author of the book, “The Rise of Breese Stevens Field,” published in August 2025.

“And they broke that rule the first season, when they started having neighborhood pageants,” Miller said.

Since then, the field has hosted Chicago Bears games, exhibition events for superstar athletes like Jesse Owens and Satchel Paige, marble tournaments, car races, religious ceremonies and high-profile musicians.

It was the first venue in Wisconsin to install lights for outdoor games, enabling the Blues to play night games. The field was equidistant between Madison East and the now-defunct Central High School.

The field still hosts all kinds of events, but is now the primary home of the city’s USL soccer team, the Forward Madison FC. This will be the first year the Rally Madison FC, a women’s USL team, will begin playing on the field.

The Rally’s first game, a friendly pre-season match against Chicago House AC, will kick off the field’s anniversary celebration on May 15. (The Forward Madison FC will play its home opener the day after.)

The field will host different events in commemoration of the centennial, from its standard markets like The Bodega at Breese Stevens Field featuring stalls from Wisconsin-based artisans, to its lineup of national touring musicians like Alabama Shakes and Brandi Carlile to a percussive show featuring the Madison Scouts Drum and Bugle Corps in June.

Miller said while the field has hosted many events, it’s always been a reflection of the Madison community.

“It’s Madison’s field, and it belongs to the city. And (in) every step of its history, it’s served the citizens — and that’s what it’s there for.”

Legendary athletes

Before Breese Stevens opened, the Madison Blues played occasionally at Camp Randall but mostly at Kipp Field, where the Madison-Kipp Corporation built its second location on Fair Oaks Avenue.

The city commissioned the architectural firm of Claude and Starck to design the field. The firm had also designed notable Madison landmarks like the Lincoln School and the Majestic Theater.

The Blues’ first game at Breese was against the Beloit Fairies. Wisconsin’s governor at the time, John Blaine, threw the first pitch to the mayor, Albert Schmedeman, Miller said. (The Blues disbanded in 1942.)

In 1929, the Chicago Bears played a game at Breese due to a scheduling issue with Wrigley Field (the Bears and Cubs shared the stadium at the time). It was one of three NFL games played on the field.

In 1938, Jesse Owens ran three exhibition races on the field. “He raced against one of the Madison Blues players and gave him a big head start, but Jesse still beat him,” Miller said.

Hall of Fame pitcher Satchel Paige pitched at Breese in 1947 as a member of the Kansas City Monarchs in a win against the Industrial League All Stars, made up of players from different industry-sponsored teams. Paige’s arrival and game stats dominated headlines.

Before he went to the Marines, University of Wisconsin-Madison star athlete, and later NFL great and UW athletic director, Elroy “Crazylegs” Hirsch played a game at Breese to raise money for war bonds in 1944. He hit a grand slam, and the game raised over $40,000 (the equivalent of over $700,000 today) by auctioning memorabilia from Hirsch and from the game.

Some elements of the building’s history are better documented than others.

Straub has done research attempting to parse the facts behind longstanding rumors. One rumor he’s been trying to crack is about a 550-foot home run hit on the field during a high school game.

“It’s a pure legend,” Straub said. “I’ve heard at least five different names tied to this.”

Straub has also heard rumors of a speakeasy under the grandstand during the 1920s and ‘30s, where the Forward Madison FC team store is now located.

A rumor he has on “good authority” is true is that the front gate at Breese was bent by a wrestler known as the Mighty Atlas. The wrestler competed in a series of wrestling matches organized on the field by Jimmy Demetral, a legendary wrestler in his own right who moved to Madison in 1912.

Demetral won the middleweight crown on the field in 1928 and would continue to organize matches at the field for decades.

“He was this incredible personality who, in his own way, boosted the stadium,” Miller said. “He was one of these homegrown personalities that people fell in love with.”

Straub said he’ll randomly stumble on old relics of the building’s past. “There’s a plaque … that dedicates a seating section in the grandstand to a man named Gus — no idea who he is,” Straub said.

Centennial events

Some of the events the field will host this year come from people’s memories of the field. Straub said that during a talk he gave at the Madison Sports Hall of Fame, people asked him about Drums on Parade, a national touring show that brings together different musical marching units.

“It was a really huge thing here for a while,” Straub said of drum and bugle competitions, noting their popularity was especially high in the 1960s. “The Madison Scouts were a very high-ranking drum and bugle corps at the time, touring around the country. They still are today.”

Field of Drums, the event Breese is hosting in June, will invite back the Madison Scouts, along with other percussive groups like Madison’s Black Star Drum Line and the UW-Madison Marching Band, among others.

Around the 1970s, the building started to decline. Miller’s book notes that the Cap Times wrote a commemorative article for Breese’s 25th anniversary, but no such article came for the field’s 50th in 1976.

“The only mention of the field was in a Capital Times’ story about Breese’s likely consumption by Madison Area Technical College’s new campus on East Washington,” he wrote.

In the 1980s, Breese was briefly considered for demolition before the city allocated funds to restore it. It was initially primed to host soccer games, but not before one last baseball hurrah. In 1982, the Madison Muskies, a minor league baseball team, played its first six games on the field before moving to their home at Warner Park.

After the Muskies moved to Warner Park, a few local teams still used the field, along with continuing to host some middle and high school events. In 2013, the Madison Radicals, an ultimate frisbee team, formed and started playing games on the field. The Forward Madison FC began playing at Breese as its home field in 2019.

The field had artificial turf installed in 2014 and began hosting concerts in 2015 (The Avett Brothers were the first band to play). Big Top Events, the group that owns Forward Madison FC and the Madison Mallards, took over management of the field. The team disbanded in 1993.

Part of the centennial celebration was replacing the aging turf. “We should have the nicest field all year in the league, and it is really impactful,” Straub said.

Straub said he likes going to live shows, and he believes there’s no other venue like Breese. “Some artists are able to create an intimacy here,” he said. “I consider it like a little boutique amphitheater in downtown Madison.”

Breese Stevens was designated a landmark by the City of Madison in 1995. As far as the future is concerned, Straub said the focus is “going to continue to be on community and soccer. And really, how do you continue to bridge those?”

But he notes that trying to define the future for Breese is nearly impossible. The field could be swept up in the next sports craze.

“My favorite part is the field does seem to speak for itself,” Straub said. “ like a facility with an attitude.”