Editor’s note: One of an occasional series on the 25th year of Major League Baseball in Denver.
In the 1880s, St. Louis Browns owner Chris von der Ahe became the forefather in the long link between beer and baseball when he renovated Sportsman’s Park and added a beer garden in the right-field corner. On the playing field.
It was a wildly profitable and popular move for von der Ahe, a saloonkeeper by trade, who had noticed the boost of sales at his business before and after games. But the fact that fans wanted to drink beer during the game was a revolutionary idea at the time, and by capitalizing on it, von der Ahe intertwined the fates of beer and baseball forever.