Ruth Werning has watched Milwaukee baseball through minor-league afternoons at a long-gone ballpark, two different major league franchises, and a World Series appearance against the St. Louis Cardinals. At 104 years old, she says there is only one thing left she wants to see: the Brewers finally win it all.
Werning's love of the game started small, in a South Side Milwaukee yard where she stood with a mitt waiting for her brother to toss her a ball, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. She went to her first baseball game around age 11, the paper reports, watching the minor-league Milwaukee Brewers play at Borchert Field alongside her aunt and uncle in the early 1930s. She still recalls the popcorn, the crowd, and the excitement of that first trip to the ballpark, per the same account.
Other outlets have told a different version of how that story began. Spectrum News 1 has reported that Werning attended her first Brewers game in 1928 at age 6, while the Journal Sentinel's account places her first game around age 11 in the early 1930s. Spectrum News 1 dates her first game to 1928, when the Brewers were still a minor-league franchise playing in a different era of Milwaukee baseball.
A Lifetime Spanning Two Franchises
Werning has lived to see Milwaukee land not one but two Major League Baseball teams, according to Spectrum News 1 — the Braves arriving in 1953 and the current Brewers franchise beginning in 1970. She also remembers the Brewers' 1982 World Series run against the Cardinals, as reported by WISN. Werning hopes this season could finally deliver a championship.
Her devotion to the team hasn't gone unnoticed by the club itself. Shortly before the 2024 postseason, Werning threw out the ceremonial first pitch before a game against the Los Angeles Dodgers, WISN reports. The Brewers won that game 6-4, and the outing made Werning the talk of her assisted-living facility.
Betting On Another Brewers Win
Werning's track record as a predictor has held up this postseason. She correctly called a Brewers win in NLCS Game 3, forecasting the exact 6-2 final score, according to WISN's report. This season's run comes after what MLB.com describes as a landmark year for the franchise, with the Brewers reaching the postseason for the eighth time in nine seasons, winning the NL Central, and posting the first 100-win season in franchise history.
Werning now hopes to watch the Brewers play in the World Series as she approaches her 105th birthday, as FOX6 News reports. She told WISN that there would be no better present than seeing the Brewers win the World Series. For a fan who has followed the team from Borchert Field bleachers to modern-day playoff runs, that wish is less about baseball itself and more about finally seeing the ending she's waited nearly a century for.
