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The
Schaller Boys learned at an early age, thanks to Mrs.
Schall, that if you were from Wisconsin - no
matter where you traveled there was always time to pop
open the trunk and break
out the cooler for food, fun and a little tailgate
party. |
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1986 - July 28 & Sep.
27.
The first year of the tailgate
(although there were other prior visits with friends to
County Stadium, in the 80's, for tailgating and
baseball) as a brewery tour and ballgame started the
official tradition. Jim, Don and Tom were the lone
attendees. |
| 1987
- May 13. The Schaller Boys hit the brewery tour again and then
a Brewers game - two in a row, I think they were on to
something. |
| 1988
- June 18. The first "official" invites were
distributed. This tailgate was the first big group
effort as a group of NIU alumni (including J.Webber,
J.Laystrom, Chip P., Lyle & Kelli, Holly and
T.Steffy) met at the McDonalds on Hwy 50
before caravanning up to Milwaukee and a tour at Miller
Brewery. On the way to the game - there was the
drive down Wisconsin Avenue in the back of Tom's pickup
truck as the boys passed out cups of beer to innocent
bystanders and drivers. At the ballpark there were no games but
plenty of food and beer to pass the time amongst
friends. And the drinking continued in the
bleachers as the tailgators made friends with all those
around them in the stands. |
| 1989
- July 8. Once
again, this tailgate was a big group
effort as the group once again met at the McDonalds on Hwy 50
before caravanning up to Milwaukee. In Milwaukee,
there was a stop at the Patrick's pool for a little
splash time, before heading on over to Miller for a tour
and drinking in the beer garden. Jim made a
special appearance returning from Florida to
attend. Again the drinking continued in the
bleachers as the tailgators continued to make friends with all
the other bleacher creatures - it almost was like a Cubs
game with no one paying attention the game itself. |
| 1990
- August 4. The invites became a little more elaborate, but the
brewery tour and grilling continued. |
| 1991
- July 13. With friends from Wauconda, NIU and McCabe's in
attendance the party began to evolve - for the first
time a game was played. Albeit with a Coors Party
Ball in the drizzling rain - leave it to Dale to make up
a game anytime, anywhere. |
| 1992
- September 19. With everyone graduating from NIU and moving away -
Don was left with a small amount of friends and a
September night for a little grilling out and then a
ballgame. |
| 1993
- July 17. The party bounced back a little in '93 as the July
date saw a little better attendance, but still the party
was missing the other Schaller boys. |
| 1994
- Strike year. |
| 1995
- 1998 - Sep. 23, Sep. 21, Sep. 13, July
24. The lean years. With Jim and Pat in
Florida, Don still managed to attend Brewer games but
with no invites sent out - the Friend-o-meter was
definitely low. |
| 1999
- June 12. With the last year of County Stadium looming, Don
thought they ought to have one last bash at the old
ballpark. With only (7) people in attendance and
front row parking - the new era of tailgating
began. Again, under the direction of Dale Falk,
the first basketball hoop showed up at a tailgate - as
three teams battled in a "Hot Shot"
competition. Jim grilled up some awesome brats and
played 80's music from his car stereo and the fun was back at Schall's
Tailgate. |
| 2000
- June 29. With County Stadium sticking around an extra year -
the Schaller Boys saw and opportunity to expand the
tailgate - although this year the tailgate was still low
in attendance, the basketball continued and the ideas began to flow for next year as
the tailgators sat in the Right Field "Family
Section"
bleachers. |
| 2001
- July 28. With a brand new Miller Park - this was the first year
of the bottle invites - this definitely surprised some
guests when they found an empty beer bottle in their
mailbox. But upon reading the label they knew a
party was being set-up in Milwaukee. With Dale's
help Jim put together the Tailgator bar, the Strike out
Sammy game and the Goat Boat game (a take off of an idea
at one of Dale's July home party's) all concluding with
a team Sausage race bike competition. In addition,
the first edition of T-Shirts and Koozies were
distributed to attendees and baseball cards were used as
name tags. This was also the last year of the
pre-tailgate Miller Brewery tour - as set-up time became
more valuable. Did we mention that this was also the first
year of scouring the neighborhood curbs for furniture to
use at the tailgate - and there were some beautiful finds
(I think Jim actually kept one of the couches for 3
years). And it wouldn't be a party without your own
Port-a-John as Jim arranged for the blue booth for the
private use of only the attendees. Raffle
prizes were also given away. Mrs. Schall's team
won the first ever Sausage race bike competition, bumping Dave Butts out
of the way in the final stretch. |
2002
- July 27. The party began to expand, as Todd Goodman became
involved with the T-Shirts and handouts. The music
was still a boom-box with CD's - but it worked.
The Sausage race competition was won by Ron Patrick and
his boys. |
2003 - August 9. This year saw a new baseball
logo for the tailgate along with a theme - Taste
Great, Less Filling. Jim, Todd and Don sported the
appropriate jerseys and TG/LF hats were raffled
off. A new Miller beer tent was set up around
the beer kegs and Miller Lite signs, flags and goodies
were everywhere. The Mr. & Ms. Tailgator
competition was born with the top three individual
contestants in each group participated in a
'round-the-tailgate party Sausage race (complete with
Tailgator shots on each turn) and the winners walked away
with the golden beer bottle trophy. Inside the game -
the cheeseballs began to fly which turned into the entire
left field bleacher section tossing the edible orange
balls all around.
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2004 - July 31. Bigger and better, the party continues to grow
with almost 120 in attendance. More Miller beer tents
were set up this year, one over the DJ booth and one
over the food - which was grilled to perfection by Brian
Olcott.
The music (compete with mixing board and microphone)
thoroughly entertained the growing crowd. Again,
Mr. Goodman came through, this time with a beer trailer as Pat and
Todd proudly served the cold beer. The Tailgator
challenge saw the addition of a kids competition -
winners were Karoline Yacono, Maury Sage , and Teresa
Patrick. Again, inside the cheeseballs began to fly -
but Mr. Andy Frain quickly put a halt to that. The
party continued late into the night in the parking lot
afterwards.
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2005 - July 30.
With Jim moving back to Florida earlier in the year -
the planning was extra tough. But Jim pulled it
off again, with about 100 in attendance on a perfect
sunny summer day. New colors for the paraphernalia
this year as maroon became the dominant color with gold
accents. The early morning garbage picking for
furniture trip yielded some great finds including an
official Santa teddy bear greeter that was placed at the
Gator Pit check in. In the games area pop-a-shot
replaced the pepsi hot-shot basketball game and a new
putting green contest was introduced. In the Men's
Sausage Bike Race - a late race bump-and-run maneuver
created controversy. The beer was compliments of
Champions Pub on Bartlett Ave in Milwaukee. Inside the
game - Kenosha Night bought out all the bleachers so the
tailgators were relegated to the Terrace level along the
3rd base line. And as usual the post game party
lasted late into the night and even featured fireworks
the could be seen from GermanFest.
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2006 - July 29.
He's back! Just in time for Tailgate 2006, Jim moved
back (once again!) to Milwaukee. To celebrate the
20th anniversary of the Schall's Tailgate Party Jim
designed a special logo to commemorate the special
occasion. On a hot sweltering day in Milwaukee
(temps of 95F +) almost 100 diehards showed up to party,
the hot weather kept some people away, but that only meant
more beer for those that were there! The early morning garbage picking for
furniture once again turned up some jems - (3) couches,
(2) recliners, a lap dance couch, an entertainment center,
a nice throw rug and even a bean bag chair & christmas
tree. Once again the beer was compliments of
Champions Pub on Bartlett Ave in Milwaukee and beer paraphernalia
courtesy of TJ Goodman. This year we also celebrated
Brad Freking's 40th party as he was presented with a #26
Dodgers uniform. The Brewers celebrated their first
Cerveceros Day and the debut of the Chorizo Sausage in the
Sausage Races to a sell out crowd.
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2007 - August 4th.
Bigger and better was the goal for this year. With
ticket price increases and a winning Brewers ball club
there were some big upgrades and excitement surrounding
the tailgate. A new canopy check-in/bar area (Thanks
to Nate & Keith for putting it together) was purchased
and brand new bars were constructed. The games were
upgraded too, with the Homer Simpson donut toss replacing
Strike Out Sammy Sosa. The Olcott's
donated a grill to the tailgate gear and it seems
everywhere you looked there was some sort of beer or palm
tree related blow-up. The were 110 attendees on this
slightly overcast day with almost ideal tailgating
conditions. Kurt Brown brought a bus load of 36
friends to the party and Donnie Williamson came all the
way up from Austin, Texas. There were a few sprinkles for the first
time in years, but nothing that washed things out.
Dan the Man Bertlesen redeemed his performance from 2006
by doing an excellent job manning the grill (before Safety
experts shut it down for excessive flames). The
drive from Lake Zurich did not leave much space for the
Friday afternoon "dumpster diving" for furniture
- but not because of a lack of selection but there was
just no room to put everything in the truck. Joey
Yacono won the Men's Sausage Bike Race - behind the wheel
of the Italian Sausage bike and it's new paint
job. TG-Competition winners were: Mr. Tailgate-Joey
Yacono, Ms. Tailgate- “Bean”, Jr.
Tailgate-Lindsey Horn for the 2nd year in a row. Inside the group sported tickets in the first
five rows of the left field bleachers as they watched the
Brewers come from behind on a Prince Fielder homerun and a
Corey Hart leaping catch to beat the Phillies and remain a
game up on the Cubs. But best of all Dave O'Connell
made TG history by catching a 2nd inning Phillies homerun
ball!
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2008 - August 9th.
It was a record year for Schall's Tailgate as 165
Tailgaters, including Kurt and the Party bus who cruised
in with 49 people, joined the party and the Tailgate went through
4 kegs of Beer and 10 gallons of Gator Juice! Because
of the success of the Brewers on the field tickets were
hard to get and the original date was Sold Out so the
party was moved to August 9th. A large number
of the year’s attendees were Tailgate Virgins and
because of the record turnout, SRO tickets were all that
were available as Jim had to go back and get more tickets
from the Brewers to accommodate the record crowd.
There were no worries as everyone that wanted to was able
to sit in our section. The section saw some
additional excitement when the police were called to break
up a fight in the neighboring section of “Pirates” and
the ambulance was called. The weather was beautiful -
barely 80 degrees, a slight wind and a flaying attempt and
a rain shower. Subtle updates were made to the party
as upgrades helped with the set-up and tear down of the
tailgating equipment. "Dumpster diving"
almost was a thing of the past, when the small rental
truck pulled up in Lake Zurich, but the boys found a nice
addition to the party with some bar stools that were being
tossed from beer supplier Scoreboard Bar & Grill in
Lake Zurich. And we can't forget about the $2.00
Rabbit purchased at a Rummage Sale on the way to the ball
park. Alex Garvan won the Jr. Tailgator Challenge
Title while Joey Yacono repeated for the second year in a
row as Mr. Tailgator and promptly retired from Tailgate
Competition. Do we hear Brett Favre waffling? By the
time the boys made it into the ball park - the game was
almost half over and it was a quick one with Ben Sheets
pitching a complete game, 6 strike out no walk game in
2:18 while the Brewers belted three homers in a 6-0 win.
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