They were the same sort of Sunday spectators who used to fill the bleachers when Ebbets Field was still a ballpark and the Dodgers were still in Brooklyn. Shirt-sleeved rooters packed the grandstand at $1 a head. Some stripped to undershirts in the 80-degree heat; some parked their cars at the far side of the broad, green playing field, unfolded beach chairs and guzzled beer from jugs. The maroon-jerseyed home team drew loud cheers when it scored, derisive jeers when it flubbed.
It was opening day for the Milwaukee Polo Club, and 3,331 customers showed up to watch a blueblooded game that is undergoing a popular renaissance. Once dominated by the East Coast countryclub set, polo has scored a surprising hit in Milwaukee, drew close to 70,000 fans in eleven home games last summer. From Florida to the Midwest, crowds of 3,000 to 6,000 turn out regularly to watch some of the 89 teams recognized by the U.S. Polo Association.
Testimonial for Blatz. Credit for polo’s rising popularity in the city of suds belongs largely to a brawny, 6-ft. 4-in., 225-lb. millionaire named Robert A. Uihlein (rhymes with beeline) Jr. A onetime Harvard football tackle, he is now playing captain of the Milwaukee team and owner of the suburban farm land that was converted into a standard, 300-by 160-yd. polo field. Uihlein also happens to be president of the Jos. Schlitz Brewing Co., but he is better known for his polo playing than for his efforts in behalf of the beer that made Milwaukee famous. Between periods at a game in New York a few seasons ago, an adman who liked the way Uihlein played approached him to ask: “Would you like to give a testimonial for Blatz?”
When Uihlein began trying to lure the general public in 1952, he soon found that games were drawing fewer than 1,000 spectators. “What polo needs,” said one member of the club, “is to get off the society pages and onto the sports page.” To put it there, Uihlein and his associates began a campaign to educate the public in the fundamentals of the fast-paced sport. Before long, Milwaukeeans were talking knowingly of attack formations and of the grueling, two-year training period required to produce a sure-footed polo pony.
Now They Know. Milwaukee club officials no longer worry about spectator reaction. Said one: “At first they didn’t know whether they should shout, or just clap politely, or boo or what. Now they know.” They have yet to toss beer bottles (Schlitz is sold during games), but as the home team was getting trimmed (12-6) by the Boca Raton (Fla.) Royal Palms, when Captain Uihlein overrode the ball, one grandstand customer bellowed: “You bum! I don’t care if this is your backyard! Why don’t you take your bats and balls and go home?”
Such enthusiasm convinced the visitors that Milwaukee is the hope of polo. “Milwaukee’s great,” said Boca Raton’s nine-goal Star Billy Mayer.* “It shows you what can be done. There’s a lot of incentive to play harder before a crowd this size and this democratic.”
* The U.S. Polo Association rates players, in ascending order of ability, from zero to ten goals. Only two men have the top, ten-goal rating: Cecil Smith, 57, a former cowpuncher now with the Hinsdale, Ill., Oak Brook club; and Bob Skene, who plays with teams in San Mateo and Menlo Park, Calif.
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