Wisconsin State League (1940-1953)

Background

The latter-day Wisconsin State League was a relatively stable post-war Class D minor league baseball circuit. The league formed with six clubs in the summer of 1940 and added two more expansion clubs, Janesville and Oskhosh, in 1941. Seven of those eight cities stayed in the league for the duration of its 11-season run.

The exception was La Crosse, which didn’t return to the league after its three-year suspension for World War II. Like most of the minors, the Wisconsin State League shut down from 1943 through 1945 during the height of the war effort. Wausau replaced La Crosse when the league resumed play in the spring of 1946.

The league’s attendance and the financial viability of its clubs were already in decline when the National League’s Boston Braves moved to Milwaukee in 1953. The arrival of Major League competition further eroded the Wisconsin State League’s fortunes. Green Bay and Wausau threatened to defect to the Class C Northern League in the fall of 1953. At a league meeting at the Hotel Athearn in Oshkosh that November, the league’s directors voted to suspend operations for the 1954 season. What followed were years of limbo in each of league’s cities as the suspension of operations dragged on without resolution.

Wausau finally joined the Northern League in 1956.

Appleton and Green Bay re-surfaced in the Three-I League, forerunner of today’s Midwest League in 1958. Wisconsin Rapids joined the Midwest League after nearly a decade-long layoff in 1963.

Professional baseball never returned to Fond du Lac, Janesville, Oshkosh or Sheboygan after the Wisconsin State League recorded its last out in 1953.

Wisconsin State League Franchise List

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