The Milwaukee Brewers are holding a family reunion, and fans are invited along for the ride.
The organization announced it would be welcoming back 25 players from the past 25 years of baseball — encompassing the Miller Park/American Family Field era — for a July 25 celebration during the team’s game against the Miami Marlins.
Prince Fielder is among the former Brewers expected to attend the game.
With the idea of featuring at least one player from every team since 2001, Milwaukee already has a guest list of 16 players announced: Bill Hall, JJ Hardy, Corey Hart, Jose Hernandez, Prince Fielder, Yovani Gallardo, Corey Knebel, Dan Kolb, George Kottaras, Casey McGehee, Nyjer Morgan, Mike Moustakas, Jace Peterson, Ben Sheets, Eric Sogard and Eric Thames. More players will be announced as their availability is confirmed.
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Brewers president of business operations Rick Schlesinger said he didn’t anticipate any problem filling out the field to 25 players and, in fact, he’s had enough interest from players to suggest more than 25 could be involved.
“If we have more players (available for a specific year) than we can accommodate, we’ll figure out a way to have them here,” Schlesinger said. “It’s uncanny; when we talk to our players, even players who had one or two years here and had great seasons with other teams, they talk about how fun it was to play here, how they love the crowds and were excited to be a part of it.”
Schlesinger said the idea is to immerse the players in the game experience, from autograph signings to selling concessions to other in-game promotions. And yes, former players will be running in the sausage race.
“It’s not just having 25 guys here waving on the warning track before the game,” Schlesinger said.
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The Brewers intend the celebration to serve as a thank-you for the fans whose tax dollars helped fund the ballpark’s construction and improvements over the years.
The start time for the game is unusual, a Friday at 3:10 p.m. CT. Schlesinger said that wasn’t solely to accommodate this new promotion. He said the Brewers had received feedback from fans who were receptive to the experiment of a mid-afternoon start time on a Friday, and the July 25 date happened to work as an option.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Brewers inviting back 25 players for stadium celebration in July