Helena Brewers

1987-2018

 

The Helena Brewers of Helena, Montana, played a cumulative total of thirty seasons, in two separate eras. Throughout the extent of both of those time periods, they competed in the Pioneer League, serving as a Rookie-level affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers.

 

Brewers I

The first team called the Helena Brewers began after the 1986 season, when the Pioneer League’s Helena Gold Sox changed their name and took on a COTOB identity. The Gold Sox name had begun when the team was independent in 1984, and the name continued for two seasons with Milwaukee before they took on the Brewers moniker.

The earliest evidence of the Helena Brewers’ visual brand that I’ve yet to find is a series of baseball cards produced in 1989. In those pictures, the young players are wearing royal blue caps with a simple gold block letter H, along with Milwaukee-esque uniforms. The connection with the parent club went even further in the early nineties, when they  simply took on Milwaukee’s ball-and-glove logo for their caps.

Around 1992, however, they developed an original cap logo with a diamond-pointed letter H, superimposed over mountains and with red added as an accent color. Interestingly, Helena did not change their overall look when Milwaukee switched to dark blue and green. Instead, they wore royal-tinged pinstripes, and took on a classic look of their parent club. This look carried the first version of Helena Brewers through the rest of their days.

Accumulating an impressive alum list is always a tricky task for a Rookie-level club, but Helena saw a few players pass through who would go on to make a little noise at the big league level. Some of the bigger names include Bill Spiers, Dave Nilsson, Jaime Navarro, Jeff Cirillo, Mark Loretta, Geoff Jenkins, and Bill Hall.

These Helena Brewers ceased to be following the 2000 season, when the franchise was moved to Provo, Utah. The Provo Angels existed for four seasons, before moving to nearby Orem. The Orem Owlz play in the Pioneer League to this day.

 

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Brewers II

After a few years without affiliated baseball, the city of Helena was hungry for a new team. They were sated after the 2002 season, when the Medicine Hat Blue Jays were moved south of the border. Milwaukee must have been comfortable in Helena, because they immediately resumed affiliation and nickname-sharing.

By this time, the major league Brewers had changed their visual aesthetic to more or less of what we see today. Helena copied these elements, and their cap logo was the letters HB rendered in Milwaukee’s font, with barley grains stuffed in among the cracks in the letters. Eventually they would simplify to just the H, with a barley grain serving as the letter’s crossbar. They also copied Milwaukee’s Wisconsin state shape logo, but substituted in the Montana form.

This was a bountiful era for Milwaukee’s farm system, and these years yielded several future major league standouts, including Alcides Escobar, Lorenzo Cain, Michael Brantley, Ryan Braun, Jonathan Lucroy, Jake Odorizzi, Khris Davis, and Brandon Woodruff. The later Helena rosters may have included players who have yet to break out in the majors as of this writing, but I will check back periodically to see if any additions are in order.

The end of the Helena Brewers came as a result of a unique three-way relocation of minor league franchises owned by Elmore Sports Group. Elmore had a vision of a Triple-A team in San Antonio, Texas, and they moved their Colorado Springs Sky Sox to the Lone Star state. In a concurrent move, their Double-A Texas League San Antonio Missions franchise was shuffled to Amarillo, Texas, where they now play as the Amarillo Sod Poodles. To fill the void left behind by the departure of the Sky Sox, Elmore moved their Helena Brewers to Colorado Springs. The Rocky Mountain Vibes play in the Pioneer League to this day, and the Helena Brewers poured their last drink in 2018.

 

 

 

Ephemera