Milwaukee’s Mezzanine Marlene Knows the Score
Marlene and friends at home 10/18/26 (D. Hoekstra photo)
VERONA, WI.–When Marlene Buechel grew up on her family farm in tiny New Glarus, WI, in the 1950s, she had no clue about the larger community she would later encounter.
And what it would mean to her.
Marlene is one of the most effervescent baseball fans I know. She has been a Milwaukee baseball fan since 1953. She is a Brewers season ticket holder and drives 180 miles round trip between her home in Verona and Milwaukee. Marlene attends roughly 25 games a year. She turns 89 years old next month.
Last weekend I wanted to visit Marlene, but I had to hold off a day because she was protesting with the senior Silver Badgers activists at a No Kings Rally in Madison. She keeps score at every game. Every American should keep their eye on the ball. During my visit, Marlene rolled out 22 hand-crafted baseball scorebooks dating back to 2004. She showed me her ‘Baseball Basement’ anchored by Brewers pennants, flags and nearly 100 bobbleheads, including former Brewers manager Craig Counsell.
A portion of Marlene’s “Baseball Basement.”
I met Marlene and her son Brett by chance in the summer of 2025 at an afternoon Brewers-Cubs game. She was so full of joy, living in the moment of a sunny Wisconsin day.
We were both keeping score. We celebrated our scorecard nerdiness. Marlene talked in the detail of a third-grade school teacher, which she was as a younger woman in Verona. At the end of the game Marlene gave me her business card. The card’s image was that of a stitched baseball. Under her name was the phrase “Baseball Buddy.”
Marlene’s first professional baseball game was in 1953 when she was a high school sophomore at New Glarus High School. The Boston Braves had just relocated to Milwaukee. “I was dating an older guy because he had a cool car,” she recalled during a long Sunday afternoon conversation in the home she shares with Brett. “He wasn’t that athletic, but he took me to a game at County Stadium. I was a tomboy. I was always outside. We went to games frequently.”
Marlene Stuessy married Neil “Pat” Buechel, the older guy in July, 1957. Pat joined the U.S. Army and the young couple went to Fort Sill in Oklahoma where they lived in a cheap apartment in Lawton, OK. Led by Hank Aaron and Warren Spahn, the Milwaukee Braves beat the New York Yankees in the 1957 World Series. It remains Milwaukee’s only baseball world championship. “We put the top down on our yellow and black 1956 Chevy convertible, and we beeped our horn all around Lawton,” Marlene said. “I’m sure nobody knew why these people were beeping their horn.” Pat was discharged in 1969, and they returned to the Madison area.
Marlene and her son Brett in the “Baseball Basement.”
In 2016, Greg Pearson wrote the fine book “Maybe Next Year (Long-Suffering Sports Fans and the Teams That Never Deliver).” Marlene is included in the chapter on ‘Brew City Blues’, following the Buffalo Bills and preceding the Detroit Lions.
Pat died suddenly at age 59 in 1993. “He managed a tire company in Madison,” she said. “He was shining up his 1956 Mustang that he stored in our next door neighbor’s garage.” Pat suffered a fatal heart attack.
Sometimes there is no next year.
“The hole in your heart is forever,” Marlene said. “Baseball kept me going. I met so many nice people. The first message I got (when the Brewers clinched this year’s National League championship) was from a fan in North Carolina who I met on a baseball bus trip. He and his buddy Joe have been to Milwaukee a couple of times. Joe’s not able to travel anymore.”
Not long before Pat’s death, some neighbors told the Buechels about baseball bus road trips. “Unfortunately, he passed away before we ever did it,” she said. “That’s how I continued the baseball thing. With Buckley (Jay Buckley Baseball Tours). And then Broach (Sports Tours) out of the Carolinas. At first I went by myself. Later, sometimes Brett went with me.” Brett, 67, is a retired distribution manager for the American Girl company.
Marlene now has visited 38 major league baseball stadiums past and present.
Marlene at American Family Field 7/30/25. The Cubs won 10-3, and she was still smiling. (D. Hoekstra photo.)
At the time of Pat’s death, the Buechels had a modest season ticket package on the third base side of County Stadium. Marlene still misses the stadium’s Bonnie Brewer mascot (1973-79), her gold blouse and short blue lederhosen. After sweeping bases Bonnie would often playfully swat the third base coach with her broom. You couldn’t get away with that stuff today.
The 1994-95 baseball strike lasted from August 1994 to April 1995. It was the first time since 1904 that no World Series was played. “I was furious,” said Marlene, who does not temper her passions! “I boycotted in ‘95 and got the ticket package in ‘96. It was a 20- game package. We add a few more games and go on Sunday and weekday afternoons.”
Bonnie Brewer, former companion of Bernie Brewer.
Marlene is at the helm of the family’s 2013 Prius. It is easy to spot with the vanity plate LV BRWRZ. That’s “Love Brewers” and not “Love Bratwurst” as some have thought. Brett said, “I don’t really drive anymore. Other than around here.” But Marlene is rarin’ to go.
“The interstate is easy,” she said. “He sleeps most of the way there. On the way home he is hanging on. I wish there were day games for the World Series, but it is not going to be.” Brett is a New York Yankees fan. He adopted them in 1965 when the Milwaukee Braves left for Atlanta. He “appreciates” the Brewers. I’d say that’s non-negotiable!
Marlene and Brett now have two seats in Section 207 that leans over right field. That’s where I met them.
Everyone talks about Front Row Amy, the attractive 58-year-old woman from Oshkosh who keeps score behind home plate at Brewers games. Amy even has her own bobblehead. She attends about 35 games a year.
Well, I know Mezzanine Marlene!
“I don’t know Front Row Amy and I don’t care to,” she said. “I liked the lady with the T-shirt that said ‘My name is not Amy.’ I did read the article that Amy has three children and has been married to the same guy for 30 years. So that’s nice.”
Marlene keeps score with a sharp pencil and her record of the game is accented with colorful notes. This season’s March 29 win over the White Sox included her commentary, “Terrible popcorn. Even worse, hot dog–cold. Nuggets-cold,” punctuated by a sad face. It could have been worse. Brewers starter Brandon Sproat gave up seven runs in three innings although the Brewers won 9-7. Marlene wrote, “Best comeback EVER! First pinch-hit homer ever for Yelich!”
A work of art.
And, back on May 30, 2007, Atlanta beat the Brewers 9-3 in Milwaukee. Marlene wrote, “Nice Atlanta family next to us! Here for their parents 60th anniversary. (Relief pitcher Derrick) Turnbow started the fiasco but I think he could have gotten out of it. (Starting pitcher Dave) Bush pitched very well. Attendance, 32,758.”
Marlene’s scorebooks began when she started taking her now 38-year-old grandson Chris to games. “I was there when Busch Stadium (III) opened (in 2006) ,” she said. “That was another incentive to keep score. The Clydesdale horses. (The Cardinals beat the Brewers 6-4.) I also went to St. Louis this year for my daughter’s (Danita) 65th birthday. We had tickets behind the Brewers dugout for one night.” Danita is an accountant who lives in Verona.
Marlene used to buy Elan scorebooks because of the detail and size of scorecard boxes. Elan has phased out retail distribution. “With the other one there’s no place to record the number of the outs or the plays that created the outs,” she declared. “Now I’m using this (C.S. Peterson’s) Scoremaster, which according to my baseball coaching neighbor is the best you can find. I ordered it in the mail. I seriously think I’m going to start buying (game) scorecards.”
Themes from a summer place.
On the second-to-last weekday game of the regular season, Marlene noticed a nearby fan who was in his late twenties. Marlene smiled and said, “He asked, ‘Are you keeping score? My dad taught me how to keep score!’ He hugged me and wanted to take a picture. It was incredible that this young guy was gung-ho about this old lady sitting in front of him.
“Many years ago at the end of the game Brett gave me some (business) cards that said ‘Will you be my baseball buddy?’ You meet so many people. A young couple sat near me, Vicki and Dan Paluszynski. Vicki does fund raising (for girl scouts). There’s a 95-year-old who rarely goes to games, but she went to two games this year. We talk on the phone.” Marlene guessed she has between 30 and 40 baseball buddies across America.
Dan and Vicki are roughly 40 years younger than Marlene. They first encountered Marlene in 2018 when they sat in left field for the playoff run. Dan is a software developer for a trucking company and Vicki is an insurance underwriter. They live in Greenfield, WI outside of Milwaukee. “Marlene was seat number one, I was seat number two, Vicki was seat number three,” Dan said on Thursday. “This year she is down the row from us. Her and Vicki are always exchanging pleasantries on social media. I always tell people about the movie ‘Fever Pitch’,’ your summer family and people you meet. Marlene was our playoff ride or die. This lovely lady is sitting next to us. This is going to be our year! She is the nicest person you would ever meet.”
In 1968 Marlene taught at the UNESCO English Language Camp for the first time in Pulaway, Poland. Of course Milwaukee did not have a baseball team in 1968, although the White Sox played nine home games at County Stadium. Marlene is still in touch with several of her students, who were teenagers. “I’ve been to Poland 13 times even though I’m not Polish,” she said. “ I’m Swiss. I love the Polish people to death. One game I look to my left and there’s a man, woman and their daughter. I had this feeling that they were Polish. Eventually I had the courage to ask. It turned out the wife had been at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee on a sabbatical from Poland. Her husband and daughter had come over to be with her. They wanted to see a baseball game. I haven’t heard from them lately, but it turned out his job is close to the bakery run by one of my friends’ family in Krakow, Poland, one of the most beautiful cities in the world. It’s crazy how life works.”
Marlene has renewed her ticket package for the 2027 season. “I will be 89 soon, and I don’t know after that,” she said. “I wish there were a train that we could take from Madison to Milwaukee.” In the event of an extended labor work stoppage, Marlene said she would consider the Madison Mallards of the collegiate Northwoods League. “But those would be almost all night games,” she said.
Marlene & Brewers holding on to a 1-0 win over the Reds on 7/9/23, via Kim Kasperek on FB.
Marlene lost out on the ticket lottery for the Brewers 1982 World Series appearance representing the American League. “I was devastated when we lost game seven! (in St. Louis),” she said.
As for the upcoming World Series, Marlene reflected, “There are so many good stories in that team and so many people who care about each other. When they did the champagne for the division championship, each bottle had a city of Wisconsin on it. And Verona was one of them. And when they won the league championship, each label had the name of a former player.” So yes, there was a vintage 2021 Rowdy Tellez. MLB.com reported that every player who played in at least one postseason game for the Brewers had their own bottle label. Marlene said, “ The emphasis being this never would have happened without all of the players that came through Milwaukee.”
Milwaukee’s small-town flavor is what makes the Brewers special. Time moves a bit slower. In 1999, Marlene took a long baseball bus trip to Cooperstown, NY, for the induction of Brewers legend Robin Yount into the Baseball Hall of Fame. She remembered that Yount said, ‘The game of life can sometimes be too short, so play it with everything you got.” She wants to include those words in her memorial service. She has lived that life. And Marlene Buechel has the scorebooks to prove it.
With exclamation points!
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