Lost Play Ball! Article 1940 Appleton Papermakers

The 2020 Play Ball!was just about ready to go to print when everything went haywire. We never got a chance to print it. We did have the articles finished and wanted to share them with you. This "Lost" Play Ball! article is on 1940 Appleton Papermakers, the first professional team from Appleton to play at Goodland Field. They played from 1940 through 1953 (with a few years off for World War II) and are an important part of our history.

There were three tries at professional baseball in Appleton before it took for good in 1958 with the Foxes and eventually – in 1995 – the Timber Rattlers.

All three teams of the teams before the Foxes went by the name Papermakers. The first team started in 1891 and lasted just one year in the Wisconsin State League. The second team moved from Wausau to play at League Park for the 1910 season of the Wisconsin Illinois League and they stuck around for five seasons before folding after the 1914 season.

It would be another 26 years before pro baseball returned to the Fox Cities, the Wisconsin State League restarted in 1940 with the Appleton Papermakers playing at West Spencer Street Stadium, a ballpark that was built specifically to bring pro baseball back to the area and that would eventually be named after John Goodland, the mayor who spearheaded the effort to get the stadium built.

This version of the Papermakers lasted the longest and it all started 80 years ago. The first game played by the Papermakers was on May 9, 1940. Player-manager Eddie Dancisak’s team defeated the Green Bay Bluejays 4-3 on a walkoff, RBI single by Murphy Malattia.

There were approximately 2,500 fans in attendance at the not-yet-completed stadium on that cool May afternoon.

The 1940 Papermakers didn’t set the world on fire. They finished sixth in the six-team Wisconsin State League as they went 42-67. They were not affiliated with a major league team. They were playing in a league that was classified at Class D, the lowest classification possible at the time. They drew just under 30,000 fans for the season.

Only one member of the 1940 Papermakers made it to the Major Leagues. Little Chute’s own Johnny Van Cuyk made his pro debut as an 18-year old pitcher in 1940 and he went 2-9 in 21 games. He would eventually make it to The Show in 1947, 1948, and 1949 with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

However, that team was the team that got things rolling again in Appleton and it all started 80 years ago.