APPLETON, Wis. — A World Series game brought one Wisconsin family back to a place forever tied to both heartbreak and pride.
For most Brewers fans, walking into the ballpark means baseball. For RJ Wischer, it means remembering his dad.
TMJ4 News reporter Rebba Klopf has the story in the video below:
Wischer was just 8 years old and living in Waukesha when his father, Jeffrey Wischer, was killed in the 1999 Big Blue crane collapse while helping build what would become Miller Park. William DeGrave and Jerome Starr, also ironworkers, were killed in the collapse.
In the years that followed, going to a Brewers game wasn't easy for Wischer's family.
“We didn’t really go to games,” Wischer said. “After the accident, my mom had a lot of apprehension to going to games.”
The stadium was home to the team Wischer grew up cheering for, but it was also permanently connected to one of the most painful moments of his childhood.
It would take years for that relationship to begin to change.
A new generation at the ballpark
When Wischer was in college, he started going to games with Betsy, the woman who would eventually become his wife. As the years passed, they started a family of their own.
And when Wischer became a father, the ballpark took on another meaning.
He began bringing his children to games and showing them the plaque honoring his dad and the other men who died during the stadium's construction.
“Every time we go there, we go up by the plaque,” Wischer said.
His children never got the chance to meet their grandfather, but Wischer said they understand what he helped build.
“They are still proud about what he did and everything,” he said.
Wischer has found another way to carry his father's legacy with him. Thirteen years ago, he became an ironworker himself, following in his dad's footsteps.
An unexpected World Series invitation
Then came an opportunity the family never expected.
After the Brewers reached the World Series, the team contacted the local ironworkers union and offered tickets to the families of the three men killed in the Big Blue collapse.
The Wischers were invited to Game Two.
Betsy Wischer said the circumstances that led the family to that moment were impossible to forget, but that made celebrating together even more meaningful.
“You just get to appreciate being in that moment of, your kids are here because of unfortunate circumstances,” she said. “But at least we get to celebrate on a high with them.”
There was something else that struck the family.
RJ's children aren't much older than he was when his father died.
Now, they were getting the chance to cheer for the Brewers inside a ballpark their grandfather had helped build.
“You guys get to have this because of who your Grandpa was and to just be in it with them,” Betsy said. “It was something really great to watch between them.”
‘A full circle moment’
For a family whose history with the ballpark began with unimaginable loss, Game Two gave them a new memory to associate with it. The plaque is still there. So is the loss behind it.
But now, so is the memory of RJ standing alongside his own children, watching them cheer in the stadium their grandfather helped build.
“It was a full circle moment for us of being able to go back there,” Wischer said.
More than two decades after losing his dad, a place once defined by tragedy gave Wischer's family a reason to celebrate together.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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