The Pfister Hotel is one of Milwaukee's signature spots for out-of-towners, if not the No. 1 landing spot. Dignitaries (including Donald Trump) stayed there during the 2024 Republican National Convention, leading to a major blockade around the building.
Most Major League Baseball teams in town to play the Milwaukee Brewers take up temporary residence at the downtown hotel, though sometimes, they're not alone.
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The hotel has become famous for freaking out a number of MLB players with its eerie incidents. Numerous players have confessed they don't sleep well in the hotel, which opened in 1893.
Mookie Betts, who has famously rented an Airbnb when the Los Angeles Dodgers play in Milwaukee, is among those who will presumably seek alternate accommodations with the Dodgers in town for Game 1 of the National League Championship Series, beginning Oct. 11.
Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy, meanwhile? He ain't afraid of no ghost.
"If there's a ghost in there, come on in," Muncy said Oct. 10, one day before the start of the NLCS. "If the TV turns on, I know he's friendly. Hopefully he's just not there to disturb me. I welcome them. If there's a ghost, let's have a good time with it, come on in. It is what it is."
Here's a look at the track record of the haunted hotel and the baseball players who won't be booking a vacation there anytime soon:
2001: Adrián Beltré
The Dodgers star said he heard knocking at his door while staying at the Pfister, even with the TV and air conditioner turned off.
2008: Carlos Gómez
It's a good thing that Gomez ultimately joined the Brewers and didn't have to stay overnight in a hotel. In 2008 as a member of the Minnesota Twins, he was quoted as saying, "Everything's scary. Everything in the hotel — the paintings and pictures, it's a lot of old, crazy stuff. No good, man. No good."
2009: Mike Cameron
The Brewers outfielder didn't actually have a story since he could live locally, but he said he'd never stay in the Pfister after hearing other players' stories.
2009: Brendan Ryan
"It was more like a moving light that kind of passed through the room," the St. Louis Cardinals infielder told a local TV station. "The room got a little bit chillier."
2009: Pablo Sandoval
The San Francisco Giants infielder told ESPN in 2013 about an experience he had in 2009. "I went to take a shower, and I remember putting my iPod next to a speaker. When I came out, it was playing music, and I have no idea why." Sandoval and teammate Edgar Renteria refused to stay with the rest of the team at the Pfister in 2010.
2011: Michael Young
Also speaking in 2013, the former Texas Rangers player said: "A couple of years ago, I was lying in bed after a night game, and I was out. My room was locked, but I heard these footsteps inside my room, stomping around."
2012: Bryce Harper
The Philadelphia Phillies star, then with the Washington Nationals, said one year after his experience: "I laid a pair of jeans and a shirt on that table at the foot of the bed. When I woke up in the morning — I swear on everything — the clothes were on the floor and the table was on the opposite side of the room."
2013: Brandon Phillips
In a lengthy ESPN article detailing other athletes' experiences, Phillips said he was in his room when the radio turned on. "So I turned it off, and got in the shower," he said. When he came back out, it was on again.
2013: C.J. Wilson
The article also details a creepy undated experience by Los Angeles Angels pitcher C.J. Wilson, who made his one start at Miller Park in 2013.
"I was on the computer one night, doing my typical shtick — surfing the web, sending an email, editing a photo — and then, all of a sudden, the lights started flickering," Wilson said. "I'm thinking to myself, 'I'm going to be so pissed if my computer dies.' Then the light just shuts off. And then the TV shuts off. And then the light turns back on, but the light at the front door turns off. I just yelled out, 'Really?'
"So after that, I went back to whatever I was doing on the computer, but then 30 minutes later, there's scratching in the walls. Now I'm thinking, 'OK, it's the Midwest. There could be a possum or something in the wall, right? That's possible, isn't it?' All I knew was that there were definitely noises coming from the wall."
Wilson said everyone on his team had a story. "One dude got locked in his bathroom and he had to get the hotel to get him out. Another guy had the lights turn off when he was in the shower. Another guy saw something.
"I don't get terribly concerned unless things start shattering in the room, so it was fine. I don't get that much sleep anyway. But you just get a vibe when you walk in. It almost feels like you're in Prague or something: very Gothic, lots of gold enamel, crosswalks and atriums everywhere. Being on the road so much, we're used to a standard cookie-cutter place. But this hotel totally stands alone."
2015: Shelby Miller
In 2023, former Brewers infielder Jace Peterson told a story of how he and Atlanta Braves teammate Jonny Gomes conspired to frighten Shelby Miller by stealing the all-star pitcher's key and altering his room.
2016: Ji-Man Choi
Another future Brewers player, Choi was a Los Angeles Angels first baseman at the time when he reported feeling the presence of a spirit in his bed.
2016: Pedro Álvarez
Then-Brewers manager Craig Counsell said he heard former Pittsburgh Pirates infielder Pedro Álvarez had experienced weirdness at the hotel, which matches up with a story told in 2016 by Pirates manager Clint Hurdle. Hurdle didn't name names but said one of his players became spooked when a TV in his room turned on twice in one night.
2016: Jon Gray
Colorado Rockies pitcher Jon Gray, who has a passion for ghost hunting, got a chance to tackle the Pfister in 2016.
2018: Carlos Martinez and Marcell Ozuna
St. Louis Cardinals starter Carlos Martinez expressed that he had seen some sort of floating ghost on Instagram in June, and teammate Marcell Ozuna believed he had seen something similar, so the two elected to room together.
The sound crew at Miller Park got in on the fun by playing the "Ghostbusters" theme during a meeting on the mound mid-game.
2022: The Atlanta Braves
OK, so we can't technically blame the spectral plane for a power outage in downtown Milwaukee, but when the Atlanta Braves were left without power and (in some cases) running water, we figured we could add it to the list.
“By mid-morning, I was thinking if I don’t hurry up and get in the shower, all the hot water’s going to be gone, and it was," Braves manager Brian Snitker said. "I took a cold shower. But I had water. In other parts of the place, the water went out when the power did.”
Snitker joked about a possible solution to the shower issue situated a few blocks away from the Pfister Hotel:
“There’s a big lake there,” he said, referring to nearby Lake Michigan.
2023-24: Mookie Betts
Dodgers star Mookie Betts said he doesn't believe in ghosts, but just in case, he first elected to stay at an Airbnb in Milwaukee with friends while the rest of the team stayed at the Pfister in 2023.
He repeated that ritual in 2024 and 2025, staying separate from the team to avoid the Pfister.
Betts told Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register on May 9, and Plunkett tweeted out the humorous anecdote.
"Has stayed at Pfister before (and the Vinoy in St. Pete, another allegedly haunted hotel) and has no stories to tell," Plunkett wrote. "'But I couldn't sleep. Every noise, I'd be like, 'Is that something?!?'"
It seams teammate Teoscar Hernández is also not a huge fan of the spectral.
2023: Vinnie Pasquantino
Again, no specific sightings this time, but there was a fun anecdote that the Kansas City Royals first baseman brought his mother on the trip to Milwaukee given that she loves all things "spooky" (and the Pfister certainly qualifies) while Pasquantino doesn't have the same affinity.
2023: Brent Rooker
The Oakland Athletics standout said something kept changing the channel in his room.
“I’ll have it on like Golf Channel and I’ll be on my laptop looking down. I look back up and it’s on QVC or some other channel that definitely is not Golf Channel,” Rooker said to MLB.com writer Martín Gallegos. “That’s happened a few times. I fell asleep with it on one night and woke up at like 4 a.m. and it was off, which I figured was just like a sleep timer. I woke back up at 7:30 or 8 and it was back on, and on a different channel than I had fallen asleep with it on. It’s just kind of small stuff like that.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Is famous Milwaukee hotel haunted? MLB players have been spooked for decades
