Why Dodgers players refuse to stay at infamous Milwaukee hotel during NLCS originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
MILWAUKEE — There’s postseason pressure, and then there’s the kind that comes from things that go bump in the night. For the Los Angeles Dodgers, it seems both have followed them to Milwaukee.
As the National League Championship Seriesstarted at American Family Field for Games 1 and 2 on Monday and Tuesday night, a different kind of storyline is swirling around the visiting clubhouse — one involving ghost stories, sleepless nights, and a century-old hotel that’s been unsettling Major League Baseball players for decades.
The Pfister Hotel, an elegant landmark in downtown Milwaukee built in 1893, has long been rumored to be haunted. From flickering lights to phantom footsteps, players have whispered about eerie experiences for years.
Dodgers outfielder Mookie Betts has heard enough. Once again, the eight-time All-Star refused to stay there, opting instead for the safety of an Airbnb — as he’s done on every Milwaukee trip since 2022.
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” Betts said last season. “But I don’t want to find out that I’m wrong.”
That superstition — or self-preservation — has now spread through the Dodgers clubhouse. Ahead of Game 2 on Tuesday, Teoscar Hernández admitted that he and his family decided not to stay at the Pfister either after teammates shared their own ghostly encounters since arriving Sunday night.
“I’ve stayed there before and never seen anything,” Hernández told reporters during his pregame media session. “But my wife said she didn’t want to stay there. Then I started hearing stories — lights going off, doors opening, footsteps. I was like, okay, that’s enough.”
For the Dodgers, this isn’t just another road trip. It’s a test of nerves — not just against Freddy Peralta and the Brewers’ elite pitching staff, but against the kind of folklore that seeps into a team’s psyche. Players from Bryce Harper to Adrian Beltre to Pablo Sandoval have all claimed strange encounters at the Pfister, and the stories never seem to die.
“I laid a pair of jeans and a shirt on that table at the foot of the bed,” Harper recalled while staying at the haunted hotel in 2012. “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.”
While playing for the Dodgers in 2001, Beltre said he heard knocking at his door while staying at the Pfister, even with the TV and air conditioner turned off.
“I went to take a shower, and I remember putting my iPod next to a speaker,” former Giants’ infielder Pablo Sandoval recalled about his experience at the hotel. “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.
Sandoval, Harper, and Beltre were not the only MLB players to experience paranormal activities either. Some of the most eerie stories come from former baseball players who stayed there over the years.
“It was more like a moving light that kind of passed through the room,” said former Cardinals infielder Brendan Ryan to a local TV station. “The room got a little bit chillier.”
“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. It woke me up,” said former Ranger Michael Young.
“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,” said former Angels’ pitcher C.J. Wilson. “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.”
And finally, former Korean slugger Ji-man Choi was a first baseman also with the Angels when he said he was laying in bed and felt the “presence of a spirt lying in bed” next to him.
Yeah, no thanks.
But whether you believe in ghosts or not, the legends have become part of baseball’s strange October magic — a mix of tension, tradition, and superstition that defines the sport. And for Betts, Hernández, and the Dodgers, one thing’s for sure: they’d rather face a 100-mph fastball from rookie Jacob Misiorowski than a restless spirit at 3 a.m.
Game 2 of the NLCS between the Dodgers and Brewers continues Tuesday night in Milwaukee — and no matter what happens on the field, the ghosts of the Pfister will be watching closely.
