October 20, 2025 • 10 mins
Professional athletes would rather sleep in an Airbnb than risk another night in baseball’s most infamous haunted hotel.
Read the article: https://weirddarkness.com/pfister-haunted-hotel-baseball/
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#WeirdDarkness #PfisterHotel #HauntedHotels #BaseballGhosts #MLBGhosts #MostHauntedHotel #ParanormalBaseball #MilwaukeeHaunted #SportsParanormal #HauntedWisconsin
Read the article: https://weirddarkness.com/pfister-haunted-hotel-baseball/
Support our Halloween “Overcoming the Darkness” campaign to help people with depression: https://weirddarkness.com/HOPE
WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2025, Weird Darkness.
#WeirdDarkness #PfisterHotel #HauntedHotels #BaseballGhosts #MLBGhosts #MostHauntedHotel #ParanormalBaseball #MilwaukeeHaunted #SportsParanormal #HauntedWisconsin
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
I'm Darren Marler, and this is weird dark news. There's
a luxury hotel in downtown Milwaukee where visiting baseball players
check in with their luggage and sometimes leave with stories
that keep them awake for weeks afterward, the kind of
stories that make grown men who face one hundred mile
per hour fastballs refuse to turn off the lights. Charles
(00:32):
Feister opened his Father's Dream Hotel in eighteen ninety three,
a Romanesque revival structure designed by architect Henry C. Cook
that cost over a million dollars to build. The hotel
featured groundbreaking amenities for its time, including fireproofing, electricity throughout,
and individual thermostat controls in every guest room. Charles operated
(00:53):
the hotel from opening day until his death, doing everything
from greeting guests to personally hiring employees. In April nineteen
twenty seven, Charles suffered a paralytic stroke at his lake
retreat called Camp Rest on Lake five in Washington County, Wisconsin.
Seven months later, he suffered a second stroke at the
same location and died on November twelfth, nineteen twenty seven.
(01:16):
Before his death, he sold the hotel to longtime employee
Ray Smith, whom Feister has mentored since Smith was a child.
Contrary to popular belief, Feister did not die at the hotel.
He passed away from pneumonia at his retreat. There are
no official records of any death in Feister hotel over
its one hundred twenty eight years of history, but that
(01:37):
has not stopped guests from reporting his presence wandering the
Grand staircase. In two thousand and one, Adrian Beltray, then
with the Los Angeles Dodgers, described several eerie happenings during
his stay. First, he heard knocking in the hallway and
on his door, but found no one there upon investigation. Later,
he witnessed the air conditioning and TV repeatedly switched themselves
(01:59):
off off. When he went to bed, pounding noises from
behind his headboard startled him awake again and again. Beltrey
took a bat to bed with him for protection and
only slept two hours over his three nights day. In
June two thousand and eight, Carlos Gomez, then of the
Minnesota Twins, experienced something strange before a day game. Disembodied
(02:21):
voices caused him to peek out from the shower. He
found no one in his room, but saw his iPod,
which he had left on a table across the room,
switch itself on loud. Static broke the quiet, and the
iPod began vibrating wildly, shimmying toward the edge of the table.
Gomez ran over to catch it before it fell. Once
he grabbed it, it switched to music and then back
(02:43):
to static again. He turned it off and placed it
back on the table, only to see the iPod repeat
the same behavior. In twenty thirteen, Bryce Harper described an
incident where he laid a pair of jeans and his
shirt on the table at the foot of his bed
before going to sleep. When he woke up in the morning,
the clothes were on the floor and the table was
(03:03):
on the opposite side of the room, against the wall.
Harper thought there might be someone in his room. Pablo
Sandoval recalled taking a shower and putting his iPod next
to a speaker. When he came out, it was playing music,
and he had no idea why. Sandoval and teammate Edgar
Unaria refused to stay with the rest of the team
at the Feister. In twenty ten, Giancarlos Stanton called the
(03:27):
Feister creepy, as expletive and compared it to Disneyland's Haunted
Mansion Ride. Michael Young declared his feelings about the play sympatically.
He was lying in bed after a night game when
he heard footsteps stomping around inside his locked room. Young
made his position clear, He's not someone who spreads ghost stories,
so if he's telling his story, it had happened. Brandon
(03:50):
Phillips of the Cincinnati Reds came into his room and
sat on the bed. When the radio turned on by itself.
He turned it off and got in the shower. When
he was done, it had turned earned back on. In
May two thousand and nine, the Palm Beach Post revealed
that whenever the Florida Marlins stayed at the Feister, at
least four players demanded to double up and share rooms
(04:11):
for fear of the ghost. Angel's first baseman, g Mountchoi,
felt a ghost on a Sunday night in May twenty
sixteen during his first trip to Milwaukee with the team.
When asked how he slept, he shook his head and
said it was not good. Choi revealed he had seen
ghosts plenty of times. The first time was shortly after
back surgery in twenty eleven, he felt a spirit on
(04:33):
his chest that awoke him and then felt the bed slump.
He was scared at first and didn't want to open
his eyes, but dealt with it many more times after that.
Another time, Choi claimed to have been laying on his
side when he felt a spirit crawling up behind him,
that he felt a hug and heard murmuring in his ear.
Other South Korean minor league players, the only ones he
(04:54):
could communicate with at the time, claimed to have felt
the same thing. Always had a hard time sleeping in
hotel bets. When he was comfortable, it meant there was
a ghost. He said that was the case at the Feister.
When asked what he thought about spending two more nights
at the hotel where he felt that spirit, joy burst
into laughter and joked that he hoped it was a girl.
(05:15):
Ben said he had dealt with it so many times
that he didn't care anymore. Joey said he felt comfortable
when ghosts were present. In twenty eighteen, he signed with
the Brewers, solving his Feister problem since the home team
doesn't stay at the hotel. In twenty eighteen, Saint Louis
Cardinals players Carlos Martinez and Marcelo Zuna both claimed to
(05:35):
have seen a ghost. Martinez posted an Instagram video in
Spanish describing the experience, say they saw ghosts and were
all staying together in one room because if the ghosts
showed again, they were going to fight together. In June
twenty twenty three, outfielder Brent Rooker reported that his television
would automatically turn on and off and change channels. He'd
(05:56):
have it on the golf channel while working on his laptop,
look back up, been find it on QVC or some
other channel that definitely wasn't the golf channel. He fell
asleep with an on one night and woke up at
four am to find it off, which he figured was
a sleep timer. He woke up again at seven thirty
or eight and it was back on on a different
channel that he had fallen asleep watching. Rooker tweeted that
(06:18):
he was more than happy to let the ghosts choose
the channel as long as they were cool otherwise. In
twenty twenty three, Los Angeles Dodgers star and Mookie Betts
declined a room at the hotel for a regular season
series and has on every road trip to Milwaukee since then,
he often instead to rent an Airbnb, just in case
the Feister is actually haunted. Bets stayed at the Feister
(06:41):
previously and claimed he couldn't sleep there because every noise
made him wonder if it was something. Bets said he
doesn't believe in ghosts, but doesn't want to find out
that he's wrong. During the twenty twenty five National League
Championship Series against the Milwaukee Brewers, Dodgers right fielder Tayo
Oskar Hernandez addressed his alternative accommodation at a news conference
(07:01):
on Tuesday, October fourteenth, twenty twenty five. Hernandez said he
doesn't believe in ghosts and has stayed at the Feister
before without seeing or hearing anything, but his wife was
on this trip and she said she did not want
to stay there, so they had to find another hotel.
Hernandez said he'd been hearing from other players and other
wives that something was happening during those couple of nights.
(07:23):
His wife told him that in some rooms the lights
go off and on, the doors, make noises, footsteps, things
he couldn't quite explain. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts was not
convinced saying those stories went away when he was about
ten years old. Staffing guests at the hotel claimed that
the second floor is completely haunted. They claimed to have
(07:43):
seen Charles Feister himself haunting the grand staircase up to
the second floor. People believe that Charles and his father
Guido are always there to look over their hotel and
to make sure it's how they intended it to be
a people's place where all could gather under one roof,
and suggests that Charles ghost haunts visiting teams playing against
(08:04):
the Brewers to shape them up before facing off against
Milwaukee's beloved home team. There is an alternative theory about
who haunts the Feister. Charles Milwaukee Sevier, a city native
born in eighteen thirty six, was interviewed in the Milwaukee
Daily Sentinel shortly after the Feister opened. A local historian
and storyteller, Sevier said he'd previously lived in a cabin
(08:25):
on the site where the hotel was built, right next
to private burial grounds that had been there his entire life.
In twenty eighteen, Travel Channel ranked the Feister Hotel as
the creepiest place in Wisconsin. In the same year, historic
hotels of America ranked the hotel eleventh on the list
of the top twenty five most haunted historic hotels in
twenty sixteen. Former MLB player Johnny Gomes became fascinated with
(08:49):
the paranormal after he saw a ghost in his bedroom
as a child and got to live out a dream
by investigating The Feister. Shane Victorino of the Red Sox
dismissed the stories, saying he didn't believe in that stuff
and that there was nothing wrong with the hotel. Some
players remain skeptics, but enough have come forward with their
experiences that The Feister has earned its reputation as Baseball's
(09:10):
most haunted hotel. The Feister still operates as a luxury
destination in downtown Milwaukee. Teams still book rooms there for
road trips, and every season, new players check in with
their equipment bags, unaware that they might be sharing their
rooms with something that's been a guest far longer than
any of them. If you'd like to read this story
(09:31):
for yourself or share the article with a friend, you
can read it on the Weird Darkness website. I've placed
a link to it in the episode description, and you
can find more stories of the paranormal, true crime, strange,
and more, including numerous stories that never make it to
the podcast at Weirddarkness dot com, slash news
I'm Darren Marler, and this is weird dark news. There's
a luxury hotel in downtown Milwaukee where visiting baseball players
check in with their luggage and sometimes leave with stories
that keep them awake for weeks afterward, the kind of
stories that make grown men who face one hundred mile
per hour fastballs refuse to turn off the lights. Charles
(00:32):
Feister opened his Father's Dream Hotel in eighteen ninety three,
a Romanesque revival structure designed by architect Henry C. Cook
that cost over a million dollars to build. The hotel
featured groundbreaking amenities for its time, including fireproofing, electricity throughout,
and individual thermostat controls in every guest room. Charles operated
(00:53):
the hotel from opening day until his death, doing everything
from greeting guests to personally hiring employees. In April nineteen
twenty seven, Charles suffered a paralytic stroke at his lake
retreat called Camp Rest on Lake five in Washington County, Wisconsin.
Seven months later, he suffered a second stroke at the
same location and died on November twelfth, nineteen twenty seven.
(01:16):
Before his death, he sold the hotel to longtime employee
Ray Smith, whom Feister has mentored since Smith was a child.
Contrary to popular belief, Feister did not die at the hotel.
He passed away from pneumonia at his retreat. There are
no official records of any death in Feister hotel over
its one hundred twenty eight years of history, but that
(01:37):
has not stopped guests from reporting his presence wandering the
Grand staircase. In two thousand and one, Adrian Beltray, then
with the Los Angeles Dodgers, described several eerie happenings during
his stay. First, he heard knocking in the hallway and
on his door, but found no one there upon investigation. Later,
he witnessed the air conditioning and TV repeatedly switched themselves
(01:59):
off off. When he went to bed, pounding noises from
behind his headboard startled him awake again and again. Beltrey
took a bat to bed with him for protection and
only slept two hours over his three nights day. In
June two thousand and eight, Carlos Gomez, then of the
Minnesota Twins, experienced something strange before a day game. Disembodied
(02:21):
voices caused him to peek out from the shower. He
found no one in his room, but saw his iPod,
which he had left on a table across the room,
switch itself on loud. Static broke the quiet, and the
iPod began vibrating wildly, shimmying toward the edge of the table.
Gomez ran over to catch it before it fell. Once
he grabbed it, it switched to music and then back
(02:43):
to static again. He turned it off and placed it
back on the table, only to see the iPod repeat
the same behavior. In twenty thirteen, Bryce Harper described an
incident where he laid a pair of jeans and his
shirt on the table at the foot of his bed
before going to sleep. When he woke up in the morning,
the clothes were on the floor and the table was
(03:03):
on the opposite side of the room, against the wall.
Harper thought there might be someone in his room. Pablo
Sandoval recalled taking a shower and putting his iPod next
to a speaker. When he came out, it was playing music,
and he had no idea why. Sandoval and teammate Edgar
Unaria refused to stay with the rest of the team
at the Feister. In twenty ten, Giancarlos Stanton called the
(03:27):
Feister creepy, as expletive and compared it to Disneyland's Haunted
Mansion Ride. Michael Young declared his feelings about the play sympatically.
He was lying in bed after a night game when
he heard footsteps stomping around inside his locked room. Young
made his position clear, He's not someone who spreads ghost stories,
so if he's telling his story, it had happened. Brandon
(03:50):
Phillips of the Cincinnati Reds came into his room and
sat on the bed. When the radio turned on by itself.
He turned it off and got in the shower. When
he was done, it had turned earned back on. In
May two thousand and nine, the Palm Beach Post revealed
that whenever the Florida Marlins stayed at the Feister, at
least four players demanded to double up and share rooms
(04:11):
for fear of the ghost. Angel's first baseman, g Mountchoi,
felt a ghost on a Sunday night in May twenty
sixteen during his first trip to Milwaukee with the team.
When asked how he slept, he shook his head and
said it was not good. Choi revealed he had seen
ghosts plenty of times. The first time was shortly after
back surgery in twenty eleven, he felt a spirit on
(04:33):
his chest that awoke him and then felt the bed slump.
He was scared at first and didn't want to open
his eyes, but dealt with it many more times after that.
Another time, Choi claimed to have been laying on his
side when he felt a spirit crawling up behind him,
that he felt a hug and heard murmuring in his ear.
Other South Korean minor league players, the only ones he
(04:54):
could communicate with at the time, claimed to have felt
the same thing. Always had a hard time sleeping in
hotel bets. When he was comfortable, it meant there was
a ghost. He said that was the case at the Feister.
When asked what he thought about spending two more nights
at the hotel where he felt that spirit, joy burst
into laughter and joked that he hoped it was a girl.
(05:15):
Ben said he had dealt with it so many times
that he didn't care anymore. Joey said he felt comfortable
when ghosts were present. In twenty eighteen, he signed with
the Brewers, solving his Feister problem since the home team
doesn't stay at the hotel. In twenty eighteen, Saint Louis
Cardinals players Carlos Martinez and Marcelo Zuna both claimed to
(05:35):
have seen a ghost. Martinez posted an Instagram video in
Spanish describing the experience, say they saw ghosts and were
all staying together in one room because if the ghosts
showed again, they were going to fight together. In June
twenty twenty three, outfielder Brent Rooker reported that his television
would automatically turn on and off and change channels. He'd
(05:56):
have it on the golf channel while working on his laptop,
look back up, been find it on QVC or some
other channel that definitely wasn't the golf channel. He fell
asleep with an on one night and woke up at
four am to find it off, which he figured was
a sleep timer. He woke up again at seven thirty
or eight and it was back on on a different
channel that he had fallen asleep watching. Rooker tweeted that
(06:18):
he was more than happy to let the ghosts choose
the channel as long as they were cool otherwise. In
twenty twenty three, Los Angeles Dodgers star and Mookie Betts
declined a room at the hotel for a regular season
series and has on every road trip to Milwaukee since then,
he often instead to rent an Airbnb, just in case
the Feister is actually haunted. Bets stayed at the Feister
(06:41):
previously and claimed he couldn't sleep there because every noise
made him wonder if it was something. Bets said he
doesn't believe in ghosts, but doesn't want to find out
that he's wrong. During the twenty twenty five National League
Championship Series against the Milwaukee Brewers, Dodgers right fielder Tayo
Oskar Hernandez addressed his alternative accommodation at a news conference
(07:01):
on Tuesday, October fourteenth, twenty twenty five. Hernandez said he
doesn't believe in ghosts and has stayed at the Feister
before without seeing or hearing anything, but his wife was
on this trip and she said she did not want
to stay there, so they had to find another hotel.
Hernandez said he'd been hearing from other players and other
wives that something was happening during those couple of nights.
(07:23):
His wife told him that in some rooms the lights
go off and on, the doors, make noises, footsteps, things
he couldn't quite explain. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts was not
convinced saying those stories went away when he was about
ten years old. Staffing guests at the hotel claimed that
the second floor is completely haunted. They claimed to have
(07:43):
seen Charles Feister himself haunting the grand staircase up to
the second floor. People believe that Charles and his father
Guido are always there to look over their hotel and
to make sure it's how they intended it to be
a people's place where all could gather under one roof,
and suggests that Charles ghost haunts visiting teams playing against
(08:04):
the Brewers to shape them up before facing off against
Milwaukee's beloved home team. There is an alternative theory about
who haunts the Feister. Charles Milwaukee Sevier, a city native
born in eighteen thirty six, was interviewed in the Milwaukee
Daily Sentinel shortly after the Feister opened. A local historian
and storyteller, Sevier said he'd previously lived in a cabin
(08:25):
on the site where the hotel was built, right next
to private burial grounds that had been there his entire life.
In twenty eighteen, Travel Channel ranked the Feister Hotel as
the creepiest place in Wisconsin. In the same year, historic
hotels of America ranked the hotel eleventh on the list
of the top twenty five most haunted historic hotels in
twenty sixteen. Former MLB player Johnny Gomes became fascinated with
(08:49):
the paranormal after he saw a ghost in his bedroom
as a child and got to live out a dream
by investigating The Feister. Shane Victorino of the Red Sox
dismissed the stories, saying he didn't believe in that stuff
and that there was nothing wrong with the hotel. Some
players remain skeptics, but enough have come forward with their
experiences that The Feister has earned its reputation as Baseball's
(09:10):
most haunted hotel. The Feister still operates as a luxury
destination in downtown Milwaukee. Teams still book rooms there for
road trips, and every season, new players check in with
their equipment bags, unaware that they might be sharing their
rooms with something that's been a guest far longer than
any of them. If you'd like to read this story
(09:31):
for yourself or share the article with a friend, you
can read it on the Weird Darkness website. I've placed
a link to it in the episode description, and you
can find more stories of the paranormal, true crime, strange,
and more, including numerous stories that never make it to
the podcast at Weirddarkness dot com, slash news
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