Rooker's haunted weekend in Milwaukee

This story was excerpted from Martín Gallegos’ A’s Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

MILWAUKEE -- Brent Rooker knew the haunting tales of the Pfister Hotel, which has become infamous for the several ghost stories reported by the many MLB teams that are usually situated there during Milwaukee road trips. With the A’s staying at the luxurious lodging this past weekend, the A’s slugger encountered some weird happenings of his own.

For those unaware, the Pfister is considered one of the nicest hotels in Wisconsin. Built in 1893, the 307-room establishment is split into two towers -- one a newer building and the other an older site that has been around since the hotel’s inception. Rooker, who had previously stayed in both one time each with the Padres and Twins, had never seen anything that felt out of the ordinary.

“The old side, some of the lights flicker,” Rooker said. “But that’s probably faulty wiring from a 125-year-old building more so than anything else.”

This time, however, Rooker had a different experience.

On Thursday, one night before the A’s began a three-game series against the Brewers at American Family Field, Rooker noticed that the television in his hotel room was automatically turning on and off at various times throughout the night, as well as randomly changing channels.

“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. “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.”

Rooker is aware of the countless encounters recalled by other players throughout the years of things that they have experienced during their stay at the 130-year-old hotel. Here’s a quick look of some of the spookier accounts:

• While staying there in 2012 with the Nationals, Bryce Harper laid out his shirt and pants on a table one night before waking up to his clothes scattered on the floor and the table on the complete opposite side of the room against a wall.

• Former outfielder Carlos Gómez kept hearing a static noise coming from his iPod. Eventually getting up to turn it off completely, he went back to bed and claims that the static noise resumed. Getting up again, he grabbed the device, which changed to another song, leading to him running out of his room and staying in a teammate’s hotel for the rest of the night.

• Former Rangers pitcher Colby Lewis claimed to teammate C.J. Wilson that he saw a “skeletal apparition” around 1:30 a.m., which freaked him out so bad that he visited the team chaplain the next day and missed a radio appearance.

“Guys have [seen] some pretty crazy and scary stuff,” Rooker said. “All in all, with some of the other stories that are out there, mine is pretty mild and tame. It just kind of seems like a little fun thing.”

Rooker’s paranormal experience begs the question: Does he believe in ghosts?

“I don’t know where I stand on it,” Rooker said. “Obviously, there’s a lot of people with a lot of different kinds of experiences. Honestly, I have pretty firm opinions on most things. I’m a pretty opinionated guy. But that’s one that I don’t really know where I stand, to be honest.”

Though the television happenings were strange, Rooker did not feel the need to ask for a change of rooms. It certainly didn’t seem to affect him on the field, as he capped the series by launching his 13th homer -- a towering 413-foot solo shot -- in Sunday’s victory.

“I felt safe enough,” Rooker said. “If all the ghosts are going to do is pick which channel they want to watch, I’m cool with that. We can hang out and I’ll be good.”