The Pecan Park Eagle

The 1954 Texas League Champion Houston Buffs

If you belong to SABR, you’ve probably seen “The 1954 Dixie Series,” a fine article on that contest between the champions of the Texas League, the Houston Buffs, and the champions of the Southern Association, the Atlanta Crackers.

Kenneth R. Fenster researched and wrote the article for the 2010 edition of  “The National Pastime” as one of the featured stories for the collection entitled, “Baseball in the Peach State.” Fenster’s work and all the others beutifully shone the spotlight on the history of baseball in Georgia as part of SABR’s 40th anniversary convention and celebration in Atlanta this past summer.

For those of you who don’t know, SABR is an acronym for an organization that a number of his support as members because of its commitment to the accurate recording and preservation of baseball history. The letters stand for The Society for American Baseball Research. If you think you might like to join us, check out the website at http://www.sabr.org/

I won’t attempt to summarize Fenster’s fine work here. You need to read it for yourselves to fully appreciate the full rush of Atlanta’s great comeback and the gravity of Houston’s great fall in that Series.

All I will say is that the ’54 Buffs took my heart with them in that collapse. My three favorite players that year were an earlier version of the “Killer B’s” – 1st Baseman Bob Boyd (.321 BA, 7 HR, 63 RBI), 3rd Baseman Ken Boyer (.319 BA, 21 HR, 116 RBI), shortstop Don Blasingame (.315 BA, 5 HR, 53 RBI) and right fielder Willard Brown (.314 BA, 35 HR, 120 RBI). Brown got a lot of numbers with Dallas before coming over to Houston, but he proved to be the big difference-maker for Houston in the stretch. The best pitchers for the ’54 Buffs included WIllard Schmidt (18-5, 3.69 ERA), Hisel Patrick (10-3, 3.77 ERA), Luis Arroyo (8-3, 2.35 ERA), and Hugh Sooter (14-13, 3.28 ERA).

The Buffs had everything they need to go all the way. They just didn’t get there. Up 3 games to 1 over Atlanta in the 1954 Dixie Series, the Buffs crumbled. They lost three games in a row, allowing the Crackers to take the rush and the glory of the unbelievable comeback into their own treasure chest of great historical memories.

Have you figured out by now why I haven’t written about the 1954 Dixie Series through today? If not, then anything else I’ve written, am writing, or will write on Houston baseball isn’t likely to make any sense either.

Tags: Baseball, History, Houston Buffs

This entry was posted on October 1, 2010 at 12:38 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.