Tom Murrah
Thanks to SABR friend Tom Murrah, I received a couple of cancelled reserved seat tickets to a July 24, 1948 game at Buff Stadium that he ran across among some of his own things while going through an old storage box. Tom remembered nothing about the actual game played that day. He grew up in San Antonio, but may have been in Houston visiting friends or relatives as a kid and actually been at the game. Tom grew up as a San Antonio Missions and St. Louis Browns fan, but, because of his awareness of my connection to the tickets as a kid fan of the Houston Buffs, he passed on the 65-year old ducats to me.
Thank you, Tom. In spite of all the games I saw at Buff Stadium from 1947 through 1961, these are the only ticket artifacts to my name. I shall treasure them forever and make sure they end up in the right place for the sake of history someday. Today, however, they need to come alive as our anatomy lesson on two old 1948 Houston Buffs game tickets
These two game tickets were for reserved seats in Section H, Row 25, Seats 27 and 28.. They each cost $1.25, which included 21 cents in tax for each ticket.
The Buff Stadium rain check guarantee was explicit, but Buff fans worried little, President Allen Russell would set the field afire in gasoline before he ever cancelled a game due to wet grounds alone.
According to the Sunday, July 25, 1948 San Antonio Express, the Houston Buffs lost a night game on July 24, 1948 to the Fort Worth Cats by a score of 3-2. Dee Fondy of the Cats singled in the deciding run in the top of the 8th.
By “coincidence”, the fellow we featured in yesterday’s Buff Biography, pitcher Pete Bryant, took the loss in today’s 1948 tickets game before a near sellout crowd of 10.595 fsns. Lefty Chis Van Cuyk earned the win for Fort Worth.
Even though the Buffs lost that game of July 24, 1948 that is connected to our featured tickets, fans went home that evening with the club’s best wishes for comfort and courtesy in their every trip to Buff Stadium. Of course, they did. Allen Russell guaranteed it on the back of their game tickets.
The Pecan Park Eagle 
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