Travis Street Park,in an artistic rendering of how it appeared in 1896 was the original home for professional baseball in Houston from 1888 forward. The buffalo in the foreground is an artistic allusion to the team’s new and growing identity as Houston’s team from 1896 forward.
~ Artwork by Patrick Lopez
Was West End Park the original home of professional baseball in Houston? – Nope! It’s just not yet so plainly understood as it needs to be as – WRONG!
In an otherwise fine homage to the Astrodome on the eve of its 50th anniversary as an indoor venue for baseball – one that began as front page Easter Sunday news that set its pace against a large pictorial backdrop of the Dome’s catacombed sky looking up from the field through a concentric web of beamed together glass panels – writer Andrew Danby got one frequently misunderstand historical fact “wrong” along the way.
No big deal – except that now the misinformation is set in permanent print for a ream of lazily researched terms papers on the Astrodome by students from the year 2065 – on the occasion of the Astrodome’s 100th anniversary.
When our Larry Dierker Houston Chapter of SABR (The Society for American Baseball Research) took on the rather challenging task of researching the comprehensive history of baseball in Houston in 2011, we already knew for certain that the first “Houston Base Ball Club” was formed in 1861 – and that there are other timeline and historical facts to support the probability that the 1836 founders of Houston from the northeast section of the country already knew the game of “base ball” when they came to these hallowed banks of the Buffalo Bayou on the wings of Texas’ victory at San Jacinto on April 21, 1836.
What we soon learned in 2011, thanks to the fine independent research work of Mike Vance of HAM, with some coincidental assistance from Darrell Pittman of Astros Daily, was that Houston’s first “base ball” professional club venue – the one used by the “Houston Babies” when they began their first 1888 season of existence as the club that would later come to be known years later as the “Houston Buffaloes” was NOT West End Park – but a field built at the corner of Travis and McGowan that back then was identified variously over the years, but fairly often referenced as “the Travis Street Park”.
West End Park – once located downtown in the area across the street from historic Antioch Baptist Church – in the same general area that is now consumed by Allen Center – did not open or become the second major Houston professional baseball venue until 1905 – when stands were constructed that year, and professional play began on a field previously used for amateur baseball games. By public contest, the name selected for the new venue was “West End Park.”
Mr. Danby simply fell into the misconception that most of us held before the truth in this matter came to light in our 2014, 368-page comprehensive research work, “Houston Baseball: The Early Years, 1861-1961”, when he wrote, as published on Page 20A of the Easter Sunday, April 5, 2015, edition of the Houston Chronicles these erroneous words: “Professional baseball in Houston started on the west side of downtown (at West Side Park).”
We forgive you this time, Mr. Danby. Maybe this error could have been avoided last year – had we been able to get the Houston Chronicle to review our research book as a legacy contribution to Houston history and then published their findings for the whole world to see that something had taken place in Houston that no other community group of research professionals has done anywhere else as a non-profit contribution to local baseball history.
“Houston Baseball: The Early Years, 1861-1961”
(See ordering information at the closing of this article.)
For all of you who want your own copy of the only whole truth about our local baseball legacy, “Houston Baseball: The Early Years, 1861-1961”, it is available in Houston at your nearest Barnes and Noble location, through Amazon.Com, or through special direst orders with our SABR Chapter representative, Mr. Bob Dorrill.
To reach Bob Dorrill for s special price on this beautifully expressed factual history of Houston baseball in words, pictures and art, simply e-mail him at bdorrill@aol.com
Bob Dorrill may also be reached by cell phone during the daytime at 281.630.7151.
Tags: West End Park was not the first home of professional baseball in Houston.
The Pecan Park Eagle 
April 6, 2015 at 1:49 pm |
Very interesting article, I wish I was living in 1886…on a good note I was still breathing this morning , that is until I turned on the morning news. ;0)