Sunday, July 27, 1997

Field marks 50 years of baseball history

By AL PICKETT / Abilene Reporter-News

SWEETWATER - Ask most Sweetwater residents for directions to Sportsmen Park and you'll probably receive a blank stare.

The baseball field, located next to the Nolan County Coliseum, is better known as Newman Park to most people in Sweetwater. But Newman Park is actually the entire park that includes the baseball field, coliseum, swimming pool and picnic areas.

The baseball field is Sportsmen Park, a name that harkens back to a long forgotten era of Sweetwater baseball.

Mike Hale, however, is trying to make sure that Sportsmen Park is not forgotten.

"I've been doing research off and on for a couple of years," Hale said. "I'd like to put it in a book form and put it in the city library in Sweetwater. A lot of people didn't realize this is the 50th year of the stadium."

Hale would also like to see a historical marker placed at the field.

Built in 1947 in the post-war baseball boom in which nearly every Texas city of any size had a professional baseball team, Hale said Sportsmen Park is the only stadium from the Class D Longhorn League which has its original grandstand still standing.

Big Spring's stadium is still in existence, but very little of the original grandstand remains.

When the Longhorn League first started in 1947, teams were located in Sweetwater, Big Spring, Ballinger, Vernon, Odessa and Midland.

"The opening series was supposed to be in Vernon," Hale said, "but Vernon didn't have its lights up yet. So the series was moved to Sweetwater. Sweetwater lost the first game but won 26-4 the next day."

San Angelo and Del Rio joined the league in 1948, but in '49 Del Rio moved to the Rio Grande Valley League and Roswell, N.M., took its place. Ballinger left in '51, replaced by Artesia, N.M. Sweetwater folded after the '52 season, and Carlsbad, N.M., took its place. Wichita Falls also replaced Vernon that year. The league itself had folded by 1957.

"Mr. Green said air conditioning, television and Little League took a lot of fans away," Hale said.

Howard Green, who is credited with starting the Abilene Blue Sox in 1946, was the founder of the Longhorn League.

Hale said the Sweetwater team, which was known as the Sportsmen in 1947 and '48, was never affiliated with a major league team, although it was associated with the Shreveport, La., team in the Texas League. That was an arrangement similar to one the Abilene Blue Sox had with the Fort Worth Cats in their beginning.

In 1949, the Sweetwater team changed its nickname to the Swatters. The team became known as the Braves in its final season in 1952.

The Longhorn League produced a few stars who went on to become major leaguers, including Ballinger's Roy McMillan, who played infield for the Milwaukee Braves, and Big Spring's Camillo Pascual, who pitched for the Washington Senators and Minnesota Twins.

Another well-known Cuban pitcher named Fidel Castro reportedly at the last minute turned down a contract offer to join the Big Spring team.

The most famous story in Sportsmen Park's short six-year life as a professional baseball park was one of tragedy, however.

Stormy Davis, McMillan's roomate at Ballinger, was hit in the head by a pitch and died in a game at Sweetwater in 1947.

Sportsmen Park sat empty after the Sportsmen/Swatters/Braves went out of business until C.A. Price went to the city council and asked if the youth could play summer baseball there.

Sweetwater High School resurrected its baseball program in 1988, and the old park gained not only a new tenant but also a new look.

With the school district putting in some of the cash, and city and county crews - as well as dozens of volunteers doing the work - a number of improvements have been made to Sportsmen Park.

"Sonny Armstrong, who has a construction company here, did a lot of the work with no guarantee that he'd ever be paid," said Wes Bishop, one of the many volunteers who has worked hundreds of hours on the park. "We finally got him paid, at least for his time."

County crews hauled out 80 dump truck loads of concrete when the box seat area, original underground dugouts and backstop were torn down. A new backstop was built and moved back 15 feet. New dugouts, a concession stand, three batting cages, new lights and an underground sprinkler system have been added in recent years.

The school district put a new roof on the covered grandstand that seats more than 1,500. The wooden fence which formerly encircled the field was torn down when the annex was added to the Nolan County Coliseum in the late 1960s.

Sportsmen Field will be the site this week for the Texas Teen-age Baseball Junior League state tournament, 50 years after the almost-forgotten Sportsmen made the professional baseball debut in Sweetwater.

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SWEETWATER - Sweetwater's Newman Park will be a busy place this week.

The Texas Teen-age Baseball Junior League state tournament begins Tuesday at Sportsmen Park. Games are scheduled for 8 a.m., 11 a.m., 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. in the nine-team tournament. Tickets are $3 per person per session or for $15 for an all-week pass.

Meanwhile, the American Junior Rodeo Association will hold its national finals rodeo next door at the Nolan County Coliseum. It runs Monday through Saturday. Competing in the national finals are the top boys and girls, ages 19 and under, who have competed this past year in AJRA events.

Ticket prices are $4 for adults and $12 for students 12-and-under.