Dead Confederates, A Civil War Era Blog

On Saturday, two vintage baseball teams, the Houston Babies and Katy Combines, played a match as part of the Galveston Island Beach Revue, an annual kick-off to the summer beach season that’s been growing over the last few years. I didn’t make the game, but I wish I had, because it sounds like it was great fun.

Baseball has a long history in Texas, dating back before the Civil War. In March 1859, the Galveston Civilian and Gazette Weekly reported that “the Base Ball Club organized [at Richmond] on the 24th inst., numbers thirty-five members. . . . Friday has been selected as the regular practice day. We understand that the club has been organized under the same rules as govern the clubs at the North.” Even as the war was beginning in earnest, two days after the surrender of Fort Sumter, the Houston Weekly Telegraph reported that “a meeting for the purpose of organizing a Base Ball Club, was held over J. H. Evans’ store Thursday night. After the organization of the meeting, and the adoption of the name of “‘Houston Base Ball CLub,” a ballot for permanent officers was had.” By June 1861, the Galveston Weekly News noted that Houston now had two “base ball” teams taking the field. And just about exactly a year after Appomattox, the Houston Tri-Weekly Telegraph was calling for the reorganization of the sport:

I think Nolan Ryan would agree.

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