April 7, 1959- Major League Baseball Comes to Victoria, Texas

[JJ McGraw]

I have lived in Victoria, Texas for 49 years, right after I graduated from Texas A and I University in 1976. I had been raised in Northern California up to and including high school, so attending major league games in the 1960’s -1972 at Candlestick park and the Oakland Coliseum( saw Vida Blue pitch his first season)was commonplace.
Shortly after I moved here, I became aware of the minor league team here in Victoria. They have had different names at different times, but the main team name was the Victoria Rosebuds. ( We now have a new minor league team, the Victoria Generals, that play at the same, but refurbished Riverside Park from 1947.)
For years , I have collected whatever I could find in the way of memorabilia pertaining to the Rosebuds( although it is pretty tough to find anything) and something last week on eBay caught my eye. It was a very nice condition 6 page , hard stock program dated April,7, 1959 when the Chicago Cubs and Boston Red Sox played a game at Riverside Park here in Victoria.
I can’t imagine the euphoria baseball fans must have felt seeing stars like Ernie Banks playing ball here in town. Even Roger’s Hornsby was there signing autographs.
I knew I had to have this program and after some intense bidding…it was mine. Below are the pages from that program, but I also got online and looked up the Victoria Advoates coverage ( our local paper since 1846) and was pleased to find two days of coverage. Apparently , the Cubs won the game in 11 innings. What a game that must have been in a very intimate setting.
As a side note, while working on a project in 1994 in Los Angeles, Ernie Bank’s son was a regular on the show and when his Dad came to some network show, Joey got me a signed ball and a bunch of other items.
Anyway…..this is a part of the baseball experience long gone. In reading the article, these teams had played in Corpus Christi, Texas the day before.
It would have been amazing watching these stars up close and having so much interaction with them before and after the game. Enjoy.