Suddenly the San Antonio Dodgers Sounds Pretty Good

The close, very close, reader of this blog will notice the right column of this page lists books I've been reading, movies in my life, and restaurants I dine at. The absurdly close reader will note that these lists have not been updated for some time and are now obsolete.

Well, they have since been updated. One post I have been meaning to write about for some time comes from Baseball In the Lone State by Tom Kayser and David King. The obsessively close reader will remember that I was reading this book when I last blogged like two months ago. And as I said before, this book was edited by my sister. So mad props to her.

This book was a fun, easy read. But you have to be huge baseball fan to like it. Being a Texas fan, or a Texas baseball fan won't cut it. You have to be a huge fan of the sport in general.

That being said, one section of the appendix has something we can all enjoy: a catalog of all the teams have played in the Texas League. Keep in mind, this league dates back to 1888, so the odds are there were a lot of teams with ridiculous names. Even so, I was impressed by the quality and quantity of absurd names.

Here are the highlights.

Ardmore Rosebuds
Cleburne Railroaders
Corsicana Oil Citys (their spelling not mine)
Houston Babies
Houston Magnolias
Longview Cannibals
Paris Parisians
Paris Eisendelfer's Homeseekers
San Antonio Missionairies
San Antonio Gentlemen
Sherman Orphans
Sherman Students
Shreveport Gassers
Temple Boll Weevils
Texarcana Casket Makers
Wichata Falls Spudders

When I was growing up, the San Antonio team was the Dodgers. We are now called the Missions (not the Missionaries, mind you). I always thought it was funny to cram the name Dodgers onto a city like San Antonio (not exactly known for its cable cars). Kind of like the Utah Jazz. But then my friend pointed out San Antonio was no funnier than the Los Angeles Dodgers since there are no cable cars in LA either. I think I told him "two wrongs don't make a right dickweed."

I'm not sure who won that debate, but it may have been me. Afterall we were in like fourth or fifth grade, so closing my arument with the dickweed zinger was prettty powerful stuff.