But a group of rag-tag lifetimers from Minor League to The Eagle Pass Optimist Babe Ruth League, a team of All-Stars emerged that year as serious contenders for the State Championship in a one and done format save The 1978 Babe Ruth 15 Year-Old State Finals between Georgetown and yes, your one and only, beloved EP All-Stars.

This is how it all went down.

In the 60’s, Henry Staten and Merle Brown began or took the reins thereof of The Eagle Pass Babe Ruth League. The Sinclair Dinos, The Rexall Rexallites, The Alta Verde Steers and others. If any of you remember more teams in this league, please contact The News Gram offices and let us know. Our contact number is on every front page, but yes, the bludgeoning league was up and running, but it wasn’t until the mid-seventies that The Eagle Pass Optimist Club, then run by President Sammy Ibarra and his team that included Staten, Brown, Anastasio “Hooky” Guajardo, Juan Antonio Tovar, my friend Adolfo Flores was also a member later along with a myriad of city and county leaders took over the league and then it grew to massive proportions.

It began when Coach Polo Moncada came in and helped The Optimists to properly measure the proportions of Rodgers Field to convert it from primarily a fast-pitch softball field to a baseball field.

Then County Commissioner of Precinct 3 Rudy Bowles donated a backstop which was in Quemado and transported the fence to Rodgers that all of a sudden made field take on a new look before becoming the coolest venue to watch a baseball game in the summertime. Kids were there chasing balls, beautiful young ladies were there inspiring the players, Carlos Garza and his historic Major League anécdotas parents and the community in general came out to watch the only game in town. Glorious times indeed.

We would duke it out on a daily basis. 

The league grew from four to six teams to an eight team full-fledged league with every team having the pitching and hitting to compete against each other making the league stronger and stronger reminding leagues across South Texas that there was a new contender on the border.

Theo teams were Parts Service Supply, The Uranga Eagles, Alta Verde, TH Gonzalez, Sonic, Rexall, Ricks Furniture and because of a deal struck with the league to provide it with two Econovans for team travel, Coca-Cola out of Uvalde.

Theo coaches ranged from Wicho De La Torre, Hector Chavez, Ronnie Forth, La Borrega Olivas, Lencho Vera, Riche Gonzalez, Joe Gomez, Amado Sanchez and all our staff on Sonic, 1977 League Champs with Chachillo Puente, Craig Schlegel, Rey Ruiz, Ricky and Robert Mendoza, Mark Lazarski, Martin Seca, yours truly and others, Lazaro Rodriguez had Rexall, a gentleman known as La Changa (Gonzalez I believe) had Ricks and Victor Valdez with Alfredo Rodriguez had Coca-Cola, The 1978 League Champions with my very good friend Fernando “Chibuya” Herrera, CARLOS Herrera, Mario Valdez, Boy Flores, Enrique Ruiz, Roly Salinas among others. 

After this season, it was time to select the All-Star Squad. Unfortunately for us, a key cog in the league, my best friend growing up on Avenue C, Gerardo “Lalo” Sanchez was left behind for reasons unknown to this day. One of if not THE best pitcher in the league! This omission would come in to play later, MUCH later down the road when this again, rag-tag bunch of baseball lifetimers won The State Championship and went on to National competition.

Andres Sosa (Mancha’s Automotive/Parts Service Supply), Joe Sifuentes (Alta Verde), Victor Perry (Uranga Eagles), A.D. Ibarra (Sonic), Carlos Herrera (Coca-Cola), Luis Ainsle (Uranga Eagles), Ricardo Sanchez (TH Gonzalez Another one of my best friends from the neighborhood growing up), Danny Macias (Sonic), Fernando Herrera (Coca-Cola), Rafael Olvera (Rexall), Mario Valdez (Coca-Cola), Raul Nillo (Mancha’s Automotive/Parts Service Supply), Tony Ortega (Alta Verde), Roberto Flores (Coca Cola), Martin Seca (Sonic), and in my opinion, Gerardo Sanchez (Mancha’s Automotive/Parts Service Supply), your 1978 Eagle Pass Optimist Babe Ruth League All-Stars, South Texas State Champions. 

In the championship series, we took on a fireballer from Georgetown who according to scouts there that day was hovering around the mid-nineties. We alternated starts depending on the pitchers and Nillo had this game over there by Austin at Southwestern University. The peculiar thing about that field was that it had a drop in left field. You could only see your left fielder from the torso up!

We played these guys hard just like if we were playing them in our neighborhood, to a packed and loaded crowd and played a good ball game, but we lost 3-2 and were coming down to Ep for games two and three.

In those games with the capacity crowd we had at Ol’ Fort Duncan, triple the size of anything we had ever seen at Rodgers, we smoked those guys 12-4 and 12-4. Our bats came alive with the cheers of the fans as we hit double after double after double on all their pitching staff includng ‘Cactus Face’ as my teammates called the fireballing starter of game one.

Then we were off to National Regionals and this is where I tell all coaches in baseball here or anywhere that when you play a ball game, ANY ball game, write down the first and last names of the players in the scorebook. Why? Because you never know who you may be playing, in this case, after the first two games, we played Oklahoma, Selma, Oklahoma to be exact and who was on their roster? Mike Mantle. Recognize the last name? Yes indeed Mike was Mickey Mantle’s nephew and could hit the ball a mile.

Fernando Herrera throw him one pitch and he launched it 400 feet to left…FOUL.

We threw that guy every pitch we had that wasn’t a fastball and struck him out three times. If his bat would’ve been made of wood, he would have broken three. Unfortunately, the adventure ended that day as the rest of their roster outhit us and we fell 6-4.

This is why our parks need to be conserved, for history’s sake, but if the powers that be choose to tear down something they never knew, that’s up to them.

Choose Alternative 1 and make a beautiful overpass over right field for all to gaze at with eagles, stars, lightning bolts, horsies, cattle, longhorns WHATEVER you’d like to decorate it with so we can continue to have events at this venue and for this venue to be our new Shelby Park.