San Antonio at Bat

From the first ""Play ball!"" of each spring through the hot days of summer, minor-league teams across the nation give local fans a chance to relax and enjoy the national pastime, to preview tomorrow's stars, and to ""root, root, root for the home team."" In this story of professional baseball in the Alamo City from 1888 to the present, San Antonio Express-News sportswriter David King hits the highlights - athletic and human - that have filled the city's diamonds for 115 years. He tells about the team that left Austin on a road trip and never returned - deciding to make San Antonio its home base instead; about San Antonio's first two black Texas League players, whose story was less dramatic but no less difficult than Jackie Robinson's; about Harry Ables, the ""freak of nature"" who holds the league's oldest single-season record, 310 strikeouts in 1910; and about the longest scoreless game in professional baseball history, the 25-inning duel against the Jackson Mets at V. J. Keefe Field in 1988. King not only tells the stories that have driven the nation's fascination with baseball but also gives box scores and baseball statistics. Through losing seasons and the 2002 Texas League Championship alike, his stories and stats will occupy fans waiting for the next ump to call ""Steeerike three!