You may have read the news this week that Fort Worth’s nearly 100-year-old LaGrave Field is being demolished. LaGrave Field, born in 1926 just north of downtown, was the home of the minor league Fort Worth Cats of the American Association.
You may have read the news this week that Willie “Say Hey” Mays passed away. Mays and his Minneapolis Millers took on the Fort Worth Cats at LaGrave in 1950. One year later, Mays was on deck as a New York Giant when Bobby Thomson hit the “Shot Heard Round the World.”
The news of these two departures may have left you wondering. Has Austin College ever competed at LaGrave Field? Of course. If there’s an historic field in the state of Texas, it’s likely that historic AC has set foot upon it.
In 1935, Texas Wesleyan College (TWC) started a football program and joined the (small college) Texas Conference. A trip to Sherman that year ended in a defeat for the TWC Rams. AC football traveled to LaGrave Field in Fort Worth for the rematch in 1936.
The Roos escaped at LaGrave in 1936 with a 0-0 tie against a spirited TWC team, thanks in part to a muddy field in poor conditions. Rematches in Fort Worth in 1938 and 1940 took place at the larger Farrington Field. TWC dropped its football program after World War II.
I wasn’t planning on writing about Willie Mays. But then the city of Fort Worth decided to close an historic field on the same week of the passing of a baseball icon. That historic field has seen the play of both Willie Mays and Austin College football.
So not writing would have obviously been a (La)Grave offense.
https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/historic-fort-worth-baseball-site-lagrave-field-to-be-demolished
