Category: Texas League

1980 Amarillo Gold Sox Baseball Program from the Texas League

Amarillo Gold Sox (1976-1982)

Amarillo, Texas was a mainstay on the Class AA Texas League circuit from 1959 through 1982. Yellow City went through several Texas League clubs during the era, starting with the original Gold Sox, followed by the Sonics, the Giants and finally the latter-day Gold Sox.  Today we’ll take a loot at the Gold Sox re-boot that took the field at Potter County Memorial Stadium from 1976 until 1982.

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Illustration of Duke Snider on the cover of a 1967 Albuquerque Dodgers baseball program from the Texas League

Albuquerque Dodgers

Though traditionally known as the “Dukes” throughout Albuquerque’s four-decade partnership with the Los Angeles Dodgers between 1963 and 2000, Albuquerque’s minor league baseball club went through a fruitful 7-year stretch between 1965 and 1971 when it played directly under the Dodgers name. The Albuquerque Dodgers won three Texas League crowns in these years and produced a pipeline of future L.A. Dodgers standouts, including Ron Cey, Steve Garvey and Don Sutton.

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1985 Midland Angels baseball yearbook from the Texas League

Midland Angels

The Midland Angels were a long-time Class AA farm club of the California/Anaheim Angels between 1985 and 1998. Though the club was consistently terrible on the field, posting nine straight losing seasons from 1990 through 1998, the organization was highly respected within Minor League Baseball. The Midland Angels earned Baseball American’s Bob Freitas Award as the nation’s most outstanding Class AA franchise for the 1995 season.

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Amarillo Sonics

The Amarillo Sonics were a Class AA farm team of the Houston Astros that played in the Texas League from 1965 until 1967. The Sonics replaced the recently departed Amarillo Gold Sox on the local sporting scene. During their three season run, the Sonics produced two Texas League Players of the Year: outfielder Leo Posada (1965) and outfielder/first baseman Nate Colbert (1967).

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1961 Ardmore Rosebuds Program

Ardmore Rosebuds

The small Oklahoma city of Ardmore (pop. 20,184 in the 1960 census) hosted Class D ball in the Sooner State League during the post-WW II minor league baseball boom, but the Ardmore Cardinals folded along with the rest of the Sooner State League following the 1957 season. The city lucked into a Class AA ball club in the spring of 1961 when Derrest Williams, owner of the Texas League’s Victoria Rosebuds, grew weary of losing $500 per night playing to puny crowds in that Texas city. 43 games into the season, Williams gained approval from his fellow league owners to pull up stakes and move to Ardmore’s 2,800-seat Cardinal Park.

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