George Kirksey, Craig Cullinan, and Houston’s Quest for a Major-League Team

For the Astrodome to be built, many intricate pieces had to fall into place. In describing one of the most important factors, Craig Cullinan Jr. confidently asserted, “Baseball was the heart, lungs, brain, life blood of the whole thing. … Without it, there was nothing – no franchise, no stadium, no hotels.”1

Although Roy Hofheinz is credited with supervising the planning and construction of Houston’s Astrodome, without the hard work and diligence of Craig Cullinan and George Kirksey, the whole project might have gone off the rails. In the 1950s Cullinan teamed up with Kirksey, a Houston public-relations executive, to develop a plan that would lure a major-league baseball team to Houston.

Cullinan’s position as a wealthy heir to the Texaco oil empire and his Ivy League pedigree helped to open doors that allowed Houston access to numerous baseball insiders, but it was Kirksey’s energy, enthusiasm, and single-minded focus on bringing Houston into the major leagues that put the Bayou City into a position to build the Astrodome. In profiling Hofheinz as the Astrodome construction plans unfolded, Sports Illustrated writer Roy Terrell described Kirksey as a “visionary public relations man,” while identifying Cullinan and Kirksey as the two most deserving of “credit for getting big league baseball interested in Houston.” In explaining how Houston finally obtained a team, Kirksey described his approach as one that regarded “big league baseball as a citadel, and that we would have to take it by storm.”2

Not surprisingly, George Kirksey was the most persistent advocate of Houston’s bid to become a “major-league” city. Biographer Campbell Titchener explained that the hard-charging, enigmatic Kirksey “would say that it made him furious every time he opened up a newspaper and found Houston listed among the minor league cities.”3 However, the path he took to convince the lords of baseball to settle on Houston was circuitous, complex, and filled with disappointment. Fittingly, despite Cullinan and Kirksey having put in years of hard work, Houston’s path to the major leagues ended with Hofheinz closing the deal while they agreed to look on.

Kirksey was a nationally recognized reporter for the United Press before returning to Houston. As a sports journalist, he covered teams from New York, Chicago, and elsewhere, and did nonsports reporting in Europe as well. He was assigned to the World Series, Rose Bowls, and coverage of an aging Babe Ruth and a youthful Joe DiMaggio, among others, before serving in the Air Force during World War II. After the war he moved away from reporting and headed back to Houston, where he established his own public-relations business. Although his firm had many nonsports clients, his most passionate work was focused on bringing a team to Houston.

Kirksey’s first recorded attempt unfolded in 1951. Upon learning that the Philadelphia Athletics might be up for sale, he buttonholed real-estate baron Bob Smith in an impromptu meeting outside the Rice Hotel and tried to persuade him to invest $2.5 million to buy the team. Smith reportedly told Kirksey that he would put up $250,000 and instructed Kirksey to find nine other investors to make the deal work.4 Predictably, Kirksey was unable to raise the needed funds. However, his instincts in approaching Bob Smith were not off base. Smith eventually became the principal owner of the baseball team that did come to Houston.

Although Houston had a minor-league team, the Buffs, that was a respected affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals in the Texas League, Kirksey would not be satisfied until his home city had achieved major-league stature. His next target was the Cardinals, one of the National League’s most storied franchises, with six World Series victories to their credit. In 1952 Fred Saigh, the Cardinals’ owner, was battling tax-evasion charges, so Kirksey explored the possibility of bringing the team to Houston. After Saigh pleaded no contest to the charges, he suggested that a sale of the team would require a $4.25 million commitment. However, with limited resources, consummating such a transaction would require creativity. Undaunted, Kirksey met with D’Arcy Advertising to try to broker a five-year, $1.25 million sponsorship deal with Anheuser Busch, the St. Louis-based brewing giant.5

Although such a deal might have brought in almost 30 percent of the revenue needed for the purchase, August Busch Jr., chairman of the brewery, and National League President Warren Giles did not support Kirksey’s plans. Kirksey attempted to line up investors but Saigh, loyal to his Missouri roots, sold the franchise to Busch for $3.75 million, a $500,000 discount. The deal ensured that the Cardinals would remain in St. Louis, much to the dismay of Kirksey.6

Major League Baseball had no teams as far south as Houston, and although the South had demonstrated signs of growth, Giles’ complicity in the St. Louis sale demonstrated that the lords of baseball were not ready to move away from the major population centers of the Northeast and Midwest. However, postwar demographic shifts and population increases paved the way for change in the baseball landscape.

The sudden shift of the Boston Braves to Milwaukee in 1953 ignited the fuse for further relocations. The Braves were lured by a new taxpayer-funded ballpark, offering Kirksey hope that Houston might in time acquire a team. He looked on with dismay as the St. Louis Browns moved to Baltimore in 1954 and were promptly renamed the Orioles. After making another push to acquire the Philadelphia Athletics in 1954, Kirksey was similarly disappointed when the A’s moved to Kansas City in 1955.7

Kirksey visited both Chicago teams and made overtures to the Cincinnati Reds, too, letting all who would listen know that Houston had money and was deeply interested in joining the major leagues. On the surface, it appeared that the geography of baseball was not changing in a transformative way. Still, Kirksey ran a strong campaign that raised Houston’s national profile, while the three franchise relocations offered a glimmer of hope that he might eventually succeed. Still, none of the relocation cities were anywhere near the Deep South.8

To succeed in such an environment, Kirksey understood that he needed more economic and political muscle than he could muster by himself. Despite previous failures, the push to bring major-league baseball to Houston gained credibility, stature, and momentum in 1956. The turning point was a meeting that included Kirksey, William A. Kirkland, and Cullinan. Houston baseball historian Robert Reed called this informal gathering “the true beginning of Major League Baseball in Houston.” Kirkland was chairman of First City National Bank, Houston’s largest and most prestigious financial institution. Cullinan was two decades younger than Kirksey, but Kirksey bluntly asserted that he “was looking for people with money,” unapologetically indicating that Cullinan fit that profile, in addition to having “more interest and more time than anybody I had talked with before.”9

Kirkland and Cullinan were strong supporters of baseball and each possessed unique assets. Kirkland had intimate knowledge of Houston’s wealthiest power brokers, and he was respected in local baseball circles after serving as a player and manager in the Houston Bank League before rising to prominence in the financial community. Cullinan was a capable public speaker whose New England prep school and Yale University experiences allowed him to work comfortably with those connected to powerful Northeastern institutions.10

The Cullinan family’s achievements opened doors as well. Cullinan’s grandfather, Pennsylvania native Joseph Cullinan, was an acknowledged pioneer in the oil industry. His influence and reputation was so profound that he had ready access to presidents and world leaders. Among his accomplishments were bringing the ship channel, rail transportation, and other significant infrastructure projects to Houston, ensuring that the city would serve as a hub for the nation’s oil industry for generations.11

After Kirksey, Cullinan, and Kirkland’s initial collaboration, Kirkland, using his financial clout, organized a meeting at the First City National Bank’s headquarters. Campbell Titchener wrote that the meeting, held on January 4, 1957, brought together 35 businessmen who by their varied achievements “represented the bulk of the city’s wealth, power, and influence.” After opening remarks by Kirkland, Kirksey took over, declaring that the three key elements required to succeed would be money, public support, and a modern stadium. To address these needs, shortly after the meeting, Houston Sports Unlimited was founded, with Cullinan as its president.12 (Its name was later changed to the Houston Sports Association.) Kirksey “used his considerable powers of persuasion” to lead Cullinan into forming the group.”13 The organization’s 28 members paid $500 for the right to buy future shares of a major-league baseball franchise for $35,000 each. However, Houston leadership was reluctant to build a stadium until a major-league team was secured, creating an uncomfortable situation for Kirksey and Cullinan.14

Cities like Minneapolis, for example, built a new venue without a team commitment, and the proximity of Minnesota to other Midwestern franchises gave them a geographic advantage over Houston. Kirksey and Cullinan continued to meet with baseball executives, using Cullinan’s wealth to fund such trips. But without a ballpark or, at a minimum, a tangible commitment to build a ballpark, Houston had less negotiating leverage in trying to lure a franchise to its city. It was a Catch-22 situation: Cullinan said that when he lobbied baseball executives, he was told, “Get a stadium and we will talk to you about a team.” But in Houston, Kirksey and Cullinan were told, “Find a team and the city might talk to you about building a stadium.”15

Kirksey and Cullinan tried to prompt local leaders to move forward on a ballpark without success. Nevertheless, in 1957, as the Giants and Dodgers prepared to move from New York to San Francisco and Los Angeles respectively, the two men sensed a seismic shift in baseball’s geography. Despite facing ongoing defeat, Kirksey believed that such change might somehow work in Houston’s favor. He tried to persuade Harris County Judge Bob Casey, the county’s chief administrator, to allocate county funds for construction of a ballpark, but was told that the county could not act without state authorization and a subsequent referendum. Kirksey got Texas legislator Searcy Bracewell, a former client and friend, to help draft legislation that allowed the county to use public funds for “public parks and entertainment venues,” while creating the Harris County Board of Park Commissioners, an organization that could oversee planning, construction, and oversight of such projects. Senate Bill 23 was approved, giving Houston the ability to solidify ballpark planning in 1958.16

Kirkland was appointed chairman of the new board. He staffed it with bankers, oil barons, and Archer Romero, a former president of the influential Houston Fat Stock Show and Rodeo. This organization would serve as co-tenant, using the facility to showcase its popular event during baseball’s offseason. Committee members explored what other cities had done, traveling to Milwaukee, Baltimore, and various locations in California.17

Kirkland hired architects to draw up plans for a new open-air ballpark, one that creatively included an attached air-conditioned arena that could be used for conventions and special events. A report released on June 20, 1958, recommended placing an $18 million construction referendum on the ballot for a July 26 election that was already in place. The report emphasized that Houston was the largest city in the United States that did not have a major-league team. It asserted that event revenues would cover the cost of the bond issue and touted the dramatic economic benefits the new venue would provide.18

The language was drafted for the referendum, and approval to place it on the ballot was granted three days after the report’s release.19 Media coverage suggested that Houston would gain wholesome family entertainment and dramatic economic benefits. In one example, sportswriter Mickey Herskowitz cited a Milwaukee Chamber of Commerce leader’s assertion that the city gained at least $7 million in economic activity after building a less opulent ballpark to entice a major-league team.20 With the positive drumbeat of local media and repeated assurances that the venue would be repaid in full by event revenues, taxpayers supported the referendum by a 3-to-1 ratio.21

With a mechanism for ballpark construction in place, Kirksey continued his push to acquire a major-league team. He never gave up on the possibility of expansion, but shortly after the election, he set his sights on the Cleveland Indians after it became known that the team had amassed $3.5 million in debt and was struggling with its finances. After a group from Minneapolis made a respectable bid that included generous attendance guarantees, Kirksey worked with wealthy Houstonians to craft his own plan. Kirksey’s group offered to fully pay the debt, while agreeing to pay an additional $2.5 million to the Indians’ current owners. Although the $6 million bid exceeded all other offers, Indians chairman William Daley rejected all offers, acknowledging that from a business perspective, the rejection might be unwise, but that it made sense simply “because most of the directors are Clevelanders.”22

Kirksey was crestfallen, but he continued to look for ways to bring Houston into the major leagues. He found allies in New York City, whose anger at losing the Giants and Dodgers was palpable. After numerous attempts to coax Major League Baseball into expansion failed, William Shea, an influential New York lawyer, invited Houston and Minneapolis into an ambitious plan to launch a third major league, to be called the Continental League. Shea recruited the legendary Branch Rickey to organize the league and serve as its commissioner. Atlanta, Buffalo, Dallas, Denver, New York, and Toronto rounded out the cities that were slated to be in the new league.23

Major-league officials worked behind the scenes to sabotage the Continental League before it could emerge, but Rickey was sufficiently knowledgeable about the inner workings of the sport to threaten baseball’s economic model. Major League Baseball continued to resist expansion, but Continental League representatives were anything but passive. Behind the scenes, they pushed for legislation that threatened baseball’s antitrust exemption. Senate Bill 3483 was pushed to the floor in 1959 by Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Baines Johnson, a close friend of Roy Hofheinz. Surprisingly, it came within three votes of passage in the United States Senate. Although the legislation failed, it was sent back to committee where it might die or perhaps be rewritten in a form that might gain enough support to pass.24

Major League Baseball had dodged a bullet, but its officials realized that the Continental League could pose a viable threat to their future. “Every aspect of our relationship with them changed after that vote,” Shea said.25 Rickey had assembled a league that would be slated to play in new ballparks in several cities that were growing more rapidly than the traditional hotbeds for professional sports. Despite attempts to avoid expansion, the lords of baseball were finally pushed to negotiate with leaders from the upstart league.

Hofheinz, the Astrodome’s maestro, was now a part of Houston’s lobbying effort, and Houston had recalibrated its stadium plans to be the first fully enclosed and air-conditioned baseball stadium. On October 17, 1960, Hofheinz showcased a scale model of the planned venue as he pitched Houston’s case to major-league owners during a tension-filled meeting in Chicago. After the presentation, New York and Houston were awarded National League teams to begin play in 1962.26 Minnesota gained a franchise when Calvin Griffith decided to move his team, the Senators, from Washington to Minneapolis. Washington and Los Angeles were awarded American League expansion teams.

Although building the Astrodome was sufficiently complex that Houston’s new team played in a much less opulent temporary stadium during its opening years, the efforts of George Kirksey, Craig Cullinan, and William Kirkland set the wheels in motion for the Astrodome’s eventual construction. As Cullinan had suggested, without the introduction of major-league baseball to Houston, the Astrodome would not have been built.

 

Notes

1 Robert Reed, A Six Gun Salute: An Illustrated History of the Houston Colt .45s (Houston: Gulf Publishing Company, 1999), 203.

2 Roy Terrell, “Fast Man With a .45,” Sports Illustrated, March 26, 1962: 32-42.

3 Campbell Titchener, The George Kirksey Story: Bringing Major League Baseball to Houston (Austin: Eakin Press, 1989), 7.

4 John Wilson, “Kirksey, First Astro Backer, Sells His Stock,” The Sporting News, May 21, 1966: 13

5 “Texas Group Wanted Busch to Buy Cards’ Radio Rights,” The Sporting News, March 4, 1956: 10.

6 “Prexy Giles Spends 36 Hours In St. Louis Overseeing Cards’ Sale,” The Sporting News, March 4, 1953: 10.

7 Tichener, 75.

8 Reed, 18.

9 Reed, 18-19.

10 Lee Lowenfish, Branch Rickey: Baseball’s Ferocious Gentleman (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007), 552.

11 John O. King, Joseph Stephen Cullinan: A Study of Leadership in the Texas Petroleum Industry, 1897-1937 (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1970), 213-214.

12 Titchener, 74-75.

13 Reed, 19.

14 Reed, 19-20.

15 Ray, 258.

16 Reed, 20-21.

17 Dick Peebles, “Commission to Seek Information on Feasibility of Stadium Here,” Houston Chronicle, February 12, 1998: F1.

18 Report of the Harris County Board of Parks Commissioners to Harris County Commissioners Court, June 20, 1958. Astrodome Collection, 1958-1968 files, folder 18, Houston Public Library.

19 “County Stadium Bond Issue Gets July Ballot Spot,” Houston Post, July 24, 1958: section 4, 1.

20 Mickey Herskowitz, “Perini Says Weisbrod Rates Houston in 10-Club Possibility, Houston Chronicle, July 17, 1958: section 4, 1.

21 Ray, 258.

22 Hal Lebovitz, “Cleveland Is Joyful; Tribe Directors Vote to Stay Indefinitely,” The Sporting News, October 22, 1958: 18.

23 Bob Buhite, The Continental League (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2014).

24 Reed, 31.

25 Reed, 32.

26 Ray, 262-263.