Players who Homered at Arlington Stadium as Both Minor and Major Leaguers

In 1965, in an effort to attract a big-league team, Arlington, Texas, built a ballpark known as Turnpike Stadium. The original facility did not have the seating capacity of a big-league park, but it was built to facilitate enlargement once the big leagues came to town. For seven years the Dallas-Fort Worth Spurs played at Turnpike Stadium in the Double-A Texas League. In 1972, when the Washington Senators chose to move to Texas, the Dallas area was ready, expanding the ballpark and renaming it Arlington Stadium.

Not many players accomplished the feat of hitting home runs in Arlington Stadium as both minor leaguers and major leaguers. First, the Texas Rangers, as the Senators were renamed, were in the American League, and as late as 1968, the only Texas League team affiliated with an American League team was the El Paso Sun Kings, Double-A affiliate of the California Angels. Second, the percentage of Double-A players who make it to the majors is not particularly high. Lastly, relatively few homers were hit by anyone at Arlington Stadium during the minor-league years.

However, the Dallas-Fort Worth team switched its affiliation from the Chicago Cubs to the Baltimore Orioles in 1969, and the parent team had a fairly good season. What was in the pipeline?

During the first three years of major-league play in Arlington, only two Rangers with Texas League connections had homered, while 11 former Texas League players had homered as visitors.

Although the enclosure of the ballpark and the addition of an upper deck would increase home-run productivity when the Senators moved in and became the Rangers, home runs were not flying out of the park during the minor-league days. During the first few games, it appeared that the ballpark was hitter-friendly with seven homers in the first six games. Then things turned around and for the whole 1965 season, only 29 homers were hit at Turnpike Stadium by an assortment of players, none of whom would replicate the feat as major leaguers.

Home runs at Turnpike Stadium were far harder to come by for anyone in 1966, as 21 homers, all told, were hit at Turnpike Stadium. One El Paso player, a first-round draft pick of the Angels, spent three seasons at El Paso, improving each year. So it was no great surprise that Jim Spencer had homered on June 8, 1966, in a 1-0 El Paso win over Dallas. In 1967 he hit two more home runs in Arlington, and the Angels called him up to the major leagues in 1968. By 1972 Spencer was a regular major leaguer, but he had a down year, hitting just one home run all season. That homer came on April 24 at Arlington off Don Stanhouse in a 6-4 loss to the Rangers. Traded to the Rangers in 1973, he achieved the distinction of homering as both a visiting and home player at Arlington when he homered off Pat Dobson of the Yankees on August 19. Over the course of his major-league career he had 13 homers at Arlington.

Home-run numbers didn’t change much over the next two years. In 1967, the count was up to 31, which was to be the highest ever for a season at Turnpike Stadium, while in 1968 it was down to just 19, the lowest season total.

One of Spencer’s teammates on the 1967 team had a particularly good year playing third base. His name was Leo Rodriguez and he tagged 11 homers for the Sun Kings. Were any home runs hit during the 14 games at Arlington? Nope. Of course, Leo Rodriguez went on to become Aurelio Rodriguez and accomplished the feat of homering at the same ballpark in the minors and majors at Seattle’s Sick’s Stadium.

But most of the big hitters in 1967 were with National League farm teams, and sluggers like Amarillo’s Nate Colbert, who had a league-leading 28 homers (two at Arlington) would not return to Arlington as major leaguers.

One future National League star homered at Turnpike Stadium on July 20 and July 22, 1967, as a member of the Amarillo Sonics, the farm club of the Houston Astros. Bob Watson played with Houston until 1979, clubbing 139 homers. He was traded to the Boston Red Sox that June, and visited Arlington Stadium shortly thereafter. On July 27, 1979, Watson homered off Steve Comer in a lopsided Rangers win over the Red Sox. After the 1979 season, he became a free agent and signed with the Yankees. His second and last major-league homer at Arlington Stadium came on April 11, 1980, off Ferguson Jenkins. He concluded his playing career with Atlanta in 1984 with the distinction of having homered in two ballparks (San Diego and Arlington) in the minors and majors.

Albuquerque was linked with the Dodgers organization for many years. The Albuquerque Dodgers of 1965-71 included some great names, but most of those players spent their careers in the National League. The Albuquerque team leader in homers in 1968 had been signed by the Dodgers in 1964 and worked his way up through the organization, landing in Albuquerque in 1967. On June 25, 1968, Bill Sudakis slammed his ninth homer of the season, at Arlington Stadium, in a 4-3 win over the Spurs. Sudakis made it to the big club at the end of the 1968 season and stayed in Dodger Blue through 1971, when knee injuries resulted in his being waived out of the organization. In 1972 he was with the Mets, who traded him to Texas prior to the 1973 season. In his one season with the Rangers, mostly as a DH, he had 15 homers (his best as a major leaguer). The first of six 1973 Arlington Stadium homers came on May 14 off Jim Kaat of the Twins in a 7-6 Rangers win.

Occasionally, one comes across a player who seems to be a sure thing. One such player was in the Baltimore Orioles farm system in 1969. At first, however, my research into Don Baylor’s homers at Arlington came up empty. Homer after homer was hit on the road. But persevere I did. I went through issue after issue of the San Antonio Light, as they had the box scores for all Texas League games. Much was going on in July 1969, but on the evening of July 11, 1969, in a 7-6 win over Amarillo, Don Baylor stroked his sixth homer of the year, and first at Arlington Stadium. It was to be his only homer at Arlington that season. His other 10 homers were hit on the road. Indeed, as I was to discover, the combined homer count at Turnpike Stadium in 1969 was only 21.

Baylor had 338 career major-league homers, including 18 at Arlington Stadium. His total was the third highest (behind Reggie Jackson and George Brett) for a visiting player at Arlington. His first Arlington blast came on June 10, 1972, off Casey Cox, as the Orioles defeated the Rangers 5-2.

I stumbled onto the story of a player who had 280 minor-league homers, including a league-leading 43 at Tacoma in 1971. The prior year, 1970, he had hit a league-leading 29 with San Antonio in the Texas League. And the year before that, 1969, you guessed it, he led the league with 24 with Shreveport. In 1969, his 22nd homer came at Arlington on July 30 in a 9-3 win over the Spurs. In 1970 he was fighting for the home-run title as San Antonio played a four-game series at Arlington in late August. In the space of four games, he had four homers, his 28th of the season coming on August 26 in an 8-2 win over the Spurs in the final game of the series. He accounted for four of the 29 homers hit at Arlington Stadium in the 1970 season. Adrian Garrett played minor-league ball for 16 consecutive seasons for 14 different teams. In six seasons, he had 20 or more homers. After his major-league career was over, he went to Japan and hit 102 homers over the course of three seasons. He also played winter ball in the Dominican Republic, leading the Dominican League with 9 homers one season. All told, he had more than 400 professional home runs.

Garrett’s major-league career was relatively unsung, though, as he played in just 163 games over eight seasons, for four different teams, with just 11 home runs. His 1975 season with the Angels was the “best” of his major-league career; he batted .262 with six homers. On consecutive days, August 2-3, 1975, he homered at Arlington Stadium. He victimized Bill Hands and Steve Hargan, respectively.

The Albuquerque team leader in homers in 1970 had been drafted by the Dodgers in the eighth round in 1968, and Albuquerque was the third stop on his ladder to the big leagues. On May 14, 1970, Joe Ferguson homered for the Albuquerque Dodgers at Arlington Stadium in a 7-4 Dodgers win. He was the only Albuquerque player to homer in the Spurs’ home park all season. Most of his years were in the National League with the Dodgers, but when he was released in 1981, he signed with the California Angels. In parts of three seasons with the Angels, he had four homers, and on September 23, 1982, he hit his last major-league homer. It came at Arlington Stadium off Mike Mason. It was his only major-league homer at Arlington.

On Saturday August 8, 1970, the Amarillo Giants, the farm club of the San Francisco Giants, had defeated the Spurs at Arlington on the strength of two homers. The homer that put them in front was slugged by a man who was to go on to a 16-year major-league career during which he slugged 442 homers and was named to three All-Star teams. Dave Kingman’s first stop in Organized Baseball was Amarillo, where he slugged 15 homers in 60 games. Kingman spent most of his career in the National League with the Giants, Mets, and Cubs, but in 1977, he was a man of many uniforms. He started the season with the Mets and was traded to the Padres in June. The Padres placed him on waivers on September 6, and he was claimed by the California Angels. Not long after he had unpacked and got used to his new surroundings, the Angels traveled to Arlington Stadium and, on September 13, 1977, he homered off Gaylord Perry and Bobby Cuellar as the Angels came from behind to score eight runs in the seventh inning (two on a homer by Kingman) and win 12-7. Two days later, Kingman was traded back to New York, this time to the Yankees, where he proceeded to homer in his first three games with the Bombers. Kingman wrapped up his career with a three-year stint at Oakland. In each of those last three years with Oakland, concluding in 1986, he had at least 30 homers. During his years with Oakland, he homered at Arlington another four times, bringing his career total at the Rangers’ ballpark to six.

For the entire 1971 season, the hometown Spurs had 8 homers at home. It was so rare an occurrence for a Spur to homer there that when Steve Turigliatto got his first homer of the season on August 15, he was so disoriented that he stumbled while running the bases, broke his elbow, and was out for the season. Turigliatto never played another game in Organized Baseball.

Visiting teams did not do particularly well, either, slugging out just 18 homers. San Antonio, the Cubs affiliate, visited Arlington Stadium for 19 games that season. Their center fielder was best known for his speed, stealing 47 bases in 1971, but he banged out 10 homers that season, including one at Arlington Stadium on June 22 in a losing cause. At the end of the 1972 season, Billy North was traded to Oakland, where he stole 229 bases over the next five seasons. On June 26, 1973, North led off the third inning with a homer off Jim Merritt for his only Arlington Stadium major-league homer. The homer broke a 1-1 tie, and the A’s went on to defeat the Rangers, 6-2.

Of course, when you are researching a topic, you invariably stumble across something else, and in 1971 the Dallas-Fort Worth Spurs were, indeed, part of history. They were playing the Albuquerque Dodgers in Albuquerque on August 4. On that night, Tom Walker, their starting pitcher, went 15 innings and pitched what at the time was the longest no-hitter in baseball history. The final score was 1-0.

And on September 21, 1971, it was announced that the Senators were coming to Texas. Arlington Stadium had hosted its last minor-league ballgame. Over the course of seven seasons, spectators at Turnpike Stadium had witnessed just 176 homers. During the 1972 major-league season, 74 homers were hit at the expanded Arlington Stadium, and over the years, eight players who homered there as minor leaguers homered there as major leaguers.

ALAN COHEN has been a SABR member since 2011, serves as Vice President-Treasurer of the Connecticut Smoky Joe Wood Chapter, and is the datacaster (stringer) for the Hartford Yard Goats, the Double-A affiliate of the Colorado Rockies. He has written more than 40 biographies for SABR’s bio-project, more than 30 games for SABR’s games project, and has contributed stories to The National Pastime and the Baseball Research Journal. He has expanded his BRJ article on the Hearst Sandlot Classic (1946- 1965), an annual youth All-Star game which launched the careers of 88 major-league players. He has four children and six grandchildren and resides in West Hartford, Connecticut with his wife Frances, a cat (Morty) and a dog (Sam).

 

Sources

In preparing this article, the author used Baseball-Reference.com, the Dallas Morning News, and the San Antonio Light.