The Texas League: A Century of Baseball

Rating:
Summary: Good reading, excellent reference
Review: Team-by-team, season-by-season history of the old Texas League (1888-1987). Appended with Texas League seasonal and lifetime records, standings, more. Adequately illustrated with photos. A worthy addition to the bookshelves of those interested in minor league baseball or Texas baseball.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderfully Written
Review: The Texas League has a long, rich and exciting history. Like numerous other minor leagues, it has had its share of stars and hereos. Some played briefly, on their way to "the show," be them future Hall of Famers, or average players. Others for whatever reasons never made it that far, and spent most of their careers playing for various Texas League teams. Their stories and the stories of so many teams are described here. O'Neal does his usual excellent job chronicling the history of the league, all of its teams, cities, and ballparks. As with all his other minor league history books, the back of the book lists league records, ranging from year to year standings, post season and All-Star game results, and yearly individual batting and pitching leaders. As I read through the chapters, some names I recognized as future major leaguers, and others were "minor league legends" I had only heard about.

This is an excellent book about the history of one of the oldest minor leagues still in existence. But given the date of publication, I wonder if it's time for O'Neal to do an update?