The
Sooner State League operated for eleven seasons between 1947
and 1957. More than 3,000 players mounted the bottom
rung of baseball's ladder leading to the dream-come-true of
playing in "the Show."
More than just a sports book,
in
fourteen chapters with over 300 photos and illustrations,
maps, a glossary, tables with performance statistics, and an
extensive index, Baseball in the Cross Timbers
reintroduces us to the Oklahoma and north Texas of the 1940s
and 1950s.
The heroes and the goats, the civic pillars and the
criminal, the raconteurs, wheelers and dealers, rogues and
rascals are all there along with the players and fans as
well as the owners, managers, umpires, and officials, the
people who made the Sooner State League live.
The story of the league continued beyond its last season in
1957 in the form of the short 1961 season
of the Ardmore Rosebuds, the last small-town minor league
team in
Oklahoma.
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“Each minor league
has its own story worth telling and Pete Pierce has through
his meticulous research told the story of the Sooner State
League with the care and depth it deserves. . . .Pete tells
behind the scenes stories of the League and its franchises,
most run on a shoestring by men dedicated to bringing
something worthwhile to their communities.
“I know a labor of love when I see one and
Baseball in the Cross Timbers is certainly that. . . . Cross
Timbers records and celebrates a simpler time when the U.S.
was emerging from World War II and young men were able to
turn from the battlefield to the ball field. It pays homage
to the grassroots tradition of baseball and to the impact of
minor league in our communities and on youngsters like the
Pete Pierces of the 1950s. The unique collection of photos
that Pete has been able to gather further returns one to
those halcyon days.”
C. Paul Rogers, III
author of The Whiz Kids with Robin Roberts
“It's not a simple task to capture a simpler
time in baseball, but that's just what Pete has accomplished
in this well researched and written book on baseball
history.”
Wayne McCombs
author of Baseball in Tulsa and Lets Gooooo Tulsa!
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