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Baseball time in Tulsa.
It is a sound that will never again be heard in Tulsa.
A steady, rhythmic pounding that started with but one or two participants. Within several seconds, it would build to a thunder that bounded like waves off wooden planks and crashed out onto the lush green of the baseball field. A sound unique to Tulsa created by several thousand baseball fans earnestly calling for a rally by their beloved Tulsa Oilers. With pop bottles.
One reason this unique tribal custom of its time will never again be heard is simple. No one would be nuts enough to ever again build a baseball stadium out of wood planks and nails (that would and could rust). That describes the basic structure of the Tulsa County Stadium, which opened in 1934 and, in the mid-1950s, was called Texas League Park. For all practical purposes, its days ended April 3, 1977, when a walkway collapsed under a crowd of fans during an exhibition game between the Texas Rangers and Houston Astros.
The second reason you’ll never again hear thousands of fans pound pop bottles in a sports stadium is the regression of civilization from the 1950s — a time when fans could pound their dark green 7UP, light green Coke and clear Grapette bottles on the wooden planks as inspiration to the fresh-faced Tulsa Oilers Nino Escalaros, Chuck Harmons, Ziggy Jasinskis and Joe Makos, who wore the white home uniforms. This was Double A ball — youngsters with dreams of playing for the RedLegs, Cubs, Phillies, Indians and Cardinals — where players were about halfway to the majors between Class D and “the show.” Civilization has regressed because no liability insurer in the world would allow the sale of glass bottles at a sporting event — assuming, probably correctly, that the bottle would eventually turn into a missile. (That glass bottle, filled with soda, cost a dime in 1955.)
This was the old ballpark. Not the one that began as Sutton Stadium in 1981, has been called Drillers Stadium since 1990 and will be history when the 2009 baseball season ends. No, the ballpark at the fairgrounds that would have been 75 years old last spring. The one that saw the likes of Dizzy Dean and Johnny Temple. Steve Carlton and Walt “No Neck” Williams. Russell “The Muscle” Burns and Julio Gotay.
The park with “The Knothole Gang” grandstands in left field, where, for a pittance, a kid could see a game from the “bleachers.” Sitting midway between first base and home plate with your dad, who knew these kinds of things, as every dad of the ’50s did, because that was the best place to see all the action. Hearing Andy Andrews holler, “Let’s gooooo Tulsa!” prior to the Oilers’ first at bat.
A 15-cent scorecard from 1955 not only tells the story of baseball, but also of Tulsa. A can of beer was 35 cents and a 14-ounce draft was 30 cents.
Hot dogs were a quarter and an ad for the Dub Davis Texaco Service Station at 21st and Harvard (phone 6-3323) promised S&H Green Stamps.
Tulsa University football for ’55 included home games with Hardin-Simmons, Texas Tech and Detroit with away games with Marquette, Oklahoma A&M and Wichita.
Clarke’s Good Clothes, Naylor’s D-X Service, Elwino Root Beer. Tulsa Crating Company, Mac’s Drive-In (11th and Boulder, phone 4-5334), Olson Radiator Company. Steve’s Sundry at 12th and Harvard featured “Fishing Tackle … Unusual Toys … Fountain … Electrical Appliances.”
The Tulsa uniforms were always home white. The visitors, including Dallas, Fort Worth, Shreveport and other cities south, were always road gray. The grass was always green and there was always a breeze at Texas League Park.
And between Andy Andrews’ battle cry and an Oiler rally could be heard the pounding of pop bottles on wooden planks. Baseball in Tulsa.
