William H. Brewster is a writer, a former financial services executive, and a U.S. Air Force veteran who served as a cryptologic linguist. He is the author of The Workingman’s Game: Waverly, New York, the Twin Tiers and the Making of Modern Baseball, 1887–1898, finalist for the 2020 SABR Seymour Medal, and That Lively Railroad Town: Waverly, New York, and the Making of Modern Baseball, 1899–1901. His most recent book The Land of Sand and Cotton: Texas, Workingmen, and Professional Baseball in 1888 (Nebraska, 2026) was published in April.

The Texas League’s first baseball season in 1888 took place during a turbulent political, economic, and cultural time in Texas. Amid the millions of acres of wild and rural Texas frontier boomed the cities of Galveston, Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Austin, where the new state capitol building had just opened. The Texas economy was transitioning from its legendary cattle drives as those cities competed for diverse business. In this cauldron Texas cities used whatever means they had to compete for population and business from other parts of the country, welcoming urban activities and entertainment typically reserved for cosmopolitan Eastern cities, such as professional baseball.

The Land of Sand and Cotton uncovers key elements in the come-up of baseball in the state, such as important games in the newly formed Texas League, racial tensions and the semipro Colored League, the pivotal Major League barnstorming tour, financial struggles during the season, and outside political influences. The Land of Sand and Cotton tells the origin story of Texas baseball, which culminated in Major League franchises and World Series championships in both Houston and Dallas–Fort Worth. A much different game was played in 1888, when there really might have been cowboys, gunfighters, longhorns, and horses around every corner.

1. Texas and Baseball

Texas in the 1880s was rife with dichotomies. Nowhere else in the United States were the contrasts greater between fact and fiction, urban and rural, rich and poor, Black and white, cowboy and city worker. These were best exemplified by the contrast between the millions of acres of wild Texas frontier and the booming cities of Galveston, Houston, Dallas, Austin, Fort Worth, and San Antonio. 

In the midst of these dichotomies, the Texas cities used whatever means they had to compete for increased population and businesses from other parts of the country. This included not only obtaining scarce railroad access to modernize transportation but also nurturing refined urban activities and entertainment typically reserved for cosmopolitan Eastern cities.  

Among these was professional baseball. 

Sporting activities like boxing, cockfighting, and horse racing already had a place in the Texas urban landscape, but baseball was slower to gain traction. This was due in part to how young the cities were, the long distances between them, and the lack of a sufficient homegrown talent pool. Amateur baseball was common in Texas, as it was in towns throughout the country, but the quality of the players was insufficient to garner more than a passing interest. Without deep and consistent support, the sport would fail to grow, and the rest of the sporting world would continue to view Texas cities as backwater cow towns. 

Cowboy stories buttressed the view of Texas cities as exotic and unique, often with the encouragement of local boosters who wanted to attract tourists and immigrants however they could. Pawnee Bill and Buffalo Bill each had traveling Wild West shows that drew crowds in Eastern cities in the late nineteenth century, and dime novels were the most popular reading materials in the country. One could scarcely open an issue without encountering a stoic cowboy adventurer, a menacing Indian, or a heroic ranger. 

Given the cowboy’s popularity, it was tempting to remind outside folks that Texas was cowboy country, even though it undermined the urban sophisticates. Promotors tried to have it both ways. For example, in 1888 cigarette manufacturer Allen & Ginter produced a popular set of trading cards that featured U.S. states and territories. The New York card showed the Statue of Liberty; Massachusetts, bustling factories; Pennsylvania, railroads and coal. And Texas, longhorns and cattle drives. Nevertheless, Texas’s urban newspapers often bent over backward to persuade people that their city was the equal of any other in the arts and entertainment, while far superior in business opportunity.

Although the cattle drives and Indian wars had all but ended by the late 1880s and the U.S. Census Bureau officially “closed” the frontier in 1890, the many cowboy myths and legends that arose during this era persist to this day and continue to influence the public’s impression of Texas. If anything, the legends have only become larger. “The myth of the cowboy grew purer every year,” explained writer Larry McMurtry in his classic book In a Narrow Grave, “because there were so few actual cowboys left to contradict it.” 

These myths were reinforced by a slew of gamblers and gunfighters who, while not actually cowboys, built larger-than-life roughneck reputations in Western towns during and after the great cattle drives of the 1870s and early 1880s. Jesse and Frank James, Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Billy the Kid, and other legendary characters traipsed across the Texas landscape on their way to and from Kansas and Arizona towns such as Dodge City and Tombstone. Meanwhile, well-known Indigenous leaders like Geronimo and Sitting Bull were still alive throughout the 1880s.  

It was an authentic enough world to capture the public’s imagination. For many Easterners, the Western lore simply added glitter to the stories they had already heard directly from friends and relatives who had headed west in search of better lives. 

My first trip out West was in 1978, when I traveled to Texas for air force basic training. My enlistment portal was Syracuse, New York, and my first airplane trip was from Syracuse to Detroit, before heading to San Antonio. 

On the plane with me were half a dozen fellow recruits, a typical range of business and recreation travelers, and at least one celebrity, New York Yankees rookie pitcher Jim Beattie. I found out later that Beattie had been in Syracuse for his wedding and was on his way to Detroit to rejoin the Yankees.  

Beattie and most other travelers got off the plane in Detroit, while my fellow recruits and I stayed aboard. In a few hours we landed in San Antonio. By my early reckoning, Texas was by far the flattest and hottest place I had ever been, a common reaction among native Northeasterners. 

Beattie started on the mound the next day, my first full day in the air force, and pitched six and one-third innings to earn a 7–3 win, his fifth of the season. As I made my way through basic training, Beattie and the Yankees finished September tied with Boston, defeating them in a one game playoff on October 2. The Yankees went on to beat the Royals and Dodgers to win their second consecutive World Series.

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