Baseball in Tulsa (OK) (Images of Baseball) (Paperback)

~ Wayne McCombs (Author) "In 1920, oil was flowing in gushers, making Tulsa the "Oil Capital of the World..." (more)
Key Phrases: league career, Texas League, Drillers Stadium, Texas Rangers (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

The rich tradition and history of professional baseball are brought to life in Baseball in Tulsa. Wayne McCombs traces Tulsaís baseball past from the cow pastures of Indian Territory into the 21st century. The book documents the struggle many players endure in the coveted quest to become a major league baseball player. ÝÝShowcasing a collection of over 170 rare photographs, this new volume vividly documents the sport that makes Tulsa one of the best minor league cities in America. See all the greats from the original Tulsa Oilers through today's Tulsa Drillers, including hall-of-famers Satchel Paige, Frank Robinson, Steve Carlton, Dizzy Dean, and Warren Spahnóeach of these legends either played or coached in Tulsa. ÝÝ

About the Author

Wayne McCombs is the Advertising Director of the Mill Creek companies in Oklahoma. He hosts the Tulsa radio program, "Voices of Sports Legends," and is the author of Letís Goooooo Tulsa, the history and record book of professional baseball in Tulsa from 1905ñ1989. He also wrote the Tulsa section of the book Glory Days of Summer, a history of baseball in Oklahoma.

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing (May 18, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0738523321
• ISBN-13: 978-0738523323
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,127,452 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nice pictures, limited content, January 5, 2004

By	PayOrPlay (Los Angeles, Ca United States) - See all my reviews

I grew up in Tulsa, and on Tulsa Oilers baseball, in the 60s and 70s, starting with the glorious Warren Spahn-led teams of the late sixties, and ending with the departure of the Oilers and AAA baseball (and the debacle of the grandstand collapse) about the time I left for college. I don't live in Tulsa anymore and so I was pretty excited when I stumbled across this book while browsing Amazon one day, and when my wife spotted it on my "Wishlist" and gratified the nostalgia of a newly-middle-aged man by buying it for me.

Minor league baseball is probably more successful now than at any time since before WW2, so it is nice to learn of the "Images of Baseball" series about baseball in different cities. This book does cover the baseball events of my youth and others through the century-plus history of baseball in Tulsa. It has lots of B&W photos, and brought back some fun memories that will be shared by anyone else who grew up attending games at wonderful and rickety old Oiler Park (amusingly recalled in Jim Bouton's "Ball Four" for its "beaver shooting" excellence due to all the holes in the stands--a literary reference the McCombs book, understandably, does not mention), or listening to Mac Creager or Len Morton call the games (often transmitted "by re-creation" with fake crowd noises and batting sounds, as Ronald Reagan is reported to have done at the beginning of his career).

But, since it is likely to be the only one written about its admittedly narrow and esoteric subject, it is a shame that there isn't more in the way of facts, text, or even a bit of analytical perspective. Statistics would have been nice--at a bare minimum, wouldn't you think a book like this could have included a chart listing the league, manager, win-loss record, attendance, and final standings for each year? More firm stats about top hitters and pitchers? (Where, for example, is the legendary flash-in-the-pan year of Jim Hicks, who led that magnificent 1968 team with something like a .366 average?)

Warren Spahn's recent death, and breeze-shooting with friends out here in LA about our childhood baseball memories, led me to try and remember some of this information, and it turns out to be hard to find, unless you have access to the morgue at the Tulsa World, I guess; for example, the current Tulsa Drillers' website doesn't contain much about history (especially Tulsa Oilers history). I hoped this book would contain at least some basic data, but really, it doesn't. (By the way, there is an unusual and terrific website called tulsatvmemories.com that collects all sorts of Tulsa media trivia from the 50s to the present, although it has only a bit of stuff about the Oilers and Drillers.)

The author didn't really consider any aspects of how baseball fit into the larger framework of Tulsa's unusual history--virtually invisible at the turn of the century, spectacularly wealthy with oil, cultivated well beyond its size, and globally significant by the late 'teens when it was "Oil Capital of the World" and an early aviation center, and suffering through numerous booms and busts since then as the major oil companies and international significance slowly faded away.

Maybe it isn't fair to expect this in a 128-page picture book, but there is a LOT of white space on these pages so the author could have included plenty more text, had he chosen, without increasing the cost of production for the the book. Issues that might have been mentioned could have included: What does it mean to a city when it loses AAA status, along with its other efforts at bigger-time sports (eg, Tulsa had a major league soccer team and briefly a USFL franchise)? Is it interesting to compare how Oklahoma City has used baseball so effectively as an element of its downtown rebirth? Is there anything different about baseball in Tulsa, given its early aspirations to national status, than in any other mid-sized minor league city?

Anyway, I am not sorry we bought the book and any fan of Tulsa baseball or Tulsa history might like to have it, but it is not the definitive work one might hope to have, and it probably has little to offer to someone who's interested more generally in the history of minor league baseball, rather than just Tulsa nostalgia. Too bad, because it is hard to imagine the market absorbing more than one book about the topic!