Baseball, Hot dogs, and Raspas: The Prospect Hill Yellow Jackets Little League in the West Side of San Antonio during the 1960’s

Team Photo, Minor League, El Retiro Cafe Cardinals: Top row, (from left): Coach Navarro, Oscar Urabazo, Horace Lopez, Raul Guerra, Ruben Trevino, Rey Nerio (Uncle), Curtis Adams, Danny Castillo

Bottom row, (from left): Juan Campos, Mark Nerio (Father), Cleofas Soto, Phil (unknown), Alfred Bonenburger, Ishmael Trevino, Frankie Castillon

Source: Mark Nerio (Father) ~ Creator: Adam Nerio ~ Date: 1963

Family is everything: My grandfather, Reynaldo Nerio Sr., celebrating his 94th birthday.

Source: Adam Nerio ~ Creator: Adam Nerio ~ Date: March 15, 2020

I visit my 94-year-old grandfather just about every Sunday after church, who lives about 10 minutes away from St. Mary’s University. During one of these visits he told me a story about how my father played baseball at a young age, very nearby. The baseball field still exists to this day, located right across the street from where we buy “pan dulce,” on the corner of 24^th Street and Morales St., in San Antonio’s West Side. My grandfather even gave me an old tattered baseball that he saved from when he and my father used to play “catch” on that very same field.

Since sports has played such a major role in my development as a person, student, and now college soccer coach, the central question of my project is straight forward: What role did the Prospect Hill Yellow Jackets (PHY) athletic club, specifically baseball, have on the Mexican American community in the West Side of San Antonio during the 1960’s? This research is an attempt to demonstrate how baseball was more than just a “social gathering” but rather an opportunity for the Mexican American community to celebrate and find success while also challenging stereotypes that surfaced from the general population, such as “lacked intelligence,” “fought instead of worked,” “a nuisance rather than an asset,” and “that their minds often revealed great inconsistencies.”

Using images, maps, archival photographs and newspaper articles, obituaries, and in-person interviews, I will provide examples on how baseball played a major role in helping shape and define the identity of the Mexican American community in San Antonio. The images, maps, and photographs will help contextualize the story of the San Antonio Mexican American community in one West Side neighborhood, while the newspaper articles, obituaries, and interviews will capture the story of the players and adult leadership of the PHY athletic club.

Baseball was much more than just another amusement in the Mexican American community but instead a sport that is equal in importance to subjects about which much has been written such as labor, immigration, and politics. My research will posit the significance baseball had on the committed players, loyal fans, passionate coaches, and loving family and friends who were proud of their Mexican American ethnicity, living in the West Side of San Antonio during the 1960’s.

My underlying argument is that, The Prospect Hill Yellow Jackets Little League in the West Side of San Antonio was a vehicle through which the emerging Mexican American middle-class, post World War II young fathers and mothers, pursued for their sons, integration and acculturation into the American mainstream. The PHY athletic club provided a network that connected emerging middle-class Mexican Americans to each other and provided a vehicle for channeling frustrations, striving for success, and establishing a feeling of joy and celebration. Sporting events for the Mexican American middle-class was central to their lifestyle.