Mexican American Integration and Acculturation
The teams in the PHY were named after teams from the MLB (Major League Baseball), another sign of American middle class. The team’s names included the Cardinals, Giants, Cubs, Braves, Dodgers, and Yankees. In addition, the business sponsor of the Cardinals Little League team was Wright Sports, a sporting goods store located in downtown San Antonio. The Minor League sponsor was El Retiro Café, a bar located downtown. My father and uncle played Minor and Little League together on the Cardinals and saved photos in uniform from the mid 1960’s. Other local businesses sponsored teams too: “Garza Finance” Dodgers, “Dairy Queen” Braves, and “Hippo” (Soft drink) Cubs, for example.
These facts are relevant to my argument of integration and acculturation into the American mainstream. For those involved with the PHY, it was their second home, a place where they made friends, and found their identity as Mexican Americans. The players experienced what it was to be American through baseball while representing the hopes and dreams of the Mexican American residents of the West Side. The player’s felt confident and capable of being what their talents and skills could make them on the baseball “diamond.” The coaches and leaders of the PHY taught the players the sports “concept” of teamwork, discipline, and the spirit of competition forged from each team playing for the chance to “win.” Becoming winners in a society that valued “winning” was something the players, coaches, and families could appreciate. Even in the 1960’s when gangs were prevalent in the West Side of San Antonio, the PHY fields provided a safe, enjoyable space for the community. The PHY athletic club was an organization that taught youth-level players they could have fun, compete, and win through sports.
I conducted a “Zoom” interview with David Moreno. David is a former player with the PHY who also played on the Cardinals with my father and uncle. He continues to be a close friend of my father and currently lives in Palacios, TX as a pastor for the United Methodist Church. After making contact with him, David was gracious enough to share his many experiences and memories as a player with the PHY Little League. In addition, David still has his jersey from when he played on the Cardinals.
David explained uniforms were collected and reused each season and replaced every ten years. Therefore, he was able to keep his jersey as he wore it on the tenth year. David also vividly remembers the concession stand serving “raspas,” frito pie, and hot dogs. After speaking with my father and David, I also learned English was primarily used when they played Little League with the PHY. The men would sometimes speak to each other in Spanish but always English to the players. According to David however, Spanish was particularly used in football, where his coach would “call out plays in Spanish” so the opposing team wasn't aware of what they were doing from the sideline. Outside of that, English was mainly used. It is important to point out that PHY baseball, with six teams, played a season competing against each other. Yet, with football, competition was against teams from across the city. This reveals how for football, the Spanish language provided to the PHY team, a competitive advantage.
One of my secondary sources titled, Mexican American Baseball in the Alamo Region, continues to explain how sports, specifically baseball, helped play an important role not just for youth-level and high school aged players but for the Mexican American families involved as well. Unlike the newspaper articles, this book does not focus its attention on the PHY athletic club, but instead provides a collection of archival photographs and recollections of men and women who played baseball and softball throughout Texas such as San Antonio during the 1920’s – 1970’s. Similar to the photographs I have collected from my father, Jerry Guevara, and David Moreno, the additional photos from the book continue to offer insight to how important baseball was to the Mexican American community.
Jerry and my grandfather, both reflected on the leadership of the coaches/managers within the PHY athletic club. Jerry mentioned how his coach had three sons of his own so the opportunity to coach them in Little League was, “pure enjoyment.” Not only did Jerry’s coach participate in Little League but also coached Pop Warner football for the PHY. When referring to the coaches/managers, my grandfather said, “They were dedicated, very dedicated…most lived in the Christ The King area.”
The cohesiveness of the leadership and their families is well established with a somewhat defined boundary from which participants came. The leaders, for the most part, held civil service jobs. The children attended, for the most part, two elementary schools, Ogden and Cenizo Park. In addition, for the most part, families attended Christ The King Catholic Church located at 2610 Perez Street, located less than one mile from the PHY baseball field. A cultural homogeneity was established virtually automatically by this emerging middle-class that reinforced their values, aspirations, and lifestyles. They lived in the same neighborhood, attended the same church, worked at the same type of jobs, children attended the same school and of course, they participated and celebrated together in recreational sports with the PHY athletic club.