The Kenedy semi-pro baseball team could beat anyone except Runge. They played on Sundays in a pasture on the west side of Highway 181, halfway between Kenedy and Karnes City. The wooden bleachers could hold about 30 fans. There was a 4 x 5 green scoreboard in left field. A home run was anything over the barbed-wire fence.

Blockie Alexander (pictured) owned a drugstore, and his son became a noted Houston physician and President of the Texas Medical Association.

Archie Davis Ammons (pictured) was the father of the author. Blockie and Archie were dedicated fans who followed the team to every game.
Blockie had dated schoolteacher Lala Bridge in 1922.    Had Blockie and Lala got married, then I would be my own brother.    But George would never have been a physician.

Left-handed first baseman E. D. Red Holchak later became Kenedy Postmaster. His brother Max owned a tailor shop.

P. R. Potts Goff Jr. and his brother-in-law Loyd Boog Martin were in the outfield. Boog was married to Blossom Goff. W. L. Bill Goff was also a brother. Their father Percy R. Goff was the Englishman who built the famous three-story Goff Hotel in Kenedy in 1912. Percy Goff had come to America at age 16 to work on the railroad in Seguin.

The pitcher was Elmer Rose, who married Valda Ruhmann, granddaughter of Pleas Butler and great-niece of William Green Butler.

Not pictured is shortstop Dode Young. Dode ran the pool hall which was above Lawrence Reasoner’s grocery store. In that same block there was First Nichols National Bank; the Day Brother’s drug store; the stairway to Dode's; Reasoner's Grocery Store; Ferguson’s (later became Winn's) Five & Dime, managed by Lester Manning; the alley; the meat market; Archer-Gilley barber shop (later Killingsworth-Linder); Mendlovitz Department Store (later became Raymer’s, and then it was Liebermann's); Max Holchak's tailor shop; a jewelry store; and finally the Corner Drug Store, with Dr. J. B. Seay's dental office above.

Dode had three pool tables, four "Moon" domino tables, and a Coke machine. The 8-foot tall pool hall windows were usually open, and provided an excellent seat. The windows looked out at the rusty boiler behind Slaughter’s Tailor Shop (telephone number 555), and the outhouse behind the meat market.

It was 1938, and the author was 12 years old.

Moon is not a difficult game to learn. The first player slaps a domino down in the middle of the table, hard enough to make a noise, and then laughs all over, very loudly, and then makes a chalk mark in the blackboard square located in the corner of the table, to his right. The second player slaps a domino down with a loud crack in the middle of the table, and laughs all over until his shoulders shake, and he makes a chalk mark in his own little blackboard square. The third player then slaps a domino - - - but then, I believe you get the idea.      Moon is not a difficult game.

To start a new game, each player wiped his own blackboard space clean with a piece of old rag provided by Dode. The dusty white cloud would gag an EPA inspector.

In the 1960's, this wonderful dark old room became a dance studio, where teenagers learned ballroom dancing. What a disappointing comedown from the more noble past of this prime rent space. To hear laughing boys and giggling girls, having a fine good time. To have these happy kids intrude into the sanctified domain of the old men's spit-and-cuss club. How sad.

The outhouse behind the meat market has been removed.

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Saturday, 08-Sep-2018 19:16:01 MDT