Willie Mays left his mark in North Texas, playing at both Burnett Field in Dallas and LaGrave Field in Fort Worth.
DALLAS — The passing of Willie Mays, at 93, on Tuesday brought about the end of an era in baseball history. He was the last surviving star player from the game’s 1950s Golden Age, and his status was nothing short of legendary: The greatest player of all time, or close to it.
North Texas didn’t have a major league team during Mays’ heyday, and when the Rangers got started in 1972, Mays was still in the National League and didn’t appear in Arlington. But the Say Hey Kid still left his mark here, playing at both Burnett Field in Dallas and LaGrave Field in Fort Worth.
Both ballparks were home to minor league teams through the 1950s, and Mays’ New York Giants teams would often tour the country for exhibition and spring training games.
The latter of which is what brought Mays and the Giants to Dallas in 1955 and 1956, when they played the Cleveland Indians in tuneups before the regular season. We explored Mays’ appearance at Burnett Field — and the history of the long-forgotten ballpark just southwest of downtown — back in 2018.
One of the gems we found came courtesy of Dallas Moore, the owner of an estate liquidation company in East Texas. Moore had been searching through the home movie collection of a man named B.A. Dinwiddie when he stumbled upon a roll of in-color Kodachrome 8-millimeter film. The footage included highlights from one of Mays’ games at Burnett Field, in 1955.
Mays was at the height of his powers, coming off an MVP season and his famous over-the-shoulder catch in the World Series. Mays was just as good in that 1955 season, hitting 51 homers and leading the league with a .659 slugging percentage.
Burnett Field didn’t last much long beyond the days of hosting Mays and other big leaguers. After the 1964 season, the Dallas-Fort Worth Rangers — the minor-league club that called Burnett Field home — moved to the new Turnpike Stadium in Arlington, and Burnett was torn down, leaving behind an empty field.
Mike Rhyner, the longtime Dallas sports radio host, shared his memories of Burnett Field when we did the story back in 2018. He never saw Mays play, but it was all special nonetheless. Without a major league team in town, Burnett Field was the place that introduced baseball to a generation of Dallas fans.
“Don’t get the wrong idea here – as stadiums went, there was really nothing special about Burnett Field,” Rhyner told us. “It was a place where you came to watch baseball, but as far as having any unique feature about it, it really didn’t, as far as I could tell. But for people of this certain age that I am now, that like baseball, it’s special, man.”
Mays was also among the baseball legends who played at LaGrave Field in Fort Worth. While the exact dates of his appearances in Fort Worth aren’t certain, they likely would have been under similar circumstances, playing either the Fort Worth Cats minor-league team or another major-league team in an exhibition.
Coincidentally, news broke earlier Tuesday that LaGrave Field is expected to be demolished soon. The ballpark has fallen into a state of disrepair, and the Tarrant Regional Water District, which took control of the property in 2019, decided to move forward with demolition.
LaGrave was originally home to the Fort Worth Panthers, who later became the Fort Worth Cats. The ball club played in the Texas League from 1888 to 1964, before their revival in 2002. The ballpark was also the temporary home of the Dallas Rangers from 1960-1962.
Multiple Hall of Famers played at LaGrave Field, including Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, and Jackie Robinson.
And the great Willie Mays.