Waco’s sporting history is colorful and diverse, not least due to the various minor league baseball teams that have called the city their home. One of the longest standing and most successful of these teams was the Waco Navigators, who played in Katy Park from 1906-1919.

Although the state of Texas did not boast a major league baseball team until 1962, Texans had been playing baseball since the 1860s. Initially, Texas baseball consisted only of a few amateur clubs, but by the 1880s, these teams began to pay some of their players, usually the pitcher, catcher, and shortstop. By 1887, there were at least six professional leagues in the United States, and Texas was not far behind. Spearheaded by John McCloskey, player and manager for the Joplin Independents, the Texas League came into a shaky existence in 1888, teams from Austin, Dallas, Ft. Worth, Galveston, Houston, and San Antonio making up its ranks. The first few years were a rollercoaster for the fledgling league, with some teams sporadically running out of cash for their players’ salaries, others folding in the middle of the season, and the league sometimes terminating seasons ahead of schedule.

Waco’s baseball history began years before the founding of its first minor league clubs. Along with a few amateur teams, Waco was the home of several semi-professional black baseball teams beginning in the 1870s. It was not until 1889 that Waco’s first minor league baseball team began play. Between 1889 and 1906, Waco was the home of several minor league baseball teams, including the Waco Babies, Texans, Tigers, and Steers. Each of these teams belonged to the Texas League. In 1906, during the league’s early turmoil, Waco embraced yet another new baseball team. A public contest decided the team’s name, with the winners, Mrs. W. Sparks and Miss Mattie May Wilkes, selecting the name of “Navigators,” reflecting the efforts of Texans to navigate the Brazos River. The Navigators’ first season was less than impressive, resulting in a final record of thirty-two wins and ninety-six losses. These abysmal numbers earned the Navigators the last-place spot in that year’s Texas League standings. The next four years were equally unimpressive, possibly due to frequent turnover in the manager’s position. Between 1906 and 1911, the Navigators went through eight different managers. Finally, the team hired Ellis Hardy. Formerly the head baseball coach for Texas Christian University, Hardy became the most successful and longest tenured of the Navigator’s managers, and he led the team to its first winning season in 1911. From there the team began to climb, with its record improving steadily until 1914, when the Navigators tied seven-time league champions Houston Buffaloes for first place.

The end of the 1914 season would go down in Texas League history as one of the wildest and most contested finishes the league had ever seen. Going into the last series of the season, the Houston Buffaloes led the Navigators by a single game. Waco easily won both of its slated games against the Dallas Giants, giving them a winning percentage of .670 for the season. Houston, in its turn, came away victorious over the Galveston Pirates in its first game, but their second game remained unfinished, called due to darkness in the fifth inning. They had been losing badly. With the unfinished contest, Houston finished at .673, seemingly earning themselves the pennant. Indignant, Waco contested the unfinished game, saying it had been bright and sunny when the umpires stopped the game. Texas League historian William Ruggles, who attended the game, states that it was indeed dark when the fifth inning began, but by the time Galveston had finished batting the sky had cleared. On top of this, Waco then found out that, earlier that season, Houston had broken a league rule stating that the first game of a doubleheader had to be nine innings long, stopping at seven innings in the first game of a doubleheader against Austin. Texas League President W.R. Davidson threw out the result of the shortened game, ignoring the rule that stated the teams had to replay the contest. However, he had also learned that Waco had played a game with a player acquired after intraleague trades had ended. Unfortunately for Waco, Davidson threw out that game as well. Eventually, league administration credited both teams with records of 102-50, and the pennant race ended in a tie.

The Waco Navigators won the pennant for the next two seasons, making them back-to-back-to-back champions, an impressive feat. The Navigators continued playing until 1919. The 1919 season was a dismal one, with the team posting a 59-88 record, their only losing record since 1910. At the same time, the growing city of Wichita Falls, Texas, was experiencing an oil boom. Suddenly flush with cash, a Wichita Falls group bought the Navigators and moved the team, renaming them the Spudders after the oilfield slang for starting an oil well (not potatoes).

That same year, the newly organized Texas Colored League began to play. Among its founding teams was Waco’s newest minor league team: the Waco Black Navigators. The Black Navigators would go on to spend 1919 and 1920 in Waco, before moving to San Antonio as the Black Aces. The Black Navigators were not the last professional baseball team Waco would see in the twentieth century. Between 1920 and the demolition of Katy Park in the 1960s, Waco was the home of the Cubs, the Black Cardinals, the Dons, and the Pirates. Although Katy Park no longer stands, and Waco has not boasted a professional team since the 1950s, Wacoans have retained their love of the national pastime and recall their old clubs fondly.

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Before televisions and computers became household staples, Katy Park provided Wacoans with entertainment and a sense of community. Home to numerous minor league teams, the ballpark was also the site of a variety of other events—Wild West shows, boxing matches, and Paul Quinn Football—which today remain an important part of community memory.

Excitement at Katy Park began with its design by ballplayer Henry Fabian. He originated the raised pitcher’s mound, and came to Waco in 1904 to manage and partially own his first team: the Waco Tigers. Construction finished in time to host Waco’s first presidential visit by Teddy Roosevelt. On April 6, 1905, red, white, and blue bunting adorned Katy Park’s fences to greet Roosevelt as he spoke to thousands of Wacoans.

Fabian faced a serious challenge in the form of a local law banning “Sunday amusements” charging admission. After being arrested three times for scheduling games at Katy Park on Sundays, he took the matter to court and won at the state level. Sunday baseball became a staple elsewhere in Texas, but Fabian made no headway locally. He sold the Waco team to a local businessman in 1906. Renamed the Waco Navigators, the team made Waco baseball history when they tied Houston for the Texas League title in 1914, and won it outright for the next two years. However, when the club moved to Wichita Falls in 1919, Katy Park sat without a team for several years.

A new era of baseball in Katy Park began when the minor league Galveston Cubs moved to Waco in 1925. Though they never won a championship title, the Cubs had their fair share of exciting moments. Babe Ruth’s New York Yankees arrived in Waco in April 1929 to face off against the Cubs for a spring exhibition game. Crowds exceeded Katy Park’s four-thousand-seat capacity, prompting officials to get creative with overflow seating. These arrangements, however, did not prevent fans eager for Ruth’s autograph from interrupting the game. Though the Cubs lost, 13 to 3, fans still reminisce about watching Babe Ruth hit a line drive double straight into the crowd.

Katy Park witnessed other historic moments. In 1930, with the Cubs trailing in the eighth inning, outfielder Gene “Half-Pint” Rye hit three home runs—including a grand slam—in the same inning, a feat which today remains unsurpassed in baseball history. Also that year, the first night baseball game in Texas occurred at Katy Park on May 5, when the Negro Leagues’ Kansas City Monarchs battled the hometown Black Cardinals.

During and after the Great Depression, Katy Park continued to host baseball and other sporting events. The sprinter Jesse Owens brought his baseball club, the Portland Roses, to Waco in 1946. On two previous visits, the Olympian saw another Negro League game and ran a track and field clinic for local boys. Additionally, the boxer Joe Louis used a 1950 exhibition bout in Waco to announce he would not attempt to regain his heavyweight title. Baseball may have been Katy Park’s primary use, but it also severed the community in other ways.

A postwar baseball boom reinvigorated the game in Texas and in 1947 the Waco Dons launched as a minor league team. The next year they gained affiliation with Pittsburgh and became the Waco Pirates, and it seemed as though things were on the rise for baseball in Waco. After two playoff seasons, the Pirates entered a slump, and in 1953 a devastating F5 tornado tore through Waco, destroying much of downtown, including Katy Park. Park owner A. H. Kirksey, determined to prevent the demise of Waco baseball, poured $400,000 into rebuilding the park and it was ready for opening day in 1954. The following year, the Waco Pirates played their best slate of games yet, accumulating one of the best season records in minor league history and claiming the Big State League title.

Despite Kirksey’s efforts, attendance dropped at Katy Park following the 1954 season as the rise of Little League ball and the increasing popularity of television drew attention elsewhere. In 1956, the Pirates played their last game in Waco. About a decade later, the city razed the park to create space for a parking lot.

For nearly half a century, Katy Park stood as a centerpiece of the Waco community and a hallmark of Texas sports. In fall 2020, the site of Katy Park, now a property included in the Magnolia Market complex, will host a new field, Katy Ballpark at the Silos. The long legacy of Katy Park lives on.

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