Talk:Houston Buffs

From BR Bullpen

If there was ever to be a heaven on earth for a young boy, I found it in 1960 with the Houston Buffs.

My very first paying job was that of a ball boy for the Buffs. I was 11 and my next door neighbor, Mr. Jim Lake, hired me on as a "ball boy." We spent the season sitting in the parking lot waiting for a foul ball to come bouncing our way off the stadium tops - we were each strategically located outside the stadium. My dad got me a small transistor radio and I would listen to the game through a tinny earphone. When I heard the smack of the bat and the announcer say,"and he fouled it back," I would look to the heavens of the stadium roof. If it entered in "my" territory, I would chase it down as it bounced off, around and through the maze of cars in the parking lot. I would retrieve it and return it for batting practice the next day.

I rotated three games around the outside of the stadium and the real cherries on the soda were the two games I got to sit in the bullpens - first in the visitor's bullpen and the second game with the home team. I sat and listened to ball players who were on their way up or down to baseball chain and run down foul balls and return them to the batboy (Nobody liked him, he was a bit of a snot).

I learned much that summer. I learned not to ever mess with somebody nicknamed "Lightnin'," (my first black eye) and I learned my arm would never take me higher than the Pee Wee league in baseball. I remember the sound of the ball hitting the stadium top and the smell of a leather glove. I remember thinking, way back then that, "This is pretty cool, maybe next year I can be a scoreboard boy." When I smell hot roasted peanuts or popcorn today, I think of Buff Stadium.

I made $1.50 a game and it is duly noted yearly on my social security form that I paid $3.20 to Uncle Sam that year.

It was indeed heaven on earth for me, back then in 1960.