San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Mystery photos recall short-lived Bullets team
A short stack of black-andwhite photos of baseball players turned up with another client’s pictures from the now-defunct Cones Studio — as happened a few years ago with the misplaced photo of a pretty little girl that found its way home to its subject, Angela Paez, as detailed in this column, April 28, 2018.
Angela’s picture was taken in 1969. The 36 posed photos of athletes and related subjects — with some duplicates — had to have been taken in 1963 or 1964, because the smiling, confident ballplayers were wearing the uniform of the San Antonio Bullets, a team that only existed by that name for two years.
David King, former ExpressNews sportswriter and author of “San Antonio at Bat: Professional Baseball in the Alamo City” identified them as photos from a program. But why the prints never made it back to the ballclub before the studio closed in 1973 remains a mystery … as does why there are so many of one player.
The once-and-future San Antonio Missions — our city’s longtime Texas League team — reappeared one spring with a new name to go with their new affiliation. The minor-league team had been switched from the Chicago Cubs to the Houston Colt .45s (later the Astros).
The proto-Astros were then a National League expansion team that bought the Missions after their 1962 season. One of their first moves, wrote King in his book, “was to come up with a new nickname befitting an affiliate of the state’s first big-league team.”
On the theme of “ammunition for the Colt .45s,” the “.22s” and the “BBs” were suggested, but the Bullets found the mark, setting off speculation among local sportswriters that the owners might regret that choice when headlines inevitably started referring to firing duds or shooting blanks on an off night.
One of the lost photos shows a display of action photos on a latticed triptych, headed with a sign for the San Antonio Bullets and including a holder labeled “Schedules — Take one.” This might have been a promotion, at Mission Stadium or elsewhere, for a Meet the Bullets event held April 18, 1963. At this preview, fans could watch their minorleague team work out as well as take in a game between Trinity University and the Lackland AFB Warhawks, with concessions said to be sold at cost (nickel Cokes and popcorn, dime hot dogs and 20-cent beer).
The team had more going for it than cheap refreshments. Houston’s owner, Judge Roy Hofheinz, a media magnate and developer of projects including the Astrodome, had deep pockets, and the Bullets were packed with Texas League All-Stars and future Major League players. The team’s first year in Mission Stadium, repainted and remodeled for a fresh start was a good one.
“The 1963 Bullets were good enough to bring home the city’s first first-place finish in 55 years, topping the standings with a 79-61 finish,” King wrote.
On the eve of the team’s second season, manager Lou Fitzgerald was “building a team that features better than average speed, a fine defense and emphasis on the hit and run,” reported the San Antonio Light, April 9, 1964.
The backbone of that defense was the double-play combination of shortstop Sonny Jackson and second baseman Joe Morgan.
The latter, said King, became the most valuable player in the Texas
League in 1964, went on to play for the Astros and the Cincinnati Reds and was named to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Neither appears among the Bullets photos from Cones Studio, so they might have been taken for the 1963 season.
By contrast, there was Clint Courtney, six copies of whose photo are included in the mystery prints. The bespectacled Courtney, player-coach and backup catcher, had a deceptively scholarly appearance.
Known as “Scrap Iron” or “Scraps,” which can’t have meant anything good, King describes Courtney as bald, short and squat, “with an almost incomprehensible Cajun accent.” One of his contemporaries remembered him as “a real character, up to something all the time.” He could carry on insufferably to his teammates about his longpast days in the Major League.
Still, the other players were so good the Bullets won a second championship in 1964 — the first back-to-back Texas League wins in eight years. Excellence didn’t translate into fans in seats, though, and Hofheinz sold the unprofitable, winning team. Their former ballpark near Mitchell Road, said King, “stood empty from their last game in 1964 — Clint Courtney’s last behind the plate — until it was torn down in 1974.
The current accidental owner of the Bullets photos, who doesn’t wish to be named, would like to donate them either to someone with a better claim on them or to an appropriate archive. To offer them a good home, contact this column.