1928 July 4 Brownsville Tigers

I'm going to begin with the "M" written at the bottom center and say this might indicate photographer Manuel Morales took this photo.  By 1928 Robert Runyon was probably lost in his botanical studies. Morales and Rogers Studio and another called Alex Studio emerged as the next generation of local studio photographers.

This motley crew of ball players are all wearing different uniforms because they had experience playing for other local semi-pro teams; with the exception of maybe the first two players.

I'm going to make a story up about this and since I'm just a folklorist that should keep any snotty historians off my ass for being irresponsible but I'll make it as believable as I can.  There will be some truth to it.

The first player has a uniform with "Snake King" written on it.  What we know for sure is that his last name was Santiago, or was it his first name?  It doesn't matter.  He played ball for the Brownsville High School all-star champs in 1925 and was idolized by the second player wearing his B.H.S. sweater and cap.  That's Joseph King whose adopted Dad was none other than William Abraham "Snake" King.

One day Joseph asked the Snake King if Snakeville could have its very own baseball team.  W.A. King knew nothing about baseball but if there was money or free advertisement to be made from it he was interested.  Joseph relayed how Santiago's heroic playing led his team to the championship in high school and that would eventually lead to big wins for the team if Joe, a ball player himself, was also on the team.  From this photo we can ascertain that at ol' W.A. King shelled out a few bucks to have a tailor made uniform for Santiago.  Joseph and W.A.King Jr (seated) recruited a few players they had scouted the previous season and got them together for this historic photo taken on July 4, 1928.

Note Santiago's uniform says "Snake King" in cross-form rather than "Tigers" or a "T".  W.A. King was better known for selling snakes and other wild animals, most of which were caught locally such as javalinas and horned toads but if you wanted monkeys or parrots he could get that also.  Special orders from Africa bought lions and tigers but no baseball team would do-well to call itself the "Brownsville Snakes" would it?  In the upper valley they already had a team called the "Mercedes Lions" [which would have been their first logical choice if they want to have an intimidating name] so this team ended up with the "Tigers" once it became official and written on the photo.

1922 photo of Mercedes Lions.  Photo credit:  Rene Torres

I'll leave the real history to Rene Torres who contributed the truth-part to this story and adds that this team was sponsored by W.A. "Snake" King into the 1940's and they gave other valley teams a run for their bases.  They were also managed by Adolfo Arguijo who was a draft pick for the Yankees in 1923 but didn't quite make the grade.  Had he been chosen to play he might have been the first hombre with Mexican blood to play with the pros.

* Thanks to Brownsville Station Facebook page member who sent this but whose name I misplaced *