Photograph of Dudley Dome post-construction courtesy of El Paso Chihuahuas Phoenix would deadlock at 2 all with 2 games left to play. They had gotten this far the previous season before El Paso surged ahead with 2 victories to win the finals at 4 games to 2. 1950 would prove to be déjà vu, as El Paso once again picked up the last two in a row and took Phoenix out by the same 4 game to 2 margin for their 2nd straight Az-Tex League Championship and the 5th for Dudley Field. El Paso was |
feeling invincible and an Arizona-Texas League "three-peat" was on everyone's
mind. The league however was going through some major changes and decided in
the off season to merge with the Sunset League and create the new "Southwest
International League". The new 10 team SIL was made up of 5 Az-Tex League teams
from: El Paso, Juarez, Phoenix, Tucson and Bisbee-Douglas while the Sunset League
brought in 5 of their franchises from El Centro, Mexicali, Las Vegas, Tucson,
Tijuana, and Yuma. The league had a varying degree of success with only one
team breaking the 100k mark... the El Paso Texans at 104,000. The Texans would
continue on as a co-op franchise in this new league but were stellar in their playing
featuring not only their best hitter in Ramon Vargas (new record 46 2B beating
Hector Lara's 44, 15 3B, 5 HR, and an amazing .377) but two of the three
best pitchers in the league in Gustavo Bello (25-13, 4.67) and the fantastic Bill
Stites (29-9, 4.14) who would own the all time wins record for this stadium.
Art Lilly also returned to form with 45 2B, 11 3B, 12 HR and a .367. The El Paso
Texans took first place by 1 game finishing with an 88-56 record (.611) for
yet another truly remarkable season. However with the way the league's playoff
system was set up, the Texans were nowhere to be found once the finals came and
an amazing season went by the books without a whimper. With that the Arizona-Texas
League decided that they were better off on their own and broke away from
the league after only one season, taking back Juarez, El Paso, Phoenix, Tucson
and Bisbee Douglas. They also added a new team from Chihuahua to make up for the
loss of the Globe-Miami Browns who they dropped altogether. They would also
drop their playoff system with the Championship, simply going to the 1st place
team. That was unfortunate for El Paso as they would come in 2nd despite another
amazing season from Ramon Vargas who led the league in RBI's with 143 while batting
.339 with 38 2B, 7 2B and 7 HR. The Texans would aslo see some power return
to the lineup in yet another phenomenal season by Art Lilly (36 2B, 10 3B,
25 HR, .369) and Ventura Morales (35 2B, 12 3B, 21 HR, .338). The Az-Tex League
had become such a "hitters league" that Alton Lee put up a 14-5 record despite
a horrible 6.54 ERA and even Jorge Aguilar finished above .500 with a 12-11 despite
a skyrocketing 7.22. By 1953, Art Lilly (who had been managing the team along
with blasting home runs), had moved on to take over the Mexicali franchise
and while Ventura Morales returned to hit 20 HR again (27 2B, 10 3B, 20 HR, .308),
the rest of the team sunk into oblivion behind some truly awful pitching (i.e.Kenneth
Yoke went 0-7 with an 8.52). Not even Rex Cecil (21-12, 4.27) could
save the team from finishing 20 games under .500. Their fall in the standings
was starting to show at the gate as they drew only 52k in 1953... down 50,000,
and half of what they had drawn the season before. |