[austintilIdie]

Don't rule out people traveling to see games. Long before the Round Rock Express turned over dirt at the Dell Diamond site. Compelled by a deep thirst for the game my father, I and friends regularly traveled to San Antonio in the summer afternoons/evenings to see the Double A San Antonio Missions (as early as 1990 give or take) when they played at St. Mary's VJ Keefe Stadium and at Nelson Wolff Stadium from 1994 onwards. The Missions were affliliated with LA Dodgers (1977-2000) at the time, whose farm system was known to be very productive. Orel Hershiser, Eric Karros, Mike Piazza, Paul LoDuca, Paul Konerko, Ramon Martinez, Pedro Martinez, Alex Cora, Chan Ho Park were among the players who donned Missions jerseys over the years.

Of course Austin baseball fans were not a big substantial portion of the Missions fan base...but before the Express, the Missions were the only pro baseball team in Central Texas.. within an hour, hour and a half of Austin. Either way, if SA or Austin lands a MLB team down the line, fans from either city will attend....because it beats taking the time to go to Houston or Arlington. My only hope is that of Austin gets a team at some point, we do it right.