Five decades ago, when the Austin Packers were the hottest summer ticket in the city, it wasn’t always easy to be a baseball player from Austin.

Tuesday, April 11, 2000

Five decades ago, when the Austin Packers were the hottest summer ticket in the city, it wasn’t always easy to be a baseball player from Austin.

It was unlikely you’d be able to crack the roster of the Packers, who Emil Scheid built and maintained using mostly imported players of some pedigree or another.

Ron Plath remembers one local boy who broke the mold – Austin-raised player Bob Beckel.

"You should have heard the crowds boo him," Plath said. "He was a good second baseman too.

"But the Austin fans came out to see guys like Moose Skowron."

Plath is part of a core group that is helping – and hoping – to revive the tradition of the Austin Packers.

In reality, the new Packers – formerly the Austin Greyhounds – will be a far cry from those old Packers.

The new Packers won’t be paid. They won’t be fitted with the plumbing jobs Scheid handed his talented, transplanted players. And it’s unlikely crowds will line the Marcusen Park fences two or three people deep in support of the Packers.

In fact, these new Packers will have much more in common with the Austin Blues, a town team that was a contemporary of the Packers, but made up of mostly local, less marketable talent.

The disparity between the Blues and Packers was such that they rarely – if ever – played each other.

Despite the differences between the new Packers and their past, there is one basic similarity that will serve them well.

Like the Packers of old, the coming Packers will be made up of adult baseball players, many of whom played college baseball.

There is a market for adult-played baseball in Austin.

For all their battles with overhead costs, even the now-defunct Southern Minny Stars proved that.

Though the Stars never drew the numbers they needed to survive – some 700 fans per game – they did draw.

There is a healthy love affair between Austinites and their adult baseball.

Beginning April 30, the Austin Packers will try to play to that love affair.

And, I, for one, promise to be there to affectionately boo them and cry, "We want Moose …

"but we’ll take yous guys."

Brady Slater’s column appears Tuesdays.