The Texas League didn't have a formal logo, a Hall of Fame to honor its past greats or a playoff format that was in line with the Major League Baseball agreement when Tom Kayser took over in 1992.
Correcting those shortcomings are counted as positives by Kayser during his nearly 25-year tenure as president of the Texas League, which competes in Class AA and includes the Arkansas Travelers and Northwest Arkansas Naturals among its eight teams
Kayser is taking his final tour of Texas League parks before retirement after this season, and on Friday night at Dickey-Stephens Park in North Little Rock, he reflected on his years leading the league before watching a doubleheader between the Arkansas Travelers and Tulsa Drillers.
The Travs and Drillers are two of the four franchises that have been in the Texas League throughout Kayser's tenure.
It was an era that included a proliferation of new stadiums and an ability to maintain a presence in some of the regions' key markets. The new parks, which have sprouted in all eight Texas League cities since 1994, also highlight the biggest change Kayser has seen in 25 years.
"What we've evolved to from a mom-and-pop operation and the ballparks that we could get into because they were there, into cities fighting to have this business in their community," Kayser said . "The amount of money being spent on ballparks is just mind boggling."
Dickey-Stephens, built for about $28 million and opened in 2007, is one of the eight parks Kayser has seen from planning to completion. It moved the Travelers from Little Rock to North Little Rock, but kept them in central Arkansas and a part of a league they've been in since 1966.
Kayser, 64, recalled Friday that he was never concerned about the possibility of losing central Arkansas as a Texas League tenant, despite a period of uncertainty in the final years of Ray Winder Field. Kayser credited former general manager Bill Valentine, who died last year, and a fan-owned structure that kept the Travs from the same fate as Wichita, Shreveport, El Paso and Jackson.
"Bill Valentine had kept baseball alive here for so long. He was not going to let this fail," Kayser said.
Even if it had, Kayser said he doesn't think it would have been long before a new team moved in.
"It's unlike Jackson and Shreveport in that its economy is better than either of those, it's bigger than either of those," he said. "So, no, there was never any thought."
The Texas League is once again facing uncertainty with regard to one of its bedrock cities as Kayser departs.
San Antonio, which has had a team in the Texas League for all but a handful of years since 1888, could end up moving as some local leaders push for a new downtown stadium and a Class AAA team. If it happens, then the Missions would have to relocate, possibly to Amarillo, which once had a Texas League team and has a local organization pushing for a new downtown stadium, too.
"I think the city is short-sighted," Kayser said of San Antonio, where he is based. "They want Triple-A baseball, because it's a higher grade of baseball. But they don't understand that the better grade of baseball might be the Double-A."
Kayser tells an amusing story of how the Arkansas Naturals came into being when the Wichita Wranglers were looking to move about 10 years ago.
Kayser said Friday he remembers getting a phone call from a local organizer urging him to consider Springdale. To be polite, Kayser said he listened to the caller, but didn't think it was very promising.
"It was like 'Springdale, Arkansas?'" he said.
But Kayser remembers researching information on the business community and population figures, then phoning the ownership group of the Wranglers. About six months later, the Wranglers were moving to Springdale, where they have been ever since.
Putting a club in Springdale has doubled Kayser's trips to Arkansas each summer. He said he'll miss them as his business with the league winds down, mostly his trips to local art galleries and lunch at restaurants in The Heights.
"I'm going to save a lot of money by not coming to Little Rock," Kayser said. "Those are fond memories. I'm not going to dwell on it, but this will become what my life used to be, and I hope to have fun with the next stage."
Sports on 07/23/2016