Friday morning, I took a baseball road trip starting in Harlingen (Texas) with the goal of reaching San Antonio (TX) later in the day. I had worked in Harlingen for a few days and had another campaign scheduled in San Antonio set for the first of this week. Instead of flying (don’t get me started), I got the greenlight from my manager to drive from Harlingen to San Antonio. So, I took to Google Maps and located some cool baseball spots along the way that wouldn’t take me too far off course. Friday was a beautiful, sunny, 80 plus degree day and the conditions for a road trip were nearly perfect. Here is how it went, what I saw, and what I experienced in my South Texas Baseball Road Trip.

Driving west to go north on Route 2, I passed through cities like La Feria, Mercedes, and McAllen. Also, the exit to drive to Mexico via the Reynosa International Bridge before heading north on Route 69C. My first stop was the City of Edinburg and the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley or UTRGV. When I pulled into the baseball and sports conditioning complex, the sun was just about to hit its stride and the heat of South Texas was approaching 90 degrees. And as my luck would have it, the stadium was open.

UTRGV Baseball Team plays in the Southland Conference of the NCAA’s Division I. Their team mascot/nickname is the Vaqueros. They have been playing in this current stadium since 2002. When I visited the UTRGV Baseball Stadium on Friday morning, I observed an absolutely beautiful baseball park. I walked around the stadium from left field to right field and behind home plate and into the concession stand area. Here are a few photos I snapped along the way.

The stadium featured plenty of traditional bleacher seats in the outfield fan spots as well as stadium style seats behind home plate. From what I could observe, there were grassy areas for picnic style seating on either foul pole seating areas as well. I loved the shade options for fans, who like me, would absolutely bake in the hot South Texas sun. Tons of great seats and some with shade options to see some great UTRGV baseball.

The field conditions, the concession stand area, the seats, the field – wow, everything looked amazing and in ready to play and watch condition. After touring the stadium inside, I set my sights on the front of the stadium to check out any cool statues, plaques or monuments. I quickly found what I was looking for in a number of tributes to former UTRGV Coach Al Ogletree.

According to his bio on the UTRGV Baseball page, Coach Al Ogletree coached the Vaqueros Baseball team for 29 incredible seasons. “Coach Al” skippered the UTRGV team from 1968-1997 and won just shy of 1,100 wins. Ogletree’s legacy continues in Major League Baseball as he is responsible for tons of players and coaches who have made their marks in professional baseball. Coach Al is a member of several Texas baseball Halls of Fame including: the Austin High School Hall of Fame, the Texas Sports Hall of Fame, and the Rio Grande Valley Sports Hall of Fame. Al Ogletree, a UTRGV legend, honored with an impressive statue in front of the main gate at UTRGV Baseball Stadium.

As I walked from the front gate area back to my rental car, I spotted a huge sports and conditioning center on my left, with athletes going in and out on a busy Friday morning. I snagged a few more photos from the parking lot before closing the books for the day at UTRGV. I looked up my next destination, University of Texas A&M – Kingsville and Nolan Ryan Baseball Field. And with that I was off from Edinburg heading north to Kingsville.

It was a fantastic visit to the University of Texas at Rio Grande Valley in Edinburg, Texas. The UTRGV Vaqueros have a beautiful baseball stadium and complex and I just loved walking around the concourse to check out the cool views. The weather was hot, the sun was shining brightly, and I was so psyched to have some early success on my Friday South Texas Baseball Road Trip. Overall, it was an incredible Edinburg baseball experience visiting the University of Texas at Rio Grande Valley Vaqueros Baseball Stadium.