Picking up where I left off, Part 3 – Whataburger Field, after one or two last views of the beautiful New Harbor Bridge and Whataburger Field, I set my GPS for one last baseball stop. The Town of Refugio, Texas sits about 50 miles or so from Corpus Christi. And from the makeup of the buildings and structures in Refugio vs. the massive industrial look of Corpus Christi, the two Texas locations could not have been any different appearance wise. I entered Refugio around mid afternoon, drove through the town in about 5 minutes looking for any sign or plaque or mention of the great Nolan Ryan. And unfortunately, I struck out.

However, I did find a nice baseball field just off the main road in town, Refugio Baseball Field on W Jeter St. Jeter and Ryan, two of MLB’s all-time greats right there in Refugio, sort of. I stopped for a moment to take a few photos and then looked up Ryan’s time in Refugio to see if it warranted a statue or museum. Turns out, from his many bios online, The Ryan Family moved from Refugio to Alvin, Texas where Nolan played Little League, went to Alvin High School and basically spent most of his childhood years. Okay, we’ll chalk this one up for not doing a ton of research. No problem, I can tell people I stepped foot in the town where Nolan Ryan was born. Totally worth the drive, plus it was on my way north to San Antonio.

The actual highlight of the Refugio trip was a few miles back in Woodsboro, Texas. I stopped in and had an amazing lunch at the Frosty 50’s Diner. Chocolate shake, BLT with mayo, and a tall Sprite hit the absolute spot on my road trip. The Frosty was the final stop of my Friday road trip, as I zeroed in on my final destination, San Antonio, Texas.

So, from Harlingen through Mercedes and La Feria and McAllen to Edinburg and the University of Texas at Rio Grande Valley. And from Edinburg through ranches and checkpoints and massive acres of farms to the University of Texas A&M – Kingsville and Nolan Ryan Field. And from Kingsville east through oil refineries, factories, industrial plants to Corpus Christi and Whataburger Field. And from Corpus Christi to the Town of Refugio, then back to the Woodsboro, then north to San Antonio. From Harlingen to San Antonio, I had a memorable Friday Texas Baseball Road Trip visiting four amazing baseball experiences and here are some of the photos recapping my trip west, north, northeast, east, then north again.

Overall, it was an incredible Texas baseball experience traveling major highways, town streets, and rural roads that covered about 375 miles, about 8 hours of time, and filled me with a ton of positive baseball vibes. Texas, you are amazing and huge and full of amazing baseball experiences.