World Series Dream Comes True For Minor Leaguer

Oct. 6, 1946, was the biggest day of his baseball career for Tommy McBride, as he started in right field for the Boston Red Sox in Game One of the World Series.

Six years after the birth of their only child in 1914, the McBrides moved to Wolfe City just inside neighboring Hunt County. In high school Tommy proved he was a natural athlete by earning four letters each in football, basketball, baseball, and track.

The manager of the semipro baseball team in nearby Bonham walked into the drug store, where the teenager was working as a soda jerk in the summer of 1933, and asked if he would like to make a little extra money playing ball. Tommy said sure and volunteered to bring along a few friends.

Four boys from Wolfe City showed up right on schedule at the Bonham fair grounds on the Fourth of July. After Tommy drove in the game-winning run, his host passed the hat among the appreciative spectators. Pocketing his share of the hundred-dollar kitty, the excited youth decided then and there, “Baseball is for me!”

Tommy spent the next summer at shortstop for the Bonham nine. A traveling scout for the Chicago White Sox was so impressed by the six-footer