UTA Archives/Star-Telegram Collection
Chris Gilbert's most valuable contribution to the Braves franchise might have been this promotional photograph.
Phil Luebbehusen still recalls fondly the ultimate perk supplementing his $125 weekly salary as a member of the Fort Worth Braves.
“Tommy Mercer was a great guy,” Luebbehusen says over the phone. “His most endearing quality was he owned beer distributorships. So, we got all the beer we could drink.”
Beer goes a long way in meeting essential human needs.
That might have been better than the check, though $125 wasn’t just chump change in those days. That’s slightly more than $1,000 today.
But the anecdote provides a taste of what life was like with the Braves, Fort Worth’s minor-league professional football team owned by Mercer, a notable Fort Worth businessman.
The team played three full seasons, between 1968-70. All of its home games were played at Farrington Field. A fourth season, its last season played at Handley Field, was cut short after five games, financial feasibility having done it in.
The life of the Braves was very much like a wandering college student — or graduate — trying to find his way.
The Braves played in three leagues, beginning with the Continental Football League, which folded in 1969. In 1970, the remaining teams formed the Texas Football League, and the 1971 season, ended abruptly after five games because it was increasingly more difficult to keep the lights turned on, was played under the banner of the Trans-American Football League.
Teams competing came from Dallas, San Antonio, Texarkana, Odessa, and Mexico City, among other locales. Norm Hitzges, the renowned Dallas-Fort Worth sports talk show host and commentator, was the kicker for San Antonio’s Toros.
“We were all a lot of fun loving guys who just loved to play football,” says Luebbehusen, a Fort Worth native and Eastern Hills High School graduate. “We'd have done it for free. When you look at this portal deal and everything that's going on in college football, you go, ‘Golly, what an idiot I was.’ I was willing to do this for nothing. But, you know, for a college kid, all the beer you could drink … .”
Luebbehusen actually didn’t play college football. A student at TCU, he tried to walk on the Horned Frogs football team but was cut by freshman coach Fred Taylor.
Luebbehusen instead later attended an open tryout with the Braves.
“I had several friends that were interested in doing it and we all went out. And I guess initially we were the best that were there.”
Though he couldn't say for sure, Luebbehusen estimated that maybe a third of the roster from 1968-70 was like him with no college playing experience. He played defensive back and some linebacker for three seasons.
The big boss was Mercer, a former track scholarship athlete at TCU who also was on the school’s basketball team.
Mercer inherited the family business, Mercer Trucking, and built it into a 32-corporation conglomerate consisting of ranching, oil, transportation, and interests in pipelines, pipe yards, drilling, insurance, and advertising companies.
And beer, of course. His business interests included the Falstaff and Miller beer distributorships in Fort Worth.
And sports.
UTA Archives/Star-Telegram Collection
David Smith signs a contract with the San Francisco 49ers, with Tommy Mercer, center, and Braves coach John Hatley joining him.
With Lamar Hunt, Mercer was part-owner of the Dallas-Fort Worth Spurs. Mercer and Hunt were the leading voices, along with Tom Vandergriff, in bringing Major League Baseball to Fort Worth-Dallas, almost landing the Seattle Pilots in the late 1960s.
Mercer was also an ally in Hunt’s intention to make the Dallas Texans the Dallas-Fort Worth Texans. Hunt planned to make the change, he said, as soon as a stadium could become available in between the two cities.
The Texans even opened an office in Fort Worth on the West Freeway, not far from Montgomery Street.
That obviously never happened. The area wasn’t big enough for both the Cowboys and Texans, who moved to Kansas City and became the Chiefs. Both iterations of the franchise played exhibition games at Farrington Field.
Mercer took over the minor-league Fort Worth Texans, which played at Birdville Stadium and later Turnpike Stadium. He rebranded them the Braves, with colors red and gold, and cut a deal with the Fort Worth school district to play at Farrington Field for $2,500 a game.
The Braves moniker and their colors, in fact, represented a very loose affiliation with the Chiefs.
The highlight of the Braves’ franchise was the acquisition of Texas All-American running back Chris Gilbert, at the time the all-time leading rusher in the Southwest Conference.
He was also the New York Jets’ fifth pick in 1969, yet, news spread like a rumor on social media that Gilbert was interested in playing for the Braves. Throngs, reasonable all of them, wanted to know why a player of this caliber wanted to play for the Braves.
“There are many small reasons for my wanting to play in Fort Worth,” he told reporters.
The primary reason was school. He said he was 12 hours short of graduating UT and could commute to class from Fort Worth. Two, and perhaps most importantly, if he wasn’t in school, he would lose his draft deferment. School beat the hell out of all-inclusive trip to Vietnam.
Mercer won Gilbert’s services, paying him a reported $18,000, or almost $150,000 today.
At his first practice at Rockwood Park, Gilbert attracted 250 onlookers, far more than any other previous Braves practice. Mercer had turnstiles turning in his head.
“I honestly believe we’ll be successful this season. And that my initial investment will be returned. After that I hope to use the team as a source of revenue for charity and service organizations. This is my community. I make my living here and I think it only right that the team should be an integral part of the community.”
In addition to Gilbert, Mercer also signed Greg Lott and Danny Abbott, both former UT players. In 1970, Mercer flirted with signing star UT quarterback James Street. (An aside: Frank Goodish, aka wrestler Bruiser Brody, also played with the Braves. He had played at West Texas State, today West Texas A&M.)
Gilbert never worked out. He also never played a down in the NFL.
Staying true to his word, he stayed in school, showing up only on Friday walkthroughs and games on Saturday, Luebbehusen recalls.
“He had an orange Corvette, I remember that,” Luebbehusen says. “Plus, I mean, nothing against his talent, but he was fairly small for a running back and not as fast as you'd think.
“Because he didn't practice with us, we never got to know him that well. There was never any resentment, not on our part, because he was making so much more money than we were.”
The Braves, however, did have the league’s leading rusher that season in 1969, which ended in a disappointing 5-7 record. It was James Walker, a hometown guy who graduated from Dunbar High School and went off for two years to play at Santa Barbara College.
He was biding his time until he was eligible for the NFL Draft.
“Sure I would like to go up,” Walker told reporters. “I’m not particular about teams, just the one that pays me the most money.”
Naturally.
Walker eventually got his shot with the New England Patriots, but he didn’t make it.
Another guy in that backfield was Gene Thomas, who joined the team after being cut by the Chiefs.
“He was by far the best running back I've ever seen,” Luebbehusen says of Thomas. “But it was fun. It was the most fun I ever had playing football and a lot of good guys and some pretty talented guys. I mean, you wonder, God, how good must the NFL be if these guys couldn't make it.”
