At the turn of the 20th century, baseball fever captivated Waco, whose leaders chose farming lot #13 at Eighth Street and Webster Avenue near the MKT rail line as the site for a ballpark on land owned by local businessman Alfred Abeel. Designed by former baseball player and entrepreneur Henry Fabian, who came to Waco in 1904 to manage and co-own the Waco Tigers, Katy Park became central to the city’s baseball life as the Tigers and Fabian helped overturn legislation outlawing Sunday baseball. The Tigers struggled financially, and the park sometimes lacked a home team, but in 1925 the Galveston Cubs became the Waco Cubs, who hosted the New York Yankees in a 1929 exhibition game in which Babe Ruth hit a line drive over the right field fence, struck a boy in the crowd, then went to check on him and gave him an autographed baseball. The Cubs left in 1930, and Waco gained the Pirates three years later. Because baseball was still segregated, Katy Park hosted both white and black teams, and its first night game was played in May 1930 between the Negro League’s Kansas City Monarchs and the Waco Black Cardinals. Jesse Owens and Joe Lewis held events there in 1946 and 1950, the ballpark was destroyed in a powerful 1953 tornado and later rebuilt, the Pirates remained until 1955, and the last baseball games there, part of a statewide tournament of African American teams, were played in June 1965 before the park was eventually torn down, leaving an enduring place in Waco’s sports and cultural legacy.