Did you know? • Major league stars Manny Mota, and Jose Tartabull, and Hall of Fame pitcher Gaylord Perry first played in South Texas. The Rio Grande Valley was once the spring training home of the St. Louis Cardinals. • Before starring for the New York Giants of the National Football League, Kyle Rote played baseball for the Corpus Christi Aces. From 1910 to 1977, the remote, sparsely populated, and rugged Rio Grande was a hotbed of minor league baseball. Introduced by soldiers stationed along the Texas border with Mexico in the late 1800s, the sport grew quickly among the mainly Hispanic population. Eleven minor leagues grew and flourished from Corpus Christi south to the Rio Grande Valley. And though all but one of those leagues are gone, their history is as saucy and lively as anything in the majors, with incredible performances, startling scandals, superstars bound for glory, and more. A fascinating read for any baseball fan, Ghost Leagues is a season-by-season account of minor league baseball played in the rough land along the country’s southernmost border.