Robert Gamboa remembers having one burning desire during the sizzling summer nights of 1957, when he was 12: watching baseball.

He’d finish his shift at his first job as a dishwasher at Monterrey Cafe in the Greenway shopping center and ride his bike to Katy Park.

The ballfield was host each summer to a three-weekend series of the Texas Colored Baseball League Championships, where 24 teams with major-league talent competed in minor-league parks.

Gamboa was a fan of black baseball, and, much to the chagrin of his folks, he said, he’d indulge his passion by staying out until 1 or 2 a.m. to catch his sports heroes in action.

“Baseball was king after World War II,” he said, calling it the primary source of entertainment for his generation.

Gamboa will be offering his fan’s perspective and his research into the Negro Baseball League’s Lone Star connections at a nostalgic program saluting the league.

The tribute will be from 6:30-8 p.m. Thursday in the multipurpose room at Doris Miller YMCA, 1020 Elm St.

Sponsored by the Waco History Project, the free public presentation will be conducted like an “open forum.”

Organizers hope that local residents will comb through their own memories for tales to share of great baseball personalities and plays, and even dig through their closets and attics for photographs or other paraphernalia from the days of the great tournaments.

History behind park

Katy Park, which opened in 1925, was located at the corner of Eighth Street and Webster Avenue, near the Cotton Palace Fair Grounds.

History was made there — the first night game in Texas took place at Katy Park between the Kansas City Monarchs and Waco (Black) Cardinals under the Monarchs’ portable light system on May 5, 1930.

The Missouri squad was famed for pioneering night ball games five years before the majors took to the practice. The Monarchs clobbered the home team, by the way, 8-0.

Gamboa said the program is timed, in part, to play into the baseball fever sure to be generated by the 2010 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, set for 7 p.m. Tuesday.

The local program also falls on the same day the U.S. Postal Service will release a stamp honoring the Negro League players at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City.

The two-part se-tenant (side-by-side) stamp depicts, on the left half, a player sliding into home plate; on the right, a portrait of Andrew “Rube” Foster (1879-1930), claimed as a native son of Calvert.

In 1920, Foster founded the Negro National League, the first successful league of black teams. Nicknamed “Rube” after defeating white pitcher George Edward “Rube” Waddell in a 1902 contest, Foster is considered the father of black baseball.

Challenging stereotypes

The stamps pay tribute to the all-black professional baseball leagues that operated from 1920 until the early 1960s. The leagues drew some of the greatest athletes ever to grace the diamond and challenged racist notions of white athletic superiority.

Gamboa said he also hopes to introduce attendees to the story of Andy Cooper (1898-1941), a Waco-born sensation.

Cooper played nine seasons for the Detroit Stars and ten seasons for the Kansas City Monarchs. He also managed the Monarchs from 1928-40, winning the pennant four times. He holds the Negro League career record for saves, at 29. Cooper, who was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006, is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in East Waco.

Additional sources: NLBM.com, PitchBlackBaseball.com, baseball.suite101.com, NLBPA.com, BaseballHall.org, baseball-fever.com