Volts Charge Into Texas
After a four-team barnstorming season in 2025, the Athletes Unlimited Softball League is set to start its second season with six teams, including one in Texas.
The Texas Volts will return and play their home games at Dell Diamond in Round Rock and join teams based in Chicago; Durham, North Carolina; Oklahoma City; Portland, Oregon; and Salt Lake City.
“Texas is synonymous with softball excellence at every level,” said Kim Ng, the league’s commissioner.
The Volts start their 25-game season June 9 in Oklahoma City. Their first home game is June 18 against the Utah Talons.
Worth Repeating
“We have simply got to make people aware that none of us are free until we’re all free, and we aren’t free yet.”
—Opal Lee
Texas’ Beef With the Brits
As Americans prepare to celebrate our nation’s 250th birthday in July, we note that this month marks the anniversary of Texas’ involvement in the Revolutionary War, peripheral as Texas was to that important fight.
The Spanish empire, which at that time included the territory that is now Texas, declared war on Britain on June 21, 1779, thus throwing in with the revolting colonists.
Between 1779 and 1782, some 10,000 Texas cattle were delivered to Louisiana to feed Spanish forces.
Under the Weather
A most unthinkable event occurred June 15, 1976, when the Houston Astrodome experienced a rainout.
The world’s first domed stadium, considered weatherproof when it opened in 1965, was unreachable after up to 10.5 inches of rain fell in the area 50 years ago this month. The field was dry and playable, and both teams had arrived hours before game time—and about 20 fans made it in—but the game’s umpires waded back to a hotel after their car stalled in high water.
With the game called off, Astrodome concession workers set up a buffet and tables on the field, and the Astros and Pittsburgh Pirates ate dinner together.
