Rene Torres: Preserving and Articulating the History of Rio Grande Valley Baseball

Rene Torres

In July of 2011 Nena and I heard a mesmerizing lecture at the Brownsville Heritage Museum by Rene Torres, weaving south Texas baseball through the history of Brownsville.  The link below directs you to the first of three videos taken with Nena's camera: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puMM8HiNQvw

Mr. Torres was recognized in the fall of 2015 issue of the Journal West in the article "Latinos and Sports in the American West." 

Torres was also mentioned in the book "Mexican-American Baseball in the Alamo Region."  

Alberto Rodriquez, PhD., Assistant Professor at Texas A&M Kingsville wrote the following about Torres:  

"If anyone can be called 'Mr. Baseball,' it is Rene Torres, who played centerfield for Pan American College in Edinburg, Texas from 1966-69.  Torres is a scholar of all south Texas sports and has singlehandedly recovered the history of baseball on the Texas borderlands."

Torres was inducted into the Rio Grande Valley Sports Hall of Fame in 2007 and was a University of Texas Pan American Friends of the Library Notable Hispanic Honoree in 2002. He also received the Jefferson Award for Public Service for community and humanitarian work.