Exhibition Games

This page is dedicated to exhibition games and neutral site games in the history of the CBL.

This image comes from Mary Matusik, mother of former Blue Thunder player John Matusik.  It is from the 2007 exhibition games which were played in Kileen, Texas prior to the official start of the league.  The games took place the weekend before the 2007 season started in May, 2007.

We also found an article promoting the 2007 three-game exhibition series before the first season started.  Here is a link to that article:  http://kdhnews.com/sports/baseball-league-to-make-killeen-debut/article_7e87f6a5-2ea2-576c-bfe6-ccc86dad9314.html

We also found some information about the “Sweetwater Pro Baseball Classic” which took place in 2009.  It was a neutral site for a four-game, regular season series between the Coastal Kingfish and the South Louisiana Pipeliners.  Both teams were “travel” teams (for the most part), so they often played at neutral sites when facing each other during the 2009 season.  Here are some articles of interest:

  • June 16, 2009 Sweetwater Reporter article (archived by UNT.edu) which promoted the series (click here)
  • Wikipedia article about Newman Field in Sweetwater with a mention of the June 2009 series (click here)
  • A PDF recapping the box scores and highlights from the series in Sweetwater: 2009 CBL Sweetwater Texas series

Here is a news article about an exhibition game which was played in 2007 at Fireman’s Park in Brenham, Texas featuring the Texas Heat:  http://www.chron.com/neighborhood/article/Steinkamp-is-playing-pro-baseball-9634107.php

Thank you to Andrew Dunn, founder of the Pecos League, for information about a 2007 exhibition game featuring the semi-pro Houston Apollos against the Bay Area Toros.  Here are two links (1 with a game recap and 1 with pictures) about the game which took place in League City, home of the Toros:

Found an article from May 2008 when the Texarkana Gunslingers and McKinney Blue Thunder played a pre-season exhibition game in Greenville Texas:  http://www.heraldbanner.com/sports/pro-baseball-returns-to-greenville/article_d2431ca5-c55b-5a89-94fe-8e718b53741b.html

Photo credit from the Greenville game goes to

This link has photos from a 2008 exhibition game between the Bay Area Toros (eventual CBL champions that season) and the local semi-pro Houston Apollos team:  http://www.houstonapollos.com/apollos.asp?page=180&event=bayareatoros2008

The complete set of photos is available on that link, but the ones including Toros players and coaching staff members can be seen below:

Here is a mention of an upcoming July 2007 exhibition game between a semi-pro team in Enid, Oklahoma and the Texas Heat: https://www.enidnews.com/sports/local_sports/peck-gives-pilots-split/article_0ae8260e-c308-5786-a254-ae7a7071dc00.html

We finally found photos from a May 2007 pre-season exhibition game for the Bay Area Toros. Those photos now can be seen on the Toros page here: