Major League Baseball picked Eagles as the Astros' nom de plume for Friday's Civil Rights Game against the Baltimore Orioles, but it could as easily have gone with Greyhounds, Cotton Clubbers, Littlerocks, Rosebuds, Black Aces, Black Buffaloes, Postoffice Carriers or Sunflowers.

All were used from the 1880s through the 1930s as nicknames for semipro and professional teams that called Houston home during the early years of racially segregated baseball.

For its annual game Friday at Minute Maid Park, MLB chose to commemorate Houston's short-lived entry (1949-50) in the Negro American League and, in the Orioles' dugout, the Baltimore Elite Giants, who competed in leagues from 1930 through 1950.

The Eagles represent a fleeting final act in Houston's history of black baseball teams, said Mike Vance, editor and co-author of "Houston Baseball: The Early Years 1861-1961," a new book compiled by the local chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research.

"There is a rich heritage of black baseball in Houston, dating back into the 19th century, that produced some absolute stars on the national stage," Vance said. "There were great players here that were followed by both black and white patrons."

Eagles have landed

The Eagles arrived in Houston as the Negro Leagues were winding down in the wake of Jackie Robinson breaking Major League Baseball's color barrier in 1947. The team thrived for more than a decade in Newark, N.J., but was sold when attendance dwindled after World War II and the signings of Robinson, Larry Doby and other Negro League stars by MLB teams.

A dwindling generation of Houstonians remember the Eagles' brief stay, and only three former players are known to be alive: Raymon Lacy, 91, a native of Tyler who became a longtime schoolteacher in East Texas; Porter Reid, 92, a native of Muskogee, Okla., who left baseball to run a nightclub in his hometown; and Maynard Jordan, 86, who lives in Memphis, Tenn.

They weren't here long as players, but they enjoyed the stay.

"It was a real holiday festival," Jordan said. "That was the whole affair. It was entertainment. Everybody dressed up to come to the games."

Fanned by a legend

Reid, who as a 17-year-old batted - and struck out - against the legendary Satchel Paige, said life with the Eagles meant long bus rides and endless road trips.

"There wasn't much integration then, so you slept on the bus a lot," he said. "We would leave Houston and go to Galveston and Beaumont and then up through Oklahoma and Kansas and Iowa and Nebraska and Chicago. Then we'd go to Indiana, Pittsburgh, Washington and then down to Atlanta and Birmingham and Memphis.

"It was hard, but you were young. You didn't play baseball unless you wanted to."

Larry Lester, who chairs SABR's Negro Leagues research committee and helped create a Negro Leagues museum in Kansas City, Mo., said the Eagles had a 34-35 record in 1949 and were 23-41 in 1950, when the team split its home between Houston and Nashville, Tenn.

"The Negro Leagues died because major league teams were taking the best players and fans preferred to follow Larry Doby and Jackie Robinson," he said. "They didn't care about the Houston Eagles or Kansas City Monarchs or the Birmingham Black Barons.

"It's one of those historical oxymorons. You fight for integration, and when you get it, you lose part of your identity."

The Eagles did boast a local favorite in Andrew "Pat" Patterson, who is primarily known today as a longtime football coach at Yates High School and founder in 1939 of the Prairie View Interscholastic League. Patterson was in the final stages of a distinguished career that included a spot alongside Josh Gibson and Cool Papa Bell on the 1935 Pittsburgh Crawfords, and retired after the 1949 season.

Sound familiar?

But Rob Fink, a professor at Hardin-Simmons University and author of "Playing in Shadows: Texas and Negro League Baseball," said the Eagles were not successful in Houston in part because of the same issue that plagues some Houston teams today: They didn't win enough games.

"The other problem was that fans didn't know them," Fink said. "There weren't many local guys on the team. So there was no connection, and they weren't in first place. That never helps."

The Eagles era, with its connection to teams across the country, was generally an anomaly in Houston's black baseball history, said Dr. Layton Revel, a Dallas-area rehabilitation therapist who helped found the Center for Negro Leagues Baseball Research and hosts an annual reunion in Birmingham, Ala., for league veterans.

"People talk about the Negro American and National leagues and the Eastern Colored League as the major leagues, but there were professional leagues in Texas from the early 1900s," he said. "The big issue was transportation.

"Can you imagine the Houston Black Buffaloes having to take a trip to play the Pittsburgh Crawfords? That would have been a long drive. So there were regional leagues, and the Black Buffaloes were one of the pinnacle teams in Texas."

Cream of the crop

Historians Vance and Fink agree the heyday of black baseball in Houston came in the late 1920s, when the Black Buffaloes twice played in back-to-back events known as the Negro World Series.

"The Black Buffaloes played a prominent role in Houston, and I think it's good that Major League Baseball is moving the game around the country and into the South," Fink said. "It wasn't just Chicago and Pittsburgh that were centers for the game."

Houston lost in four games in 1929 to the Kansas City Monarchs and lost a five-game series to the Chicago American Giants in 1930.

Early compensation

Two years later, the Black Buffs were relaunched under the ownership of Jim and John Liuzza, two Italian-American brothers whose families owned a grocery store in Houston's Fifth Ward.

They are survived by John Liuzza's son, Jim, who was a child when his father and uncle ran the Black Buffs and remembers postgame dinners that included family members and players.

"My father and uncle took care of the players as if they were family," Jim Liuzza said. "My mother and aunt would cook for them. They couldn't pay them much money, but they gave what they could."