The ghosts of time occasionally make a run through the Stark and, if they are Longhorn athletes from the past, they usually sprint. Some of these figures have names and their legacy is well documented; others have been lost to time and have seemingly disappeared from history. Last year, I received a phone call from a lovely woman named Louise Mulkey from Amarillo. Her cousins had given her some items that belonged to their uncle, and she was trying to find a place to send them that would find value in their historical significance. She called the right place. 

For several weeks, I waited anxiously for the items to arrive and when they did, what I received was a history mystery. Included in the package was a photograph that appeared to be a senior portrait, a second studio photograph of a young man dressed in a Texas baseball uniform, a postcard of the University of Texas law building, and a very old, signed baseball. The note inside had some biographical information on the gentleman, whose name was Maurice Gridley Armstrong. 

This is where the mystery begins. Here is this amazing photograph of a proud Maurice, hands on hips, in his University of Texas baseball uniform secured in matting embossed with University Studio. Dan Ervin McCaskill, Austin, Texas. From my previous research on other UT baseball players, I was easily able to confirm the uniform as a varsity uniform. Louise’s note stated it was from the 1928 season and that all checks out as well, since it was the opening of the new Clark Field and there are more photos from that year because of the historical importance. In addition, Dan E. McCaskill was, in fact, a prominent portrait photographer for University of Texas athletes and teams during that period. 

At first, I thought it would be as simple as looking into the historical team photos that have been digitized and identifying the photo I have of Maurice in his Varsity baseball uniform. I found the 1928 team photo that had the names of the players on the photo, but Maurice was not included. I’d come across this issue before with other searches. It wasn’t entirely unusual for some players to be missing from the team photo or even omitted from the official roster. My next plan of attack involved searching the UT Cactus yearbooks. Unfortunately, that was also a swing and a miss (sorry for the baseball pun but it just felt right). Not to be deterred, I decided to roll up my sleeves and go down the rabbit hole on a journey to rediscover Maurice Armstrong. 

The sad part about this is that there really isn’t anyone left that remembers Maurice Armstrong. Louise Mulkey never met him and neither had her cousins. He married but never had children and died at 46 years old. It doesn’t seem like he left anything to his siblings, of whom he had two—Archibald Lynn and Helen—or any of his nieces or nephews, and his wife passed in 1967. It didn’t seem right that this once vibrant young man who suited up in a UT Varsity baseball uniform was overlooked and forgotten. His life seemed to boil down to two photos, a postcard, and a signed baseball from friends of his youth, which at the very least offered some type of proof of a life lived. 

I began combing through the UT Cactus yearbooks (again), Ancestry.com and newspaper articles to piece together his life the best I could. Maurice Gridley Armstrong was born on January 1, 1904, in Rockton, Illinois and moved with his family to Panhandle, Texas in 1908. His father was Archibald A. Armstrong, a wheat farmer, and his mother was Gardys B. Gridley. Maurice attended Panhandle High School and played football, baseball, and ran track. He reportedly holds a unique piece of local history in that he scored the very first touchdown in the history of Panhandle High School. In track, he competed in the mile race, winning at the district level, making it all the way to the state championships. After graduating on May 18, 1923, he went on to attend the University of Texas. 

In The Daily Texan on October 11,1924, there is a newspaper article titled, “Husky Crowd of Freshmen Make Year’s Football Team” and Maurice Armstrong is listed as a Guard from Panhandle High School. I searched the faces of the 1924 Shorthorns team photo but was unable to identify any of the eager, young men as Maurice. There were no newspaper accounts of Maurice having played in any games, so that trail went dead. Three years later, there was a small blurb in The Daily Texan issue dated September 27, 1927, that read, “Maurice Armstrong, of Panhandle, is back for his junior year in Engineering. He is a football and baseball prospect.” However, I could find no evidence that he made any of the football squads. Just like varsity rosters that didn’t include everyone, often team members of the “Scrubs” or “Shorthorns” went unmentioned. To complicate matters further, Louise told me that she thought she heard years ago through family channels that if Maurice had something better to do, he didn’t always show up to team events.

On closer examination, the 1928 Texas Cactus yearbook offers some exceptional information about Armstrong’s participation on the 1927 Longhorn pitching staff (Spring sports are always reported in the following year’s Cactus). There is a game-by-game accounting of impact players in games. In the game versus the Detroit Tigers, “Baker and Armstrong worked beautifully in the box.” Against T.C.U., “The pitching of the relief staff of Armstrong, Mueller, Reece, and Forbes featured the second contest,” indicating that he had done well in a 9-4 victory.

After sifting through historic newspapers online, I found articles connecting him to Varsity baseball. The Daily Texan reported that on March 29, 1927, in the Southwest Conference opening game against the SMU Mustangs, Armstrong entered the game as a pitcher in the seventh inning, when Texas led 7-1. Despite giving up a few runs, he held off the Mustangs for an 11-4 win. After hitting a long single to right field to score Potsy Allen, The Daily Texan declared, “Armstrong, the Texas pitcher who is generally a weak hitter, also had a perfect day at the bat, getting two singles in two attempts.” He also made it into the April 22, 1927, game against Texas A&M, but despite the Steers winning the game, he allowed 3 runs and 2 bases on balls.

Neal Baker, who would go on to pitch in the MLB with the Philadelphia Athletics, was the ace pitcher for the SWC Champion Longhorns in 1927 and opportunities were limited for Maurice to gain experience on the mound, something even The Daily Texan took note of when they wrote, “Maurice Armstrong is a better pitcher than most people believe him to be.” Evidence of his value to the team was written up in the Amarillo Daily News on May 28, 1927, when he was mentioned as receiving a “reserve letter” in baseball, an honorable mention of sorts.

The 1928 baseball season proved just as successful for the Longhorns, as they “annexed” another Southwest Conference Championship. They opened the new Clark Field on March 24, 1928, with photos and fanfare and a game against the Detroit Tigers. A high-resolution scan of the original photo cropped down and enhanced to just the Texas team, might show Maurice in the photo, tucked behind his teammates, 7^th from the left, but I can’t be 100% certain. Three days after the opening of the new Clark Field, Armstrong took the mound against Rice and had a three-run lead going into the ninth inning until the Owls went on a “hitting spree” and ended his outing. He was brought into the game against Baylor in relief on April 27, 1928, but gave up 6 hits and 7 runs in 3 1/3 innings. On the brighter side, he did have an assist on an out and a sacrifice at bat. This appears to have been the end to his not-so-illustrious career as a Longhorn.

Maurice Armstrong graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering the following spring in 1929 and his portrait adorns page 291 in the 1929 Cactus. The 1930 Federal Census tells us he returned home to Panhandle, Texas, to live with his folks and help on the farm. He gained employment as an engineer with the Magnolia Petroleum Company (which later became part of Mobil and now ExxonMobil) and later, the Shamrock Oil & Gas Company. 

In 1937 on May 19^th, Maurice married Sinclair Rice, a schoolteacher from McLean, Texas. (b.1908 d.1969) and they lived in Lefors, Texas. The local newspaper, the Pampa Daily News included several accounts of their active social life in town. They never had children. He led a fairly quiet life in the Texas Panhandle and spent his career in the oil and gas business as an engineer until his death at 46 years old on December 22, 1950, cause unknown. 

Many of the photos from the early eras of Longhorn athletics didn’t survive the test of time. We are privileged and fortunate to have received Maurice Armstrong’s photos in pristine condition and I am honored to have been a small part of helping to restore one of the lost pieces to the Longhorns’ history puzzle. There’s a saying around the athletic department, “Once a Longhorn, a Longhorn for life,” and in Maurice Armstrong’s case, it took some 75+ years to reconnect him, but he’s now back in the fold where he belongs.