By Bartee Haile

Fifty-one years after playing in his last major-league game, a talented Texan tragically struck down in the prime of life finally made it into the Baseball Hall of Fame on Aug. 7, 1972.

Four or five years after Ross Middlebrook Youngs’ birth at Shiner in 1897, his father moved the family to San Antonio.  Little Ross had just turned ten, when his dad walked out leaving his mother to raise their three sons.

While Henrie Youngs worked night and day to support her boys, Ross exce...