Before Arlington became North Texas’s baseball destination, the game belonged to Oak Cliff. In this episode of Hidden City, we uncover the intertwined histories of Burnett Field and Riverside Park - two ballparks just blocks apart, divided by segregation. From the Dallas Black Giants and a stadium fire that briefly brought the white team into their ballpark to Dave Hoskins’s extraordinary 1952 season breaking the Texas League’s color barrier, this is a story of baseball, courage, and the places Dallas forgot.

Stevens Park is one of Oak Cliff’s most familiar landscapes, but its history stretches far beyond the golf course. What began with Annie Stevens’s 1923 gift of 40 acres in memory of her parents grew into a public park, an 18-hole municipal course, and a neighborhood shaped by the creeks, bluffs, and rolling hills of Oak Cliff.

In this episode, we trace the course from its early sand greens to its reputation as “Little Augusta,” exploring the civic ambition, complicated history, and generations of golfers behind it. It is a story of stubborn land, public space, and the many people who imagined what these hills above the Trinity could become.

Patty Evans didn’t grow up playing baseball. Years later, after running a hyper-competitive men’s league team and walking through a season of personal loss, he found himself drawn to a version of the game built on community, not standings. That idea became Oak Cliff Sandlot. Patty talks about the early days of handing out cut-and-paste flyers, the first pickup game that unexpectedly drew 40 strangers, and how a simple invitation to “bring a glove, bring a friend, play baseball,” has grown into one of Oak Cliff’s most beloved neighborhood fixtures. We get into what it takes to protect a culture as it scales, the quiet discipline of keeping things unstructured, and why Oak Cliff Sandlot has become a place for adults to show up, belong, and play without pretense.