 Entrance to the Houston Sports Museum at Finger Furniture Center, Jul-2012. |
 Display cases show artifacts from the Buffs, Colts, Astros, Cougars, etc. |
 One wall has an aerial view of Buff Stadium, Houston’s long-time minor league baseball home. |
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Entrance to the Houston Sports Museum at Finger Furniture Center, Jul-2012. |
Display cases show artifacts from the Buffs, Colts, Astros, Cougars, etc. |
One wall has an aerial view of Buff Stadium, Houston’s long-time minor league baseball home. |
 The museum is “hidden” inside a furniture store. |
Just before you pass the University of Houston on the right side, you see (or saw) a large sign reading “FINGERS” on the left. If you’ve noticed the billboards in the area, you might know that Finger’s is a furniture dealer. But you would have no clue that Finger’s was built partially on the site of Buffalos Stadium, where Houston’s minor league baseball team played from 1925 to 1961 (they left town when the Colt .45s arrived in 1962) – or that there was a museum with sports artifacts inside the store.
I walked in and a salesman approached me. I told him I was visiting the area and that I had heard there was a museum with artifacts of Houston baseball history on the site. He pointed me to the left, down half a flight of stairs, and toward the back, past the mattresses. There, I found a handsome portal marked “Houston Sports Museum”, and I headed in.
It only took me a few moments to notice the granite marker in the floor marking home plate of Buff Stadium. Standing near the home plate marker was a statue of Dickie Kerr, “the little man who stood as big as baseball itself in the game’s most trying hour”, according to the dedication plaque. A short film about the history of the Buffs was playing in a continuous loop on a video screen to my left. Another wall featured an aerial view of the ballpark. Various walls had display cases with artifacts from not only the Buffs, but Houston’s other baseball teams, the Colts and Astros, as well as University of Houston athletics and other pro teams in Houston history, such as the Rockets and Oilers.
While the collection was not overwhelming, it was substantial, making the museum a worthwhile stop. It was free and open during store hours. Alas, I have no idea if the collection has been saved. The Finger Furniture store has been torn down, leaving the site essentially barren. A 7-Eleven and a Starbucks are out in front of the site along the north frontage road of Gulf Freeway, but nothing has been built on the Buff Stadium site as of early 2023.