Tom Vandergriff

Tommy Joe Vandergriff
(The Boy Mayor)

• School University of Southern California
• High School Arlington (TX) High School

• Born January 29, 1926 in Carrollton, TX USA
• Died December 30, 2010 in Arlington, TX USA

Biographical Information

Tom Vandergriff was the long-time mayor of Arlington, TX who is said to have had the most influence in the achievement of landing the Washington Senators there, who are now the Texas Rangers.

He was a businessman who owned several automobile dealerships. In addition to landing the Rangers, his greatest achievement was turning the sleepy small town that was Arlington into a major regional city - third in the metropolitan area after Dallas, TX and Fort Worth, TX. He was first elected mayor at the age of 25 in 1951, when he was already the president of the chamber of commerce, on the promise of attracting a General Motors plant to the city (he was aware of plans through the family auto dealership he was helping his father to run). He was successful, as the plant opened in 1953, and this move started Arlington's tremendous growth over the next few years. He also helped the creation of Arlington Memorial Hospital, and persuaded the University of Texas to open a local campus, which soon became the University of Texas at Arlington, in addition to the Six Flags over Texas theme park after he was unable to convince Walt Disney that he should built one here shortly after Disneyland opened. He then got the city and county to finance the construction of Arlington Stadium (originally called Turnpike Stadium) as a means of attracting a major league baseball team - and, once again, he was successful.

He was also part of the Rangers original broadcast team in their inaugural season, 1972, alongside Bill Mercer and Don Drysdale, and also worked on broadcasts in 1975 and 1976. This is not as incongruous as may seem, as he had actually gotten his start in life as a radio announcer after getting a degree in broadcast journalism. He resigned as mayor in 1977, as he was coming under criticism for the city's growing tax burden resulting from all of his projects, and for his failure to develop any form of public transportation. However, he returned to politics five years later, being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Democrat. he served one term before being defeated in the Republican landslide of 1984 when President Ronald Reagan was elected to a second term. He was elected a Tarrant County judge in 1990, retiring in 2006. He lived long enough to see the Rangers play in the 2010 World Series.

He is a member of the Texas Rangers Hall of Fame.

Further Reading

• Greg Chandler: "Tom Vandergriff", in Steve West and Bill Nowlin, eds.: The Team That Couldn't Hit: The 1972 Texas Rangers, SABR, Phoenix, AZ, 2019, pp. 294-296. ISBN 978-1-943816-93-4

Related Sites

• Tom Vandergriff at the SABR Bio Project
• City of Arlington tribute site
• Obituary