One Thousand Miles to An At-Bat in El Paso
One Thousand Miles to An At-Bat in El Paso
Jacob Kauffman
PART I: ALPINE, TX
“You sure ask some dumb questions. Why don’t you just go the hell back to where you came from?” slurred out a bone-thin, 70-something-year-old, seemingly held together by a tarnished rodeo belt buckle. A matching moustache and Stetson hat were both hard at work framing a suddenly irate expression storming to the front of his sun and smoke weathered face.
So, sure, my plan to approach and interview the most Texan looking guy in one of the most Texan of Texan towns, nine innings and nine beers deep—after witnessing his independent, locally-owned Alpine Cowboys take a whooping from their Permian Basin, oil-field roughneck neighbors, the Pecos Bills—wasn’t necessarily off to an immaculate start. But what the hell, am I really going to let one drunk cowboy get in the way of my 1,000-mile baseball obscura odyssey through West Texas? No sir, partner.
This Marlboro man may have had a fair point, but he was also wholly ignorant to the proposition that I was on a baseball holy mission. And besides, I’d be out of Alpine and on my way to El Paso in the morning anyway. Once I hit the fabled border town, I’d be testing my fading Arkansawyer baseball skills among strangers and kindred spirits in a good old-fashioned Sandlot exhibition showdown.
As I left him to his frustrations, my attention panned to the hometown faithful exiting the grandstands, happily passing through the ancient turnstiles at the gates of one of baseball’s great unsung sites, Kokernot Field, established 1947. The Alpine Cowboys play in the bare-bones, bare-knuckle, totally independent and unaffiliated Pecos League and call the humble ballpark their home. In a town that punches in at just above 6,000 residents, it seats about 1,400.
Pilgrims to Kokernot Field, a classic jewel box ballpark, are greeted with an exterior facade of locally cut stone and red, wrought-iron gates – all lined with a thick layer of green ivy. The field bears the name, and “o6” cattle branding, of rancher Herbert L. Kokernot, Jr. He had the field meticulously constructed, as the era of nearly every town having its own semi-pro team approached its zenith.
In his prime, Kokernot was a model small-time baseball magnate with the nicest little ballpark in Texas at his disposal. He brought MLB exhibition games out to remote Big Bend Country, personally handing out cash prizes to players for piling up crowd-pleasing stats. Baseball legends like Satchell Paige and Ernie Banks graced its friendly confines, which were modeled in part on Chicago’s Wrigley Field. At its high-water mark, the summers of 1959 and 1960, Alpine even became home to a Boston Red Sox minor league team.
Like Kokernot, some people really know how to make a go of making something where otherwise there would be nothing. That was certainly the case back in ‘47, and by all appearances, the town and team seemed to be alive and kicking in the summer of 2025 during my trek through baseball on the margins.
It almost felt like they were getting away with something, pulling a fast one while no one was looking. I found myself asking, how in the world can baseball still look like this? How is it that a town of a few thousand people managed to carve out a space in an aging, iron and wood grandstand to root on local legends, pouring themselves into a shoe-string budget “professional” baseball team?
Alpine is perennially in the running for the smallest town in America with a professional baseball team, even if it might require reverting our modern definition of “professional” all the way back to something that’s closer to the glory days of 19th century baseball. By comparison, the chronically-starved MLB-owned/run Minor League Baseball system comes across as palatial.
PART II: GUADALUPE MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK, TX
My first sounds of Kokernot were heard earlier in the day via a weak, crackling AM radio signal on the desolate stretch of road between Guadalupe Mountains National Park and Marfa, Texas. That morning I had hiked Texas’s tallest peak, and then dragged my beleaguered self in death march fashion back down. Humbled by the hike, my ears straining like Jodie Foster in Contact waiting for the signal to pierce through the static, I hurtled toward Alpine. The dream was on.
I’m certainly not the first to be drawn to the fringes of our nation’s wildernesses or our grand old game. They both provide the sort of mythic tableau that allows dreamers, oddballs, and brawlers to tilt at windmills. The rituals of the backcountry and the ballfield seem to lay down rhythms that compel one toward constructing meaning. That could come from misplaced nostalgia emanating from the crack of a wood bat, or seeing through the eyes of the ancients as mountain valley sunbeams reflect off low-rolling clouds. I had a bit of that in mind on my trek, as I hoped to utilize a freewheelin’ ratline of Sandlot clubs while gathering intel for a Pecos League Bible writing project. In part, I saw the journey as a culminating experience in my own adult-era re-immersion into baseball that began with a series of pick-up games in 2018.
As the mountainous countryside stretched on, an oft-quoted line from Arkie author, Charles Portis, emerged from the ether. Portis wrote there is an “escape velocity” that a person has to reach to propel themselves toward their aspirations. For baseball players landing out here, they’re reaching escape velocity all to pursue a dream that is likely only allowed to surface for a brief moment, on the thin plane of existence that is sub-MiLB, unaffiliated, independent ball, in towns that are often at the edge of the literal and figurative wilderness. I’ve had enough conversations with players and staff to know that they don’t typically see themselves this way—but they’re the starving artists of baseball.
Any passive, ruminating, Luddite observer like myself can easily tell you that modern baseball in the mainstream has strayed far from that description, toward hyper-professionalization and over-commercialization from the youth level to MLB. But down here in West Texas there’s little trace of pretension. The game between Alpine and Pecos seems very tangible, unencumbered and uncluttered by modernity. The fans aren’t divided by luxury boxes or StubHub surge pricing. You won’t face an extortion enterprise at the concession stand; ice cold beer and hot dogs can be had for just a few dollars. And your eyes won’t be wandering away from the game to a multi-story jumbotron; you’ll be lucky if the old school scoreboard is on top of tracking errors.
The Pecos League matchup is an unintended antidote to the worst elements of the modern game. I might as well have been listening to the 1947 Alpine team wage battle against Marfa. If you’re a fan of true baseball, it’s a revelation, or confirmation, of what’s often missing. Plus they’re the last American league without a designated hitter(!).
Or, at any rate, those were some of the thoughts rounding the bases in my head as the AM signal strengthened, and the banter of Alpine’s broadcast team picked up. Roen Elbert and Ryan Weyl were seamlessly weaving in Seinfeld references to their broadcast alongside vivid play-by-play. As a former radioman myself (NPR Little Rock 2013-2018), I felt free to manufacture an instant bond with these radio warriors in the mountains at the northeastern edge of the Chihuahua desert.
PART III: ALPINE, TX
I barreled into Alpine that evening, arriving hurriedly at unguarded turnstiles at about the fourth-inning, feeling surprisingly restored after the scramble up Guadalupe Peak that morning. The crowd of a few hundred strong were clapping along to country troubadour Gene Autry’s “Deep in the Heart of Texas” and giving an extra whoop and holler for third baseman James Prockish, who at 30-years-old qualifies as a bit of an anomaly.
It’s rare to see a player with this many seasons under his belt in an indie developmental league but there are some, like Prockisch, who seem to be playing for the love of the game and the town he plays for. Playing baseball three months a year for a few hundred bucks a month makes that pretty clear. It’s the kind of story that fans seem to intuitively gravitate toward.
Indie baseball leagues present a largely untapped opportunity for cultivating local heroes, ala the storied Battered Bastards of Baseball, the Portland Mavericks. In modern times, affiliated minor league teams exist for virtually one reason, developing and advancing players to MLB. But players such as Prockisch, the Pecos League’s all-time games played record holder, buck the Achilles heel of the minors. Rather than a roster acting as a transparently transient way-station, they can be stocked with homegrown folk legends.
Back on the field, despite a lively performance, Alpine went down to Pecos 9-3 in Game 2 of their opening home stand. As the stands cleared, following the aforementioned tense exchange with the Marlboro man, I headed up to the “press box” door and introduced myself to the voices that kept me company on the drive in. Ah yes, these fine young men were kindred spirits, sports and radio nerds following a calling, with a perverse affinity for hard-scrabble frontier baseball.
“Kokernot Field is the gem of this town,” offered KVLF 1240 AM’s Ryan Weyl. “The ownership in Alpine really takes a lot of care of this ball club and the people here really support this organization because of it.”
Play-by-play man Roen Elbert, at the time a rising junior in college at Ball State, offered some color commentary: “I have so much respect for these players because they drop everything for three months to keep their baseball dream going. They drop everything they have, a job back home, their family back home, to go out to this place in West Texas—middle of nowhere—to live out their dream. That’s true for each one of those guys who walk through and wear a Cowboys uniform.”
Sage words in hand from the local keepers of the flame, I headed to the comforts of my $50-cash room at the Alpine Inn. Proprietor Sam Acosta explained that the motel is the de facto baseball “home” of most of Alpine’s players during the season. Rows of baseball bats, photos, and Pecos League hats representing a share of the 40-plus teams that at one time or another have popped up and disappeared just as quickly in the league’s 15-year history, decorate every available inch of the office. Players were in and out of the laundry room throughout the night, getting ready for the next day’s rematch.
Acosta, only half-way surprised to see a Pecos League super fan, has been supporting the fledgling independent baseball circuit since year one. He’s seen plenty of ups-and-downs in a league that often has players drive their own cars hundreds of miles across the desert Southwest. While I was in town, Acosta encouraged me to check out a history of Alpine baseball book sold at the local hardware store, pointing to Big Bend Country’s pride in its baseball lore.
Alpine had risen to the occasion on this baseball pilgrimage, Marlboro man notwithstanding. Although, in a certain, overly-generous light you could even say that old fella’s not-so-kind remarks were simply a blunt way of expressing, “We’re just fine as we are, without you or anyone paying attention to this. Don’t come in here and ruin any of this, thank you very much.”
PART IV: EL PASO, TX
After circling around Kokernot Field for one last look the next morning and snatching up a lost foul ball for the souvenir collection, I headed west out of the mountains, racing into the seemingly endless and equally scorching Chihuahuan desert. Half-a-dozen dust devils (an unfamiliar sight to an Arkansan used to the devastating power of tornadoes) harmlessly flailed about the open expanse, lining both sides of Interstate 10 as I headed toward my at-bat in El Paso with their local Sandlot collective.
Day Four of my baseball pilgrimage would afford me a chance to practice the Sandlot baseball spirit that happens to be a soothing salve against modern threats of social isolation, perfectionism, commercialism, and a corrosive digital world. Or at least that’s probably part of what’s going on, and why I’ve driven all across Texas, heading toward the U.S.-Mexico border. I’m “the hell out of” Alpine and back on the Mountain Goats’ Mobius strip ready to play some DIY baseball. “All Hail West Texas” for sure.
I was pretty stoked for this leg of my self-awarded fact-finding mission. Playing ball with the boys in El Paso seemed like a top-tier way to have some quality human connection on this solo road venture. And I am always looking for fun intel to bring back to the Little Rock Punk Baseball scene back in Arkansas.
I could only hope their style of play echoed the Dock Ellis faction of Sandlot and not the frustratingly affluent, overly-competitive Men’s League knock-off teams that pervade some corners of “the Sandlot movement.” Ostensibly, “Sandlot” stands for free, fun, no-jerk, anti-competitive, inclusive baseball for not-terrible-to-be-around “creative” and/or vaguely counter-cultural adults. Simple enough, right?
My point of connection was Vincent Arrieta, a 30-something neurotic and music promoter, who to my great amusement kept a detailed scorebook for each game. Vincent was abundantly generous, hyper-organized, decisive, kind, and pretty serious about this game—almost at an inverse level to his own quality of play. It was all kind of charming. I had simply messaged him on Instagram, which serves as a primary connector for scores of Sandlot teams across the country. I told him the dates I’d be in the area and asked if I could crash any games that might be going on. Vincent, to my eternal gratitude, told me to come on down to El Paso.
Vincent opened up his pulled-together team, the West Texas Wind, starting me at third base and the five spot in the lineup. We were up against the El Paso Chupacabras as part of an inaugural West Texas Barnstorm.
As we took the field, my Arkansas gaze was fixated on the staggering beauty of El Paso’s Franklin Mountains, dominating the outfield horizon. Where I come from, Little Rock, AR, sits at the nexus of the Mississippi Delta region and the foothills of the Ouachita Mountains, where nearly everything is green, creeks and streams abound, and trees crowd every humble hillside that has been over-generously been given the designation of “mountain.” But out here, everything was exposed rock and dirt, with a full spectrum of tans and browns and deep reds. A blend of Spanish phrases peppered the English taunts and friendly ribbing floating across the infield. Despite some differences with my experiences, there certainly was a common language being spoken, and some common debates, when it comes to Sandlot baseball.
How competitive can we be? What’s the point of this “game?” Do we even have umpires? Those discussions are being played out and decided (and not decided) at close-calls and at-bats from New England to California. In El Paso we had impromptu talks on the bench and on the field more than a few times, including over a righteous, incredibly on-point tag I applied to a runner while playing the hot corner. Something as seemingly fundamental as called strikes and balls is something we don’t even really deal with in Arkansas Sandlot.
Once again, I’m happy to observe some parallels to the 19th century game. A rule proposing the concept of called balls and strikes was first put forward in 1858 and it took until the 1864 season for its full adoption by the National Association of Base Ball Players. Traditionalists pushed back, until then it was expected that pitchers and batters would police themselves for the benefit of the game. Then, as in Sandlot now, good batters show their worth by swinging at anything close, while pitchers should be throwing hittable pitches.
But in El Paso they were hurling the ball in there a little harder—we’re talking 60 m.p.h., with arsenals that included breaking balls. Thankfully, the knockout-aggressive spirit seen in “competitive” baseball was absent.
But truth be told, and likely to the disgust of the Dock Ellis purists back in Little Rock, I was eager to face pitching with some edge to it. I told myself I knew what I was doing…after all, I was an assistant high school baseball coach and groundskeeper for a whole season that one time. How bad could it be?
Off-the-bat I was having a really good time playing baseball with my newfound, adoptive team. The Wind had a classic cast of characters, like my fellow infielder, shortstop Aaron Atkins, who I gathered to be some sort of geologist. While manning our half of the infield, Atkins lightly explored potential misgivings about the environmental harms of the mining operations that sought his geological knowledge. This is Sandlot baseball at its best, I thought.
As my attention drifted along with the scent of charcoal grills firing up beyond the first baseline, gearing up for my third at-bat, I was feeling pretty good about myself and this ridiculous baseball road trip. The El Paso Sandlot crew went above and beyond welcoming me, a stranger in their midst. That Marlboro man in Alpine, who for some reason I was still thinking about, definitely didn’t know what he was talking about. Heck, I was 1-for-2 with an RBI headed into the fifth inning.
Hacking away mightily in the on-deck circle, vaguely hoping my practice of covering my hands with dirt instead of using batting gloves was intimidating the pitcher, I noticed the Chupacabras had brought in some serious heat – including some real deal curveballs. This guy belongs on the Sandlot™ circuit. He may even be freshly out of high school; he’s operating on a different mindset. Oh well, I’ll just have to show this whippersnapper on the mound the consequences of throwing hard in Sandlot.
He’s going to pitch me low and outside and I’m going to push the ball out into left over the third baseman’s head—thus securing my personal legend of being a pretty darn good Sandlot baseball player in what will likely be the furthest from home baseball appearance of my “career.” I guess you could say this is the closest to the Pecos League I’d ever get.
I was ready for this clutch moment. The Chupacabras’ pitcher threw me a high fastball, I hacked away, and immediately felt a searing, tearing sensation rip through the left side of my torso. Visions of Robert Redford’s final at bat in The Natural flooded my head. In the film, Redford’s character Roy Hobbs takes one final swing to win it all for his New York Knights, launching the ball into the outfield lights, his abdomen catastrophically tearing and bleeding from an injury from his youth. Was I about to have a Roy Hobbs moment?
I backed off the plate, out of the left-handed hitter’s side of the batter’s box, and hoped no one, including myself, noticed the debilitating pain that was suddenly making its presence unignorable in my body. I steadied myself, thinking that surely I could withstand just one more swing of this baseball bat, ready to leave my mark in El Paso. I’d settle for a battle injury if it meant lining a rope into the outfield. The Chupacabra’s pitcher threw a hard breaking, low curve to the outside corner of the plate.
I load, launch, and nearly yelp as a feeble, half-aborted swing makes faint contact, harmlessly fouling the ball away toward the third base dugout. Yikes, it looks like I will not be defiantly smashing the ball into a bank of stadium lights like Roy Hobbs did on the big screen.
I called out to Vincent, I couldn’t take another swing. We had an ad hoc discussion with the bench about the rules of pinch-hitting mid-count, and sent out an unfortunate soul to face the music in an 0-2 count.
Let’s chalk it up to over-exertion on Guadalupe Peak earlier in the day, or let’s take it as a sign that I’m not going to make the semi-pro circuit as I approach early-onset middle age, but it was the kind of anticlimactic, melodrama that has always made me feel at home in baseball. Truthfully, I was relieved to my Sandlot core that I would no longer be taking up space on the roster for the entirety of a game. Let Javier Diaz, a youthful guy with a light and beaming laugh, go play third. It’s his first game, let him go make a memory.
PART V: LITTLE ROCK, AR
Laid up with a questionable injury in El Paso and with some solid baseball experiences under my belt, I felt pretty comfortable abandoning the rest of my planned baseball entrada for the time being. As a third-generation Cubs fan I’ve learned “there’s always next season” isn’t always a bad thing, there’s plenty to appreciate with whatever experience the baseball gods offer you. Besides, I needed to get back home to speed up my recovery, to be ready-to-go for the next Little Rock Punk Baseball showdown against whatever free-roaming, Dock Ellis-inspired Sandlot squad comes passing through Arkansas (yes, this is an invitation).
I put my left-field fascination with the wild and independent Pecos League and the creativity and free spirit of the nebulous Sandlot world on ice and began hobbling 1,000 miles east toward home.
Winner of the 2026 Jackie Mitchell Creative Nonfiction Prize
Jacob Kauffman is a public school teacher and freelance reporter who has worked with National Public Radio, PBS NewsHour, and small-town newspapers like the Nashville (Arkansas) News. He’s a one-time assistant coach at historic Little Rock Central High School, veteran utility player for the sandlot team the Little Rock Growlers, and a proud member of the Society for American Baseball Research. Follow @therealjacobb for more about baseball on the margins.
Mark Mosley is a public school 7th grade math teacher. He draws baseball cards when he is not driving his son to baseball or his daughter to gymnastics. His cards can be seen on Twitter @mosley_mark, on Instagram @idrawbaseballcards, and can be purchased at https://idrawbaseballcards.bigcartel.com/
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