2015 Garden City Wind Season Recap - The Wild Inaugural Season That Built One of the Pecos League's Best Markets
The 2015 Garden City Wind season was one of the most unlikely and important expansion stories in Pecos League history. Garden City was not originally supposed to begin play until 2016, but a series of events involving Tucson, Bisbee, Douglas, Taos, Woodward and Las Cruces forced the league to rethink its entire structure for 2015. What started as a future expansion idea became an immediate opportunity, and by May the Pecos League had professional baseball at Clint Lightner Field.
The story of the Wind really began with Ballpark Explorer Bob Lipp. Lipp had been familiar with western Kansas baseball for years and had owned an NBC team in Dodge City. He had previously explored the possibility of using Garden City, but at the time Clint Lightner Field was not in suitable condition for the level of baseball he wanted to operate. Later, when artificial turf was being installed at Clint Lightner, Lipp told Pecos League Commissioner Andrew Dunn that Garden City had become a completely different opportunity and that the renovated facility could be ideal for the Pecos League.
Lipp's recommendation became one of the most important pieces of information the Pecos League received during its search for new markets. Garden City was geographically difficult. It wasn't located on a major interstate corridor and was harder to reach than many of the league's other cities. Travel was always going to be a concern. But once Dunn and Cindy Galt began looking at the market more seriously, the potential became difficult to ignore.
Kim Inderlied then became the person who helped bring the Pecos League directly to Garden City. While serving as director of the Finney County Convention and Visitors Bureau, Inderlied recruited Dunn and Galt to visit the city. She strongly believed Garden City would support professional baseball and assured the Pecos League that the community could become one of the best cities in the league.
Garden City had something working in its favor that couldn't be measured only by population or geography. The community wanted a team of its own. Dodge City had arena football. Hays and Liberal had established NBC baseball programs. Garden City had no comparable summer professional sports identity, and the arrival of the Pecos League represented an opportunity for the city to finally have a team it could call its own.
The support around the concept immediately impressed the league. Garden City wasn't simply offering a field. There was enthusiasm from local people who wanted professional baseball to succeed. The biggest concern remained distance. Garden City was not easy to get to, and adding western Kansas to the Pecos League travel footprint required a major commitment. But the more the league looked at the market, the more the support seemed capable of outweighing the travel problems.
Cindy Galt quickly became one of the strongest advocates for accelerating Garden City's entry into the league. "It was better than any city in the Pecos League. I told Andrew he should put a team there in 2015. Forget Oklahoma," Galt said.
Only about two weeks after helping recruit the Pecos League to Garden City, Inderlied was no longer with the Convention and Visitors Bureau. Her departure came before the team was ever able to take the field, but her connection to the creation of the Wind remained permanent. She had been one of the people who convinced the league to visit, and without that visit Garden City might have remained a future idea instead of becoming part of the Pecos League in 2015.
The timing of Garden City's opportunity was tied directly to what had happened in Arizona during the 2014 season. The Pecos League had operated teams in Bisbee and Douglas with the long-term goal of establishing a path toward Tucson. The league had agreed to begin playing at Kino Stadium in Tucson in 2016, but the stadium was not available for 2015 because Minor League Baseball continued to hold its lease while waiting to make certain the stadium situation in El Paso was fully resolved for the Triple-A Padres' relocation.
That meant the Pecos League needed a different plan for 2015. Bisbee and Douglas were no longer part of the league's long-term structure, and the league wanted to replace those markets with two teams that were close enough to each other to make travel manageable while still remaining connected to the existing footprint.
Garden City and Woodward, Oklahoma appeared to provide that solution.
Both were initially viewed as proposed expansion teams for 2016. Woodward had a brand-new ballpark, and the city had committed to joining the Pecos League. Garden City had the newly improved Clint Lightner Field and growing local support. On paper, the two cities could have created a logical geographic pairing.
Norm Cutliff of the Taos Blizzard also encouraged the Pecos League to move in a new direction. Cutliff met with Dunn and recommended that the league move on from Taos and focus on better opportunities elsewhere. "Taos was never going to appreciate or support the Blizzard," Cutliff said. "The game day staff was selfish and I think there are better opportunities elsewhere for the Pecos League. It is time to reduce the number of teams in the Pecos League."
The Woodward plan then encountered a major problem. Although the city had a new ballpark and had committed to the league, the City of Woodward and the Woodward Chamber of Commerce notified the Pecos League that there would not be enough host-family availability for the players. At that time, host families were essential to the Pecos League operating model. Without enough homes for players, it was extremely difficult to operate a team economically.
That forced the Pecos League to make another bold decision. The Las Cruces Vaqueros were brought back for one season with Darrell Carrillo managing, and Garden City was accelerated from a proposed 2016 expansion team into a 2015 franchise.
The Garden City Wind were born.
Matt Busa was originally selected to manage the expansion team. Busa was a catcher from Boston who wanted an opportunity to manage in the Pecos League. He attended the Pecos Spring League and prepared for the season, but before Opening Day a last-second opportunity changed everything.
The Wichita Wingnuts of the American Association offered the Wind the chance to play a spring training game at Lawrence-Dumont Stadium in Wichita. For a brand-new Pecos League expansion team, it was an outstanding opportunity. The Wind could test their roster against an established higher-level independent club before playing a single official league game.
Busa demanded a charter bus and overnight hotel accommodations for the trip. Neither the Wingnuts nor the Pecos League was willing to provide those arrangements. The interaction caused the Pecos League to question whether Busa was the right fit for the realities of operating an expansion team at this level. Before the Wind played their first game, the managerial plan changed.
It was a decision Busa would later have reason to regret because Garden City would develop into one of the Pecos League's best long-term markets.
Mike Reeves was hired to manage the Wind after a recommendation from Matt McDermott, who had been Reeves' bullpen catcher with the Lewisville Lizards in the Continental League in 2007. Reeves was from Hutchinson, Kansas, understood the region and was ready to take the job. He recruited Matt Chambers to serve as his assistant coach. Chambers was a professional fast-pitch softball player and accepted the opportunity, but he was only available for about one week.
Before the regular season began, the newly assembled Wind still took advantage of the Wichita opportunity. On May 13, 2015, Garden City played the first game of any kind in franchise history against the Wichita Wingnuts at Lawrence-Dumont Stadium.
The Wind played very well.
Wichita won 7-4, but Garden City was competitive against an established American Association club. The Wingnuts scored three runs in the first inning when David Espinosa delivered a bases-clearing double, and Daniel Bennett picked up the victory for Wichita.
For the Wind, the game produced the first individual milestones in franchise history. Dylan Brooks recorded the first hit in Garden City Wind history and finished the game with two hits and two stolen bases. Larry Rodriguez and Brandon Cooksey also collected hits and RBIs as Garden City demonstrated that its lineup could compete against higher-level independent pitching.
Zach Russell-Myers took the loss after allowing six runs and four walks in one inning, but the rest of the Wind pitching staff performed extremely well. Matt McCormick, Craig Jaquez and Taylor Simpson gave Garden City strong innings and kept the team competitive after Wichita's early scoring.
Reeves came away encouraged by what he saw. "I think the bullpen guys did great in this game," Reeves said. "I learned a lot about this team in this game."
The 7-4 loss actually helped Garden City. The Wind had performed well enough that they were offered another spring training game, this time against the Amarillo Thunderheads of the American Association.
On May 17, only four days after the Wichita game, Garden City traveled to Amarillo to play the Thunderheads at the Dilla Villa. Amarillo won 5-1, but once again the result was less important than the experience. In less than a week, the brand-new Garden City Wind had played two American Association opponents before ever playing an official Pecos League game.
The two exhibitions gave Reeves an unusual opportunity to evaluate his team under real professional conditions. The Wind had lost 7-4 to Wichita and 5-1 to Amarillo, but they had seen higher-level pitching, played in established independent baseball environments and received a much better test than ordinary spring workouts could have provided.
The team was beginning to take shape just in time for Opening Day.
Two days later, on May 19, 2015, Garden City played its first official Pecos League game at Clint Lightner Field against Royce Holder and the Trinidad Triggers.
The weather was miserable.
Temperatures dropped into the upper 30s and rain accompanied the game, creating what remains remembered as one of the coldest nights in Pecos League history. Garden City's first official professional baseball game could hardly have arrived under worse weather conditions.
The Wind nearly won anyway.
Trinidad defeated Garden City 6-5 in a game that went down to the final inning. The official box score records the inaugural game on May 19, 2015, at Clint Lightner Field, with Trinidad scoring six runs on eight hits and Garden City scoring five runs on eight hits.
Craig Jaquez became the first regular-season starting pitcher in Garden City Wind history and gave the team seven strong innings. He allowed six hits and four runs, only three earned, while walking three and striking out five. Garden City led 1-0 after two innings and held a 2-1 advantage going into the eighth.
Trinidad scored three runs in the top of the eighth to take a 4-2 lead, but the Wind immediately answered with three runs in the bottom half. Garden City moved back ahead 5-4 and entered the ninth inning three outs away from the first official victory in franchise history.
Trinidad scored twice in the ninth and won 6-5. Brandon Hudson took the loss for Garden City. The official box score shows the game beginning at 7:00 PM and lasting three hours and 15 minutes at Clint Lightner Field.
The opening game also introduced what would become one of the more combustible relationships of the 2015 Pecos League season. Reeves and Trinidad manager Royce Holder seemed to spend the summer almost two inches away from fighting each other. There was little friendship between the managers, and every meeting between Garden City and Trinidad carried an additional edge.
Trinidad owned the season series against the expansion Wind, and Holder made certain Reeves knew it. For a brand-new franchise without an established rival, the Triggers immediately gave Garden City someone to dislike.
Rich Maynard served as assistant general manager as Garden City attempted to build the franchise from the ground up. Everything was new. Players had to be housed, sponsors had to be serviced, game-day operations had to be organized and fans had to learn what Pecos League baseball was going to look like in western Kansas.
The Wind struggled in the standings, but the roster was better than the final record suggested. Garden City gradually became competitive and featured several players who produced strong individual seasons. Cody Ellis emerged as one of the team's most dependable hitters, while Edgar Munoz became one of the most dynamic offensive players on the roster. Albert Gonzalez, Chris Cruz, Julio Rodriguez, Rodney Polonia, Tyler Lundgren and Brandon Cooksey all helped give the Wind enough offense to challenge opponents.
The pitching staff also had several useful arms. Jaquez became one of the central starters after his strong Opening Night performance. Russell-Myers remained part of the rotation despite his rough inning against Wichita in the exhibition opener, while Gabe Cook, Matt McCormick and others gave the Wind innings throughout the summer.
The baseball team itself was capable of competing. The larger problem became leadership.
Once Matt Chambers left after approximately one week, the structure around Reeves began deteriorating. Several players accused Reeves of pocketing meal money that was intended for them. Those accusations damaged trust within the team and created growing problems behind the scenes.
The situation became worse when Reeves used team gas cards intended for travel to get to a nightclub in Albuquerque. What should have been a resource strictly for team transportation became another source of conflict between the manager, players and organization.
Reeves also inserted himself into a game at Roswell and intentionally threw at Danny Grauer, one of the Invaders' best players. Instead of simply managing the team, Reeves was increasingly becoming part of the drama surrounding it.
With approximately two weeks remaining in the season, Garden City's host families demanded a meeting. The host-family program had become one of the most important parts of the Wind organization. These families opened their homes to players, interacted with them daily and had become deeply invested in the team.
The host families and supporters liked having the Wind in Garden City. They liked the idea of independent professional baseball at Clint Lightner Field and believed the city could support the Pecos League long term. Their concern wasn't that the concept was failing. Their concern was that Reeves might damage it badly enough to run off players, sponsors and fans.
The final incident involved Reeves telling one of his players to bring a bottle of Captain Morgan liquor to the field, supposedly for a fundraiser. According to those involved, there was no fundraiser. Reeves intended to drink the liquor himself.
For the supporters, that was the last straw.
They demanded that Reeves be removed as manager.
Ironically, that meeting became one of the strongest signs that Garden City was going to work as a Pecos League market. The community wasn't asking for professional baseball to leave. The supporters were demanding that the league protect the team because they cared about it.
That was the real breakthrough of the inaugural season.
Garden City cared enough to demand better.
The Wind eventually finished 21-43. The official box score from the first home game later listed Garden City's final record at 21-43.
The record wasn't impressive, but it became almost secondary to what the Pecos League had discovered. Garden City had support. Clint Lightner Field worked. Host families embraced the players. Fans wanted the team. The city had been looking for something of its own, and the Wind had filled that space.
The distance problem never disappeared. Garden City remained difficult to reach compared with some other Pecos League markets, and travel required planning. But the support proved strong enough to justify the challenge.
The league now needed to stabilize the baseball and business operations.
Bill Moore provided the first major piece of that transition. Moore, the most tenured manager in Pecos League history at the time, walked away from the Santa Fe Fuego during the 2015 playoffs and accepted the Garden City Wind managerial position for 2016. Moore had already won a Pecos League Championship in Santa Fe and understood the unique demands of the league better than almost anyone.
His arrival represented exactly the kind of experienced leadership Garden City needed after the chaos of the inaugural season.
Radio sales guru Marcus Sabata then took over as general manager for 2016 and helped develop the promotional personality that would become synonymous with Garden City baseball. Thursday Dollar Beer was born and quickly became one of the team's signature promotions.
Those developments would help transform the Wind from a chaotic expansion club into one of the Pecos League's signature franchises.
Looking back, the 2015 Garden City Wind season was one of the most important gambles the Pecos League ever took. Garden City had initially been viewed as a 2016 possibility. Woodward appeared to be the more obvious geographic partner. Tucson was still a year away. Taos was fading. Las Cruces was being brought back as a temporary solution.
Then Bob Lipp told the league about the artificial turf at Clint Lightner.
Kim Inderlied convinced Andrew Dunn and Cindy Galt to visit.
Cindy Galt insisted Garden City was too good to wait another year.
Norm Cutliff encouraged the league to move away from Taos.
Woodward couldn't provide host families.
And suddenly Garden City was in the Pecos League.
Before the first official home game, the Wind had already played at Lawrence-Dumont Stadium against the Wichita Wingnuts and at the Dilla Villa against the Amarillo Thunderheads. Dylan Brooks had recorded the first hit in franchise history. The team had received a crash course in independent professional baseball before the Pecos League schedule even began.
Then the Wind opened at home against Royce Holder and the Trinidad Triggers in freezing rain and nearly won.
The rest of the season was just as unpredictable.
The Wind finished 21-43. The manager became the center of repeated controversies. Host families eventually demanded intervention. Yet the franchise survived, and the city proved beyond question that it wanted the team.
That is why the 2015 season became so important.
It wasn't a great season because of the record.
It was a great season because it revealed Garden City.
The Pecos League had found a market that would eventually stand with Alpine, Santa Fe and Martinez among the best cities the league ever entered. The artificial turf that caught Bob Lipp's attention, the support Kim Inderlied promised, the enthusiasm Cindy Galt saw during the visit and the willingness of local host families to defend the franchise all turned out to matter far more than the difficulties of the first summer.
The 2015 Garden City Wind season was wild, messy and unforgettable. Almost nothing went according to the original plan, but out of all of it came one of the Pecos League's most important franchises.
