2021 Garden City Wind Season Recap - Garrett Totty Takes Over After David Peterson Moves to Houston
The 2021 Garden City Wind season began with major changes and one of the most unusual Spring Training situations in franchise history. David Peterson, who had returned to Garden City in 2019 and led the Wind to the best season in franchise history at the time, would not return as manager. The Pecos League assigned Peterson to manage the Houston Apollos for the 2021 season, opening the Garden City managerial position. Garrett Totty was promoted to take over the Wind and was given the responsibility of recruiting a roster and preparing the team for the return of Pecos League baseball.
The first problem became obvious when Spring Training arrived. Totty had managed to recruit only six players who actually reported. Garden City didn't have anything close to enough players to operate a professional baseball team, and there wasn't much time remaining before the regular season. Instead of using Spring Training to evaluate players and make roster decisions, the Wind were desperately trying to find enough players to field a team.
Pecos League Commissioner Andrew Dunn and Peterson had to step in and help recruit the remainder of the Garden City roster. Peterson was already responsible for managing Houston, but he had extensive knowledge of Garden City after managing the Wind in 2017 and again during the franchise's outstanding 2019 season. Dunn and Peterson worked to find available players and get them to Garden City while Totty prepared to manage a roster that was being assembled almost as quickly as the season was approaching.
It was hardly an ideal beginning for a new manager. Totty wasn't inheriting the established 2019 roster that had won 43 games. He was taking over a team that barely had enough players to conduct a practice. The Wind had to be put together piece by piece, and there was no guarantee that a roster assembled under those circumstances would be competitive once the season began.
Once the games started, however, Garden City proved to be much better than its chaotic Spring Training suggested.
The Wind lost their season opener 11-7, but immediately responded with an incredible offensive stretch. Garden City won its next game 25-2, followed with victories of 16-5 and 20-9. The Wind then won 7-4, 14-7 and 9-6. After losing Opening Day, Garden City had won six consecutive games. A team that barely existed when Spring Training began was suddenly one of the hottest teams in the league.
That early winning streak established the personality of the 2021 Wind. Garden City could score enormous numbers of runs. The offense was capable of overwhelming opponents, and the Wind didn't need much time to turn a competitive game into a rout. Throughout the season Garden City recorded victories of 25-2, 20-9, 27-11, 21-1, 20-4 and 15-1. The players who had been assembled at the last minute quickly developed into a dangerous offensive club.
Manuel Blanco became one of the central figures in the lineup. Blanco played 46 games and hit .411, collecting 72 hits in 175 at-bats. He scored 60 runs, hit 13 doubles, three triples and six home runs while driving in 50. He also drew 30 walks and stole 14 bases. Blanco gave Garden City a hitter who could reach base, hit for average, drive in runs and create additional offense with his speed.
Taylor Barber also became a major part of the offense. Barber hit .361 in 37 games, collecting 44 hits with 10 doubles and seven home runs. He scored 51 times, drove in 35 runs, drew 35 walks and stole 15 bases. Alex Nielsen provided another outstanding bat, hitting .402 in 28 games. Nielsen collected 39 hits in 97 at-bats, drove in 29 runs and struck out only five times.
Terry Daniels was outstanding during his time with the team, hitting .424 in 20 games with six doubles, two triples and five home runs. Daniels drove in 21 runs and scored 20 times. Sam Hillyer also produced during limited action, hitting .412 in 12 games with four doubles and three home runs. The Wind had gone from wondering where their players were going to come from to having several hitters capable of batting around .400.
Austin Labarber hit .356 and drove in 48 runs, while Calvin Butler became one of the team's most important everyday players. Butler appeared in 53 games, hit 10 home runs, drove in 51 runs and scored 51 times. He also drew 53 walks, consistently creating scoring opportunities for the hitters behind him.
Preston Rackley played 40 games, scored 50 runs and stole 18 bases. Devon Zielke scored 34 runs in 34 games, McCain Mason drove in 35 and Corey Lewis scored 46 runs while drawing 35 walks. Garden City's lineup developed significant depth as the season progressed, which was remarkable considering how incomplete the roster had been when Spring Training opened.
The pitching staff had the difficult job of surviving the offensive environment of Pecos League baseball, but several pitchers emerged as important contributors. AJ Clayton finished 6-1 with a 5.26 ERA and threw 65 innings. He made seven starts, completed three games and struck out 65 hitters. Tanner Stilts also won six games, finishing 6-2 while throwing 60 innings.
Kyle Adkins finished 5-2 and worked 58.1 innings, while Reid Frase went 4-3 and threw 60.2 innings over 10 starts. Ted Broxterman added 43.1 innings and finished 3-3. The rotation wasn't going to dominate every night, but it gave Garden City's powerful offense enough opportunities to win games.
Devin Malone became an important piece of the bullpen, appearing in 17 games and posting a 2.54 ERA while recording three saves. He struck out 29 hitters in only 17.2 innings. Noah Parsons appeared in 30 games and struck out 52 hitters in 32.2 innings, while Razedrick Winters contributed in relief and finished 2-0.
The Wind experienced plenty of the wild swings that defined Pecos League baseball. Garden City could win 25-2 one night and find itself in a high-scoring battle a few days later. After the six-game winning streak early in the season, the Wind lost 12-7 and 22-10 before responding with victories of 8-5 and 17-14. They lost 19-10 and then came back with a 14-8 victory.
Garden City's ability to respond after losses became one of the team's strongest qualities. The Wind won consecutive games 14-8 and 14-6 before exploding for a 27-11 victory. Later, Garden City demonstrated that it could win without relying entirely on offense, posting a 10-0 shutout before following it with a 21-1 victory.
By July, Garden City had established itself as a competitive club despite the unusual circumstances under which the roster had been assembled. There were difficult stretches and several high-scoring losses, but the Wind continued to recover. Garden City won games 16-11, 6-4 and 15-11 and remained capable of producing a major offensive performance on virtually any night.
The middle of July brought another strong stretch. Garden City won 15-13 and followed with a 12-4 victory. After losing 12-11, the Wind responded with a 4-0 shutout and then dominated the next game 15-1. The Wind later followed an 8-7 loss with a 7-6 victory before winning 9-2, 10-3 and 18-12.
The season wasn't always pretty, but the Wind kept finding ways to recover. A 15-14 loss was followed by victories of 11-5 and 8-3. Later, Garden City answered a 17-10 loss with a 20-4 victory and then won 4-3. The team that had entered Spring Training with only six recruited players had developed into a club capable of competing throughout the summer.
For Totty, the season represented an unusual introduction to managing the Wind. He had been promoted after Peterson was reassigned to Houston, but he never received the luxury of beginning with a complete roster. Only six players he recruited reported to Spring Training, forcing Dunn and Peterson to help complete the team. Totty then had to take players recruited from different places, put them together quickly and turn them into a functioning professional baseball club.
The resulting roster had legitimate talent. Blanco hit .411, Nielsen hit .402, Daniels hit .424 and Barber hit .361. Butler hit 10 home runs and drove in 51 runs. Labarber drove in 48. Clayton and Stilts each won six games, Adkins won five and Malone developed into a dependable late-inning reliever. Considering where the roster had started, the production was impressive.
The 2021 season also represented another chapter in the evolution of Garden City as a Pecos League market. When the Wind began in 2015, the organization had been trying to prove that professional baseball could work in western Kansas. By 2021, Garden City's viability as a market was no longer the question. Clint Lightner Field had become an established Pecos League venue, the community knew the Wind and the franchise had already experienced a division championship and the record-setting 2019 season.
The problem in 2021 wasn't finding a city that wanted professional baseball. It was finding enough baseball players to put on the field.
Only six of Totty's recruited players reported to Spring Training. Andrew Dunn and David Peterson had to help find the rest of the roster. Totty then had to take that collection of players and make it work.
Against the odds, it worked.
The Wind went from barely having enough players to conduct a normal practice to winning six consecutive games immediately after losing Opening Day. They scored 25 runs in a game, 27 in another, 21 in another and 20 on multiple occasions. They also demonstrated that they could win lower-scoring games when the pitching staff delivered.
The 2021 Garden City Wind season therefore wasn't defined by the six players who showed up at the beginning of Spring Training. It was defined by everything that happened after those six arrived.
David Peterson had been assigned to manage the Houston Apollos. Garrett Totty had been promoted to replace him in Garden City. Totty's recruiting efforts produced only six players who reported, leaving the Pecos League scrambling to complete the roster. Dunn and Peterson stepped in, more players were recruited and the Wind eventually had a team.
Then that team started winning.
What could have become one of the most difficult seasons in Garden City Wind history instead became another example of how unpredictable independent baseball could be. The roster wasn't built according to plan, the managerial transition wasn't simple and Spring Training began with barely enough players to take the field.
But by the time the season was underway, Garden City had once again found a way to make professional baseball work at Clint Lightner Field.
