Photography by Kathy Tran
Patty Evans started an amateur baseball team, the Oak Cliff Pelicans in 2006.
The team is still around, but Evans doesn’t play on it anymore.
“It’s very, very competitive,” he says. “A lot of ex-minor leaguers and some major leaguers, older guys, go out there and play. I just kind of got burnt out on it.”
In 2017, he found “the field of dreams of sandlot,” he says. That’s The Long Time, an event venue in Austin that is home to the Texas Playboys Baseball Club.
Evans rounded up a few of his less-serious baseball buddies to play in a tournament there.
“And I was hooked,” he says. “It’s basically the fun part of baseball without all the work.”
The Oak Cliff 86ers formed this past May, playing home games at Lake Cliff Park and traveling as far as San Antonio and Tulsa.
Sandlot baseball was inspired by the 1993 film The Sandlot. It’s nostalgia and camaraderie in the form of a game they all played when they were kids.
Texas Playboys founder Jack Sanders published The Sandlot Manifesto last year. That team also inspired the Nashville Dollies, the Sandlot Sox of Tulsa and Los Slowpokes of San Antonio.
The Oak Cliff 86ers, named after the year John S. Armstrong and Thomas L. Marsalis bought 230 acres they would name Oak Cliff, host a pick-up game once a month on Saturdays. That gives guys a chance who can’t commit to playing every week and is a way for the curious to try it out.
The Oak Cliff sandlot league with teams from various neighborhoods with mascots from their history is his dream. The Wynnewood Boomers is one idea. That idea comes from East Van Baseball, in Vancouver, British Columbia, which has teams such as the Brewery Creek Mashers and the Mt. Pleasant Murder.
The Tulsa league also has a municipal field they care for and manage, and Evans also wants to find a situation like that, a home field where they can take ownership and field tournaments.
Many sandlot baseball players, now in their mid-30s, played little league but dropped out of the sport around ninth grade.
“That’s when it gets serious,” says 40-year-old James Harrington, who gave up baseball to focus on tennis in high school. “You either have to fully commit or get out.”
Most of the players found out about the team in an analog way, flyers that Evans put up around the Bishop Arts District. That’s also how a team started in The Colony. A guy from Little Elm was visiting Bishop Arts, saw the flyer, came out for a pick-up game and started the North Texas Barn Stormers.
“That’s what we want, more teams to play.” Evans says. “We’re playing them next month.”
The 86ers try to keep an over-21 age limit because sometimes they drink. But it’s open to anyone, regardless of skill or athletic ability.
Expectations are low. There’s no judgment. Guys are just having fun. But also, there’s an emphasis on swagger. It’s OK to play-act as Big Papi, even if you’re batting .100. The teams buy uniforms with their names printed on the back, and players get fully outfitted with cleats and catcher’s gear.
There are players who make diving catches and blast out-of-the park homeruns, and the very small crowd goes wild!
Anyone can have their moment.
“We’re just not very good in general,” says Jonathan Braddick, a former high-school football player and father of two who plays catcher for the 86ers.
Sometimes they hire umpires, and sometimes members of each team take turns calling balls and strikes.
“If you have a general understanding of how baseball works, you can pretty much play,” Evans says. “Not everybody can hit that well or throw that well or catch the ball that well. But you just get out there and run around and have a good time.”
