Best Little Ballpark in Texas
Alpine’s Kokernot Field was built with Texas-sized dreams
Back in 1951, when men wore hats and ties and women wore dresses to attend just about any event, well-dressed fans poured into a little ballpark in Alpine where an exhibition game between the St. Louis Browns and Chicago White Sox took place.
Far West Texas is full of surprises, from the Chisos Mountains to an artsy faux Prada store in the middle of nowhere, from the mysterious Marfa Lights to the dark skies above the McDonald Observatory. So who’d expect to find a ballpark so scenic and inviting that it was dubbed the “Best Little Ballpark in Texas (or Anywhere Else)” by Sports Illustrated in 1989, and the “Yankee Stadium of Texas” by Texas Monthly a decade later (in its March 1999 issue)?
In 1946 Herbert Kokernot Jr. (known as Mr. Herbert to locals), the owner and operator of the iconic Kokernot 06 Ranch and a lover of baseball since childhood, took over a local semipro baseball team, the Alpine Cats. The deal included a less-than-ideal-stadium, with just some old wooden planks as seats, tin for shade and chicken wire surrounding the outfield.
Left Big Bend rancher Herbert Lee Kokernot, owner of the Kokernot 06 Ranch, married his love of Alpine with his love of baseball, constructing the stadium for his semi-pro team at a cost of $1.25 million in 1947. Right Kokernot (KOH-kuhr-not) Field is, according to Sports Illustrated, “quite possibly the world’s most beautiful ballpark.” It opened in 1947.
Kokernot took great pride in his family name and their generations in the ranching business 15 miles outside of Alpine — and he was determined to build a baseball empire worthy of his ranch’s 06 brand. At the field he had the official brand placed along the fence and gates. He even used the red and white of his beloved Hereford cows as the team colors. When his father first saw the field, he said, “Son, if you’re going to put the 06 brand on something, do that thing right.”
In 1946, construction began to do that thing right. The red granite walls came from rock quarried from the 06, the clay for the base paths was shipped in by boxcar from Georgia, and the turf was sourced from different types of grasses found in the region. The 10-foot-high fence went in place. By the time Kokernot Field was ready for play in May 1947, it had cost $1.25 million, five times as much as Chicago’s Wrigley Field 33 years earlier.
It would seem that money was no object in Kokernot’s plan to build the empire that reflected the game he loved. Upon the park’s reopening, the semipro Cats were renamed the Alpine Cowboys. With Kokernot’s passion, seemingly unlimited funds, connections throughout the nation’s leagues and aggressive recruiting tactics — including some of the most generous salaries in the league (plus cash-in-palm rewards for home runs) — the Cowboys immediately established themselves as the best semipro team in the Southwest. Exhibition games included popular players like Satchel Paige, Don Newcombe and Johnny Podres. As a teenager, future Hall of Famer Gaylord Perry pitched briefly for the Cowboys.
By 1958, stadium lighting was installed. But prior to that, Kokernot toured the state, counting the lights in other stadiums. He wanted to make sure his field had the most.
COMING HOME These days the Alpine Cowboys, of the Pecos Leauge, play their home games at Kokernot. The stadium has also hosted the Sul Ross State Lobos and the Big Bend Cowboys.
As much as those first 12 seasons of the Cowboys were a success, semipro leagues were shrinking in popularity nationwide. In 1959, Kokernot reluctantly hitched his Cowboys to the farm system of the Boston Red Sox, making Alpine the smallest town in the nation with a professional baseball team. However, being associated with the pros didn’t sit well with Kokernot. He didn’t like some of the rules that came with being part of the pros, so the arrangement ended after the 1961 season.
As Nicholas Dawidoff wrote in Sports Illustrated, “There were things about these ’fessionals, as he called them, that Mr. Herbert couldn’t abide. In the old days when a slight rainfall softened his infield, Mr. Herbert had simply called the game off, telling ticket holders to use their stubs the next day. You couldn’t do that with the pros.” Local ballplayer Ray McNeil remembered, “Mr. Herbert told me, ‘I’m fed up with this ’fessional baseball. Why, they trade these boys right and left, selling them off like cattle.’”
After that, the Sul Ross Lobos became the only team playing at Kokernot Field. And in 1968, even the baseball program at the university was discontinued, and the field went dark. Kokernot then gave the field to the local high school, but without his personal oversight, it fell into disrepair. Kokernot was heartbroken and wasn’t seen around town much after that.
In the fall of 1983, Sul Ross University brought back the baseball program. The university leased the old ballpark and spent $150,000 updating it and returning it to its original glory.
Kokernot died in 1987, three years after the Lobos resumed playing at Kokernot Field. In 2009 a team called the Big Bend Cowboys organized to play as a pro ball team. In their second season, the team won the league championship.
Today, the Alpine Cowboys call Kokernot their home. In fact, Herbert Kokernot’s great-granddaughter, Kristin Lacy Cavness, serves as general manager of the team and is president of the non-profit Cowboys organization. And the park is just one element of the team’s appeal: Alpine, situated at roughly 4,500 feet, enjoys mild summers, making it an ideal venue for a summer ballgame.
