Salina Stockade (baseball)

Lore & Background

Formed in 2016, the Salina Stockade were originally part of the Pecos League. In 2017 they played as a traveling team in the American Association of Independent Professional Baseball, though they were not a direct replacement for the Laredo Lemurs, playing only sixteen home games at Dean Evans Stadium. The team traveled to play each of the four teams in the Can-Am League in 2018, and in 2019 they traveled to play each team in the Pacific Association; the Western League was not a recognized independent league in 2019.

In 2020, the Stockade were initially set to return to the Western League and play games out of Bakersfield, California, but the Pecos League canceled its season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and no games were played. No championship series took place.

In 2021, the Pecos League announced the Stockade would return as a full member after improvements to Dean Evans Stadium, but the team played no home games in Salina, hosting seven games at El Dorado's McDonald Stadium and six in Colby. Following the season, the team was dropped from the Pecos League lineup and competed in the Pecos Spring League during 2022, hosted at Coastal Baseball Park in Houston, after which the team ceased operations.

Reader's Guide

The Salina Stockade represent a unique chapter in independent professional baseball, operating primarily as a traveling team that filled scheduling gaps in multiple leagues. Their history illustrates the instability and adaptability of independent baseball franchises, particularly those that serve as 'replacement' teams for leagues with uneven numbers. The Stockade's 2020 season, played entirely in Houston due to the pandemic, and their 2021 season without any home games in Salina, highlight the logistical challenges faced by such teams. Their eventual dissolution after the 2022 Pecos Spring League underscores the precarious nature of independent baseball. Despite their short existence, the Stockade's role in keeping league schedules balanced and providing playing opportunities for unaffiliated players is a notable footnote in the sport's independent circuit history.

Did You Know?

• The Salina Stockade began play in 2016 as part of the Pecos League.
• The 2020 Pecos League season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and no games were played.
• The team never played a championship series in 2020, as the season was canceled entirely.

Filling a Void: The 2016 Debut

The Salina Stockade entered the Pecos League of Professional Baseball Clubs under somewhat urgent circumstances. On February 25, 2016, the league announced that the Las Cruces Vaqueros would be unable to compete that season because of severe damage to their home stadium. To preserve the circuit's geographic footprint, the Stockade were brought in as an expansion franchise, giving the Kansas city a professional baseball team for the first time. Their debut campaign, however, was far from a traditional season. Rather than a full slate, the Stockade played a limited eleven-game home schedule in 2016, a truncated run that reflected both their late addition and the inherently compressed nature of Pecos League calendars, which have historically packed as many as seventy or eighty games into roughly three months. The Stockade thus became part of a league that deliberately plants its clubs in communities untouched by Major League or Minor League baseball, operating across desert and mountain regions stretching from California and Arizona through Kansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri, with no affiliation to either of the established professional structures.

A Single Season and a Sudden End

The Salina Stockade's initial tenure in the Pecos League proved to be a one-year experiment. Following the conclusion of the 2016 campaign, the league experienced a seismic realignment that reshaped its entire geographic map. Two of its Kansas-based franchises, the Salina Stockade and the Great Bend Boom, both folded entirely, ceasing operations after just a single year on the circuit. Simultaneously, a third Kansas club, the Topeka Train Robbers, uprooted and relocated to Bakersfield, California, where they assumed the identity and slot of the former Bakersfield Blaze, a team that had itself folded after the 2016 California League season. This wave of departures and relocations pulled the league's presence out of the Kansas heartland and consolidated more clubs in California. For Salina, the folding meant the city lost its professional baseball representation almost as quickly as it had gained it, a stark illustration of the financial and logistical fragility that can accompany independent, pay-to-play style leagues operating in smaller markets with limited infrastructure.

The 2021 Comeback and Second Farewell

After a five-year absence from the Pecos League, the Salina Stockade made a surprising return for the 2021 season. Their comeback was announced alongside the addition of the Colorado Springs Snow Sox as a new expansion franchise, signaling the league's continued effort to broaden its geographic reach. The 2021 season itself carried the lingering weight of the pandemic; the league had already navigated a heavily disrupted 2020 campaign in which most games were consolidated at a single venue in Houston, Texas, and the Pacific Division was unable to compete at all. By 2021, the Stockade were back on the field in Kansas, competing in a circuit that also saw the introduction of a Bay Series in August after the Bakersfield Train Robbers were forced to cancel their final home games following a positive COVID-19 test. The Stockade's second chapter, however, was equally brief. After completing the 2021 season, Salina was not included among the member clubs for 2022, when the league instead announced three new expansion franchises in Santa Rosa, Austin, and Weimar, leaving the Stockade once again outside the circuit.

Life in the Pecos League Ecosystem

Understanding the Salina Stockade requires understanding the unique world of the Pecos League, the independent circuit headquartered in Houston that the Stockade called home during both of their stints. The league deliberately plants its teams in cities with no Major League or Minor League baseball presence, spreading franchises across desert and mountain regions in states ranging from California and Arizona to Kansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri. Schedules are intensely compressed, with seasons historically running as many as seventy games in seventy-two days or eighty games in three months, though more recent campaigns have trimmed the slate to around fifty games from late May through July, capped by three-game playoff series. The league also operates a separate pay-to-play winter circuit called The Western League for free agents and players not enrolled in college programs, as well as a one-month spring developmental showcase in March aimed at recent graduates seeking a full-season berth. The Stockade's two brief runs through this ecosystem, eleven home games in 2016 and a full 2021 season, placed them squarely in a league defined by its scrappy, community-rooted identity and its constant churn of teams appearing, disappearing, and reappearing.