Pecos welcomes professional baseball team

A ribbon-cutting event in Pecos on Monday welcomed a brand new professional baseball club: the Pecos Bills.

The Bills play in the Pecos League, and their home opener will be May 28 against the Alpine Cowboys at Cyclone Parks. Teams in the Pecos League play in cities that don’t have major or minor league baseball teams. They are not affiliated with those organizations, either.

In its inaugural season in 2011, the Pecos League was based along the Pecos River, from Alpine, Texas to Roswell, New Mexico. Now, the league offers two divisions spanning the plains of Kansas to the oceans of California to the Texas-Mexico border. The Bakersfield Train Robbers in California, the Santa Fe Fuego in New Mexico, the  Tucson Saguaros in Arizona and the Garden City Wind in Kansas are among the teams.

The Pecos Bills play in the Mountain Division, which features teams in Texas, New Mexico, Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Arizona. The Pacific Division features all teams in California. The league does not use a designated hitter. Rawlings is the official game ball. Pplayers are required to use MLB-approved bats.

“The league’s high power offenses are fueled by high altitudes and smaller ballparks,” league officials said.

In an interview with Newswest9 at Monday’s ribbon-cutting, Andrew Dunn, Pecos Bills’ owner, expressed excitement to play ball in Pecos.

“We are glad to be here to bring some baseball,” he said.

The Town of Pecos City is certainly showing its pride for its new team, stating online, “Welcome home, Pecos Bills,” with the hashtag “OurTownOurTeam.”

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