Restoring a Treasure in Amarillo
Route 66 in Texas runs from Shamrock to Glenrio, 189 miles in all as the horse gallops. The midway point is Amarillo, also known as the “Yellow Rose of Texas,” given the Spanish origins of the city’s name.
It’s where you’ll find the Big Texan Steak Ranch, which promises that if you can eat their 72-ounce steak in under an hour, you get it for free, as well as the Cadillac Ranch, an artistic outdoor installation of 10 wildly spray-painted Caddies on end and all in a row. It’s also home to a vibrant grassroots baseball community.
For decades, the centerpiece of the amateur game in Amarillo was Potter County Memorial Stadium, which opened in 1949 just a few blocks from Route 66. It’s where fans saw the Amarillo Gold Sox play until 1983, except for three seasons when major league franchises moved their affiliates.
The Gold Sox played in the Class D West Texas-New Mexico League, Class A Western League and the Class AA Texas League. Fans saw young prospects from within the Orioles, Yankees, Cubs, Astros, Giants and Padres organizations. Future Hall of Famers Cal Ripken, Jr. and Tony Gwynn both wore Gold Sox uniforms along their journeys to the big leagues.
After the Padres moved its AA affiliation from Amarillo to Beaumont after the 1982 season, the venerable ballpark became home to independent and wooden bat leagues for 34 years until the American Association’s Texas Air Hogs left town in 2016.
Suddenly, Potter Stadium became very quiet.
Enter Mike Fuller, a coach, father, grandfather and visionary. One of Amarillo’s native sons, he grew up going to Gold Sox games with his parents, brother and friends. He’d see so many people he knew when he went to the ballpark that it felt like one big family picnic.
After graduating from Texas Tech in Lubbock, Fuller worked in construction and coached youth baseball until he had children of his own. “I was good enough to catch at Caprock High School, but that’s as far as my ability took me,” he said.
Fuller and his wife Diana had four children, all boys. As his sons grew older, he felt the urge to return to coaching. They all attended San Jacinto Christian Academy, and because two of them were playing baseball at the time, Fuller approached the school about starting a baseball team. The Academy agreed, and in 1995, with the help of Scott Tankersley, Fuller began to build the program.
“I thought it was important to teach the kids to play hard and to the best of their abilities. When they stepped out on the field, I wanted them to play the right way, and respect the game and their opponents.”
No one took the Patriots’ baseball program seriously at first, but with time, it began to blossom. “We won a lot of games and we sent a lot of kids to college. We got to a point where we had built respect for the program. Once that happened, recruiting kids to play became much easier.”
After the 2015 baseball season, the program was looking for a new home field and Fuller knew of a vacant site—Potter Stadium. The initial reaction was, “Oh no,” because of how rundown and filthy the stadium had become. But Fuller and the school convinced the county to lease Potter Memorial for the cost of rehabilitating and maintaining it.
“I was just looking for a place for our team to play. Once that door opened, I understood how much work and money it was going to take. When I started talking with folks in the community about our idea, I realized how much Potter County Stadium meant to the people of Amarillo. I had lost sight of it until then.
“They were very generous and many didn’t care about recognition—they were thrilled just to help. They told me they loved what we were doing. I had a great sense of pride when I realized there was a bigger picture; this was about community. It was immensely satisfying.”.
With financial support and in-kind donations—a scoreboard, for instance—from community members, and sweat-equity from his players and a legion of volunteers, work began. Dumpster after dumpster filled with garbage were removed. The field was hard as concrete, but soon truckloads of dirt arrived to completely revamp the infield. The outfield was seeded and mowed, and grass began to grow again. They completely rebuilt the dugouts. With a lot of hard work, they had a place to play, one with a rich history.
In 2017 the Patriots played their first game in a new home with a coach who used to be a teen-ager like them, sitting in the stands watching the next generation of major leaguers. “There was great satisfaction in taking a place where I spent much of my childhood, bringing it back to life, and then coaching there.”
Two years later, in Fuller’s final season before leaving high school coaching, the Patriots posted a 29-1-1 record and won the TAPPS Division 4 District 1 State Championship. Because of their success, and because of the 349 games he had won over 25 seasons, Fuller was recognized by the Amarillo Globe-News as its Baseball Coach of the Year.
“Baseball has opened some incredible doors for me. I felt like my involvement, even though I wasn’t very good, got me a seat at the table. I’ve met some great people who passed through Amarillo because of baseball—former Astros owner Drayton McLane, hitting coach Kevin Long, Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson, to name just a few.”
Even though he’s coaching in a college prep league, you’ll still find the former San Jac coach at Potter Memorial. He’s the one with the keys to the place and still takes personal pride in its upkeep. You might even see Mike Fuller there with one or more of his 13 grandchildren, many of whom he has coached.
“From the time I was a little kid, I’ve always been around the game in one form or another. For a guy who wasn’t a great player, the game allowed me to nibble around the edges of baseball, which is really, really cool.”
Follow us!
Instagram: @grassrootsbaseball
Twitter: @GrassrootsBB
Facebook: @GrassrootsBB