The Jackson Rockabillys: The Ministry of Baseball

Written by Anna Esquivel
Photographed by Dan Battle

I lost count of the number of times Dennis and Lisa Bastien said they were “blessed” to be in Jackson heading up the Rockabillys baseball team. As a Southerner, it's a phrase I hear so often that I can be a bit, well, cynical about its overuse. But the more I learned about the Bastiens and their journey to Jackson, the less cynical I became and the more I wondered if “blessed” was an understatement. 

A Rockabillys experience showcases the best of what sports has to offer any town. A collective identity radiates from the players to the spectators. Dennis and Lisa Bastien, in spirit and in service, remind me that sports, and baseball especially, can be much more than just spectacle and revenue.

It would be easy to walk into the Rockabillys offices and see only spectacle. Movie posters greet you as soon as you walk in: Field of Dreams, A League of their Own, The Sandlot, Bull Durham, For Love of the Game. Baseball stadium blueprints and renderings line the walls. Each office is the resident’s own ode to baseball, but Dennis’s corner office is the most impressive. There’s the usual kind of memorabilia: old bats and bobbleheads, signed balls and old news articles. On closer inspection, these items tell a much deeper, more intimate story. Dennis isn’t just any collector who hunts down some cool stuff on eBay. His bobbleheads date back to the 1960s, when he and his grandfather took trains from Southern Illinois to St. Louis to watch Major League Baseball games, collecting priceless memories along the way. The old wooden bats that stand sentry in the corner of his office were used by his grandfather in his Army baseball days, when he played with Don Larsen. Covering two other walls were pieces that signified another side of Dennis’s connection to what baseball offers the American narrative. 

The first thing you see when you walk into Dennis’s office is a signed lithograph of a ballplayer painted with exaggerated extremities, reaching for a ball as he stands over another player sliding into base. “That’s Cool Papa Bell,” Dennis explained. “Maybe the greatest player who ever played the game.” Art renderings and reprints of old newspapers articles about the Negro League cover about half of Dennis’s office. He’s deeply invested in the history of the league and was proud to share with me that Major League Baseball had, just this spring, integrated the Negro League’s stats into its records. While this move by MLB certainly could never right the wrongs of the past, it allowed Josh Gibson, a talented player from the 1940s, to claim the top spot in MLB for highest batting average. 

It doesn’t take but a few minutes of meeting Dennis to realize that there’s nothing trivial about these memorabilia. They aren’t for show. In fact, most spectators will never see the inside of this office or hear the stories Dennis has to tell about each item. These items aren’t for us, but for him. They remind him why he has dedicated his life to baseball and why baseball is worth dedicating one’s life to. 

The journey to Jackson for the Bastiens has been thirty years long. They were scouted by Mayor Charles Farmer back before there was a ballpark. On an early visit to the area, Farmer had taken the Bastiens to the tract of land between Exit 85 and 87 that would become the ballpark, trying to tell them that the Fairgrounds where the Bastiens’ team would have to play was planned to be only a temporary park. Unfortunately, at the time, the league that Dennis was scouting for wasn’t keen on their teams playing in borrowed fields. Nevertheless, the Bastiens saw something special in Jackson on that visit, and it never quite left their imagination. 

Over those thirty years, the Bastiens kept up the baseball business, owning teams, commissioning leagues, and building ballparks, yet something would keep drawing them back to Jackson — to scout, to play, and to keep those early memories of what could have been ignited in a small way.

Eventually, Dennis would be hired as the commissioner for the Prospect League, a collegiate summer league that he expanded to include the Rockabillys. At that point, the Bastiens had suffered several losses in their enterprise but gained their first grandchild. And once again, they had an opportunity to bring a league team to Jackson and to put down roots somewhere for a while. They had put in an impressive and expansive proposal to the City of Jackson, but they just weren’t sure it would pan out. 

One Sunday morning, as they were considering the fate of their proposal, Lisa and Dennis wondered if they should head to Jackson after church, just to take one more look at the park. “We rarely turned on the radio, much less to a country station,” Dennis explained. But something made them turn on that FM station, and when they did, there was the Man in Black inviting them to come along, because he was “Going to Jackson.” “My whole life, I’d never heard that song on the radio — and I was a big country music fan,” said Lisa. So if this wasn’t a sign, then signs don’t exist. Not ones to argue with the great Johnny Cash, the Bastiens did go to Jackson, made it home, and made the Rockabillys their home team. 

With the addition of their daughter Grace Crocker, the Bastiens have been able to create a team that not only expands the recreational offerings of West Tennessee, but also the number of people who, even if temporarily, call Jackson home. Each summer, the Rockabillys host college ballplayers from all over the league’s coverage area. While Grace ostensibly acts as the CFO for the team, her passion is creating a sense of home and belonging for the transient players. She’s very aware of the impact these players have not just on the team but the region. She wants these players to connect with the community, to see what Jackson has to offer, and to eventually graduate from college and consider returning to Jackson for a place to work and build a family.

 The Rockabillys’ economic and community impact is not limited to baseball games. The Bastiens’ proposal for the park won out because of their promise to bring events other than baseball to the park. From Brew Fest to car shows to concerts, the Bastiens have kept their promise. This October, thousands of people will attend the University of Tennessee Baseball’s fall practice game; this spring, the stadium will host a 32-team National Down Syndrome Awareness high school baseball tournament. After that, the Southern States Athletic Conference will bring 16 teams to the area. As a way to connect the historic with the present, Dennis has just signed a contract to bring the Black College World Series, a week-long event highlighting eight of the best baseball teams from Historically Black Colleges and Universities to Jackson in May 2025. 

The economic impact of the Prospect League is much more expansive than that of a minor league team, because the shorter game season allows for more off-season programming, which can be tailored to the values and interests of the West Tennessee community. The Rockabillys employ about 60 to 70 people on any given game night. Over the years, baseball in Jackson has given so many people opportunities for employment. Dennis proudly talked about how often he hears from spectators and Jackson natives that they worked at the ballpark at one point or another. Grace explained that she wants the ballpark to be part of West Tennesseans’ personal milestones and hopes to find more ways for the Rockabillys to play a part in people’s “firsts”: a child’s first ball game, a company’s first social gathering, a teenager’s first job. 

What makes baseball such an important linchpin for a community? “There’s no clock,” Dennis answers. The leisureliness of the game, the relative closeness of the players to the fans, the openness of the stadium that allows movement and play —all of this makes baseball not just a game to be watched, but a communal, connecting experience as well. During any game, you’re not just watching the players play; you’re watching old friends connect, children playing in the stands, new friendships being made. With every crack of the bat, our collective eyes move back to the game play — but only for a moment. Community is made, and in the meantime, a ball game is being played. 

The Bastiens’ hope is that Rockabillys Stadium will host more community events and fundraisers. They want it to be such an impressive place for players to play that they tell other players that Jackson is the place to be. They want it to be a familial place, a place of firsts. If the Rockabillys are a ministry, then the stadium is the church. The Bastiens are building a space where West Tennesseans can foster kinship and share community values. For the Bastiens, baseball is more than a business; it is history, it is art, it is family, and it is a mission.