Take Me Out to the Ballgame: A Conversation with the Jackson Rockabillys

Episode 35: Pocket Change Podcast

Why is having a local sports team important to our community? Find out in this episode featuring Dennis Bastien, President and CEO of the Jackson Rockabillys. Having worked with multiple baseball teams across the South and Midwest over the years, Dennis saw potential in our area and the team. The Rockabillys are pouring into our community with their games and events.

“We promised the city that we would be more than just a ballpark,” says Dennis.

Summary

There's a long history of baseball in Jackson, Tennessee. The newest team is the Jackson Rockabillys, which is a part of the Prospect League. Since the ballpark wasn’t being used anymore by a professional team, there was an opportunity for a new team to represent Jackson. The Rockabillys are entering their second season, and they have become increasingly involved in the local community through corporate and nonprofit partnerships. Some of these partnerships include the Carl Perkins Child Abuse Center, the Dream Center, the Alzheimer’s Association, and the Animal Shelter. Along with hosting baseball games, the ballpark is also open as a venue for special events, such as concerts, reunions, and car shows.

“We feel that we're a very big contributor to the quality of life here,” says Dennis. “It's something to do. It's the family outing place. We're proud of that.”

Throughout the season, there are several games that have special themes and events. Leaders Night at the Ballpark will be on Friday, June 14. Members of Leaders Credit Union can pick up ticket vouchers at any of our branches to get into the game for free. Along with free tickets, the game will end with fireworks. Other special themes include Tail Wagging Wednesdays, Jackson Blue Suedes, and The League of Their Own Championship.

Key Takeaways

• The Jackson Rockabillys team provides fun summer activities for families in West Tennessee.
• Their games help grow tourism for the Jackson community.
• Nonprofits such as the Carl Perkins Child Abuse Center, the Animal Shelter, the Dream Center, and more are given proceeds from the games on certain nights of the season.
• The ballpark is open as a venue for special events, such as reunions, concerts, etc.

Are you looking for a fun activity for you and your family this summer? See the Jackson Rockabillys’ full schedule and find a time to cheer on the Goats!

Are you a member with us? Get your free ticket vouchers for Leaders Night at the Ballpark on Friday, June 14, 2024!

Be sure to listen to the full episode today.

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Full Transcript

Shea:

Hey, this is Shea.

Carrie:

And this is Carrie.

Shea:

Welcome to the Pocket Change podcast.

Carrie:

Where you'll learn better ways to spend, save, and invest, and take control of your financial journey.

Shea:

Take me out to the ball...

Carrie:

No.

Shea:

You don't want us to keep going? Well, on this episode, we're going to talk about America's favorite pastime. It's summertime. We love baseball here in Jackson. So if you've been around Jackson a while, back in the 1900s, we had the Railroaders was our team, but we've had The Diamond Jacks, The Generals, and now our newest team, The Rockabillys. So we're excited about this episode.

Carrie:

Yeah, we now have The Rockabillys, and I'm really excited about their second season that they just kicked off. My boys and I love to go, so we're excited about it. We're so happy to have our guest today.

Shea:

We're going out to the ball game.

Carrie:

We're excited to welcome our guest, Dennis Bastien, to the Pocket Change podcast. He is the President and CEO of the Rockabillys in Jackson. Welcome to Pocket Change, Dennis.

Dennis Bastien:

Thank you, ma'am. Looking forward to working with you folks.

Carrie:

Well we're so excited to have you with us. Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got started in baseball.

Dennis Bastien:

How long is this? I started during the Carter administration.

Carrie:

Oh, wow.

Dennis Bastien:

Carrie:

So you had your honeymoon in the locker room.

Dennis Bastien:

That was 40 years ago, two months ago. So been in it ever since. It's all we've ever done. A lot of minor league stops, a lot of minor league operations, a lot of things that we've done, and then became the College Baseball Coach and athletic director in an interim, was going to put a team in the Prospect League after my complex I built got wiped out by an E5 tornado in Southern Illinois, which was a remake of the ballpark that was built, that we built, for the League of Their Own movie.

Carrie:

Oh, wow.

Dennis Bastien:

And so when the league found out that we were interested in putting a team in Cape, they said, "You're overqualified. Would you rather be our Commissioner?" So for the last seven years, I was Commissioner of the Prospect League, and we came to Jackson. My wife and I decided to do this for ourselves.

Shea:

Wow.

Dennis Bastien:

So we moved here, we lived herem we're Jacksonians. In fact, my other home in Illinois is in Jackson County, by the way. So small world, and this is it.

Shea:

Well, what keeps you coming back year after year?

Dennis Bastien:

Absolutely. I mean, that's what we do. This is our life. We are blessed. We are very, very blessed. God has blessed us with success to some degree. Our daughter was married in September, and she and her husband moved here in February. She's full-time with us now. So somewhere down the road, six, seven, eight years from now, I'll probably shut it down and let her take it over. So we have to make it go well so we can hand it down.

Shea:

That's right. So that keeps you going day after day, just to keep it going and passing it down.

Dennis Bastien:

Well, see, I actually believe in the shark theory. Sharks only do three things in life. They swim and they eat and they make little sharks. I am finished making little sharks. I sleep and I eat, and that's rare, but if you slow down they die, so thats something you have to do in baseball. You never stop.

Shea:

There you go.

Carrie:

Never stop.

Shea:

Keep going.

Carrie:

So of all the places to choose to bring a franchise, why did you choose Jackson, Tennessee?

Dennis Bastien:

Well, it was the only AA team dropped by Major League Baseball when 43 teams were dropped at the end of the 2020 year. As a Commissioner, I went around to the cities that had been dropped and brought five in, including teams in Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri. When we came to Jackson, my wife and I decided, let's just do this for ourselves. This was the last stop. We're going to die here. I'm familiar with the area. When I was very young, my grandpa and I used to come down a Reelfoot Lake and fish. Where I'm from is not that far from here, even though it's in Illinois, about two and a half hours away. Jackson is a growing, booming area. The corporations are flying in here. We all see that. We saw a ballpark that was phenomenal, that was not in use. It was our dream to have a place like this after years in little tiny towns, little tiny ballparks. I will tell you this, first ballpark I've ever had that has an elevator, and we actually have a restroom in the office. Never had that before, nine stops.

Shea:

We're big time here in Jackson.

Dennis Bastien:

That's it.

Shea:

Dennis, why should the community support the Rockabillys?

Dennis Bastien:

Well, there's a lot of reasons, one of which was we feel that we're a very big contributor to the quality of life here. It's something to do. It's the family outing place. We're proud of that. We have a Rockabillys reading program going on right now, for example. We do a lot of things with the Alzheimer's Association, with the Dream Center, with the United Way, with the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, a lot of things we do. Obviously, we cannot do that unless we have support by the community, by the corporate entities here, through season tickets, Leaders Credit Union nights, and things like that. Obviously, it is something that... It's a giveback. We've been very proud and very blessed that the corporate community here and the private sector have been involved with us with season tickets and company nights and outfield signage and various promotional nights that we do.

Shea:

Well, it's good because you can help our community when patrons come to the area for tournaments or for events. It's helping our whole community thrive with economic development through the baseball park.

Dennis Bastien:

Well, absolutely. In fact, the first week of May, just in the last month, we hosted eight college teams of a 16-team Southern States Athletic Conference, and we used somewhere between 400 and 800, not for sure, hotel room nights for eight colleges that came in and stayed for five days. We had 18 games in five days and a long day practice day. So again, the economic impact on the hotel-motel tax, the restaurant use, the gas the gasoline, the diesel fuel for busses, et cetera. We're a mid-size Corporation. We're not a tiny little place, but we're not, obviously, Kellanova, or Leaders, or West Tennessee Healthcare, but we're a fairly big operation. We have over 120 employees that we give jobs to in the summertime, plus a year-round staff of 5-7. It's a little bit bigger than maybe what it used to be, and it's just how we operate, and that's how we run.

Shea:

We appreciate all that you all do to give back to our community.

Dennis Bastien:

We try.

Carrie:

Speaking of that, I feel like one of the things that I love most about the Jackson Rockabillys is that you're always hosting some kind of fun event. Tell us what you have planned for this summer.

Dennis Bastien:

Well, how long is this show? We're doing a lot of things, one of which obviously is a Leaders Credit Union night. It's upcoming real soon. Last year, we would have had an overflow crowd, but God put some water down on the field that night, and it rained, and it rained, and it rained. We're doing a lot of things quite differently this year. For example, one night every year, we are not the Rockabillys. This year, very soon, in a week or so, we are the Jackson Blue Suedes. Blue Suede, obviously, is commemorative of the Carl Perkins song. That night, all of our players be wearing these jerseys. That night, after the game, they will be auctioned off at home plate, and all the proceeds will go to the Carl Perkins Child Abuse Center. We'll also be giving away a pair of blue suede shoes every inning. We are also doing the world's largest musical accompaniment to Take Me Out to the Ball Game, and everybody that comes in in the seventh ending will get a kazoo. Also that night, Stan Perkins, Carl Perkins's son, will be singing the song at home plate. So that's just one of the things that we are doing that's pretty unique.

Shea:

Got a great jersey that will be presented. That looks great.

Dennis Bastien:

Another thing we're doing is we are doing a replication of The League of Their Own Championship game between the Rockford Peaches and the Racine Belles here in just a couple of weeks. And that is going to be big. I mean, we had a 172 women nationwide registered to come in to try out for that game. So in mid-April, on a Sunday afternoon, we have sixty-some women show up, and they could play. This is not softball. It's ninty-foot bases, sixty-foot mound, wood bat baseball. We have the costumes ordered. That's going to be really, really neat. We're reaching out to a lot of women empowerment groups, girls softball teams, to come be a part of this. So we have the Tom Hanks character. He will be mic'd up. We will do the no crying in baseball scene. We have little Stillwell. He's coming. It's going to be neat. It's like last year, and we're doing this again in a couple of weeks, the Banana Ball games. So we'll have our second annual Battle of the Billy's Banana Ball game, which last year had over 6000 people. We'll have more this year. More antics, more skits, more fun.

Dennis Bastien:

That's the type of thing we do. Now, unfortunately, both the Banana Ball game and The League of Their Own game, we cannot count in attendance because it's not a league game. We don't have a game that night. These are exhibition games, so they're part of our schedule. Season ticket holders have those same tickets. Again, a lot of things like that going all summer. We're doing a Tail Wagging Wednesday where you can enter your dog's picture. It will be on a jersey, and then we're having a pup rally and a tail-gate party. I see what you're doing. People will be able to wear their jerseys home. The players will be wearing these with maybe fifty to one hundred dogs on their jersey.

Carrie:

That is so fun.

Dennis Bastien:

We also, too, on that night with the Tail Wagging Wednesday, all proceeds go to the animal shelter.

Carrie:

That's awesome.

Dennis Bastien:

We're doing about eight nights this year where the proceeds go to the Alzheimer's Association, the animal shelter, Carl Perkins Child Abuse Center, to the Dream Center, and things like that. So that's something we can do to be a part of the community.

Carrie:

Lots of opportunities to support our community. That's wonderful.

Shea:

So you mentioned Leaders Night at the Ballparks. Coming back this year, our member appreciation night. That's going to be for our listeners. June 14th at the Ballpark, we have fireworks. Leaders members for member appreciation can get in. So we're looking forward to that. Can't wait to celebrate and see a Rockabillys win that night.

Dennis Bastien:

You guys have done a phenomenal job, that's an A plus on the way you market that and promote it for all the members. We're members, so I guess we'll get to come in.

Shea:

Yeah, thank you for choosing leaders.

Carrie:

You beat me to it.

Dennis Bastien:

Yeah, absolutely. So, proud of that. Proud of everything you folks do.

Carrie:

Well, we had a wonderful time last year, so we're looking forward to it again this year.

Dennis Bastien:

Even though it rained.

Shea:

No rain.

Carrie:

Yeah, the rain didn't... A little rain isn't going to put us down.

Dennis Bastien:

You still had a couple of thousand people sit in the rain, which was unbelievable.

Shea:

It's going to be a good time, a fun time. So we got a full summer, but there's other things you all do throughout the year. So tell us more about other events that happen at the stadium throughout the rest of the year.

Dennis Bastien:

Well, for example, we've done several car shows at the ballpark. We've done a concert. We've done Brewfest. We've done the Alzheimer Walk. We'll be doing this year the West Tennessee Chilly Cookoff. We're doing electric car racing through the school district. The Talladega people came up and put it on for us. We'll be doing that again. We book weddings, reunions, events. We're open for business. We promised the city that we would be more than just a ballpark. We're doing big corporate picnics out there, not so much always on the night of a home game, but the other nights during the year. We have several suites out there that they have company meetings. We have one tomorrow. A lot going on. We're open for that. We do not turn down anybody unless it's illegal. We do events non-stop. We're trying to book a couple of other big concerts now. There's always that possibility that the University of Tennessee will return for another game here, which if you folks were aware of that or if you saw that, was absolutely mind boggling. A totally meaningless fall practice game on a Sunday morning in November and had over 7,000 people there to see a meaningless game.

Dennis Bastien:

I learned the power in the clout, sorry anybody else, of University of Tennessee. It was unbelievable. It was so much fun. We're trying to get that back again.

Shea:

That'd be great.

Carrie:

I would love to see that.

Shea:

Lots of opportunities to enjoy festivities here in Jackson. And one more time, our Leaders Night for our members on June 14th out at the Ballpark. Appreciate all you all do and all that you bring to Jackson for families in our community.

Carrie:

So we've covered a lot of ground today, Dennis, but I do still have one last question for you. If you were to find some extra change in your pocket, what would you spend it on?

Dennis Bastien:

That's a good Good question, and you did tell me that in advance. So probably would have more embroidery items of the Rockabillys to wear around town.

Carrie:

More merch, huh?

Shea:

Some Rockabillys merch.

Carrie:

I like it.

Dennis Bastien:

That's it.

Shea:

I'd go get me a baseball hot dog from the concession stand.

Dennis Bastien:

That's it. We call them ballpark steaks.

Shea:

Okay, there we go. Ballpark steak.

Dennis Bastien:

Well, actually, all the names of our food items are from that era. That ain't nothing but a hot dog.

Shea:

There you go.

Carrie:

Well, we thank you so much, Dennis, for being here with us today, and I appreciate all that you've shared with us.

Dennis Bastien:

Thank you so much, and the immortal Jack Buck, the famous voice of the St. Louis Cardinals for forty-eight years. His son, Joe Buck, has done Super Bowl since the last twenty years, ended every broadcast with thanks for your time, this time, till next time.

Shea:

There you go.

Carrie:

Till next time.