DJ Stout

The story of Herbert Kokernot Jr. and his Alpine Cowboys is a legend among 
baseball fans, but until now it has never been the subject of a book.
 DJ Stout, son of former Cowboys player Doyle Stout, presents a hall-of-fame-worthy collection of photographs, memorabilia, and reminiscences from Alpine Cowboys players, family members, and fans that captures fifteen years (1946-1961) of baseball at its finest.


Published by the University of Texas Press, The Amazing Tale of Mr. Herbert and His Fabulous Alpine Cowboys Baseball Club: An Illustrated History of the Best Little Semi-Pro Baseball Team in Texas is both authored and designed by Stout. The book also includes a foreword by well-known sports writer Nicholas Dawidoff . The book formally launches October 2 at the historic Holland Hotel in downtown Alpine, but through a special agreement, advance copies will be available at the Way-Out-West Texas Book Festival on July 31. 


Back in the 1940s and 1950s, almost every small town in America had a 
baseball team. Most players were simply local heroes with a local following,
 but a few teams achieved fame far beyond their region. The Alpine Cowboys—despite being based in Texas's remote, sparsely populated Big Bend country—became a star in the firmament of semi- pro baseball. Lavishly underwritten
 by a wealthy rancher with a passion not only for baseball but even more for
 helping young men get a good start in life, the Cowboys played on a "field of dreams" whose facilities rivaled those of professional ballparks. Many
Cowboys went on to play in the big leagues, and several pro teams, including
 the Pittsburgh Pirates, Chicago White Sox, and St. Louis Browns, came to
 play exhibition games at Kokernot Field.

Nicholas Dawidoff's introduction tells the fascin- ating tale of "Mr. Herbert" and his
 determination to build a baseball team and ballpark that deserved to carry
his ranch's 06 brand. Stories abound of Kokernot's generosity to players,
who received free room and board, help with college tuition, and jobs on the 06, on top of their baseball pay and cash rewards for homers and strike
outs.



One of the most heartwarming episodes in the annals of the game, The Amazing
Tale of Mr. Herbert and His Fabulous Alpine Cowboys is a fitting tribute to a man, a team, and a ballpark "dedicated to the promotion of a clean and 
wholesome sport, our national game, baseball."


From the Introduction:

There is a legend of the wealthy Alpine cattle rancher who loved both the
game of baseball and his hometown with such consuming passion that in 1947
he built what is quite possibly the world's most beautiful ballpark. It was
an idea dusted with magic, a summertime daydream of a ball field, surrounded
by a ten-foot-high fence of native red stone, with a lush Bermuda grass
outfield, rows of rosebushes, a luxurious manager's bungalow behind third
base, and a spectacular vista of the Davis Mountains rising beyond the
fences. Like William Randolph Hearst's mansion, San Simeon, the Alpine
ballpark was furnished with the choicest materials. Some 1,200 wooden
chairs, complete with armrests and the ticket holders' names embossed on the
backs, filled the bright green grandstand. The concession stands had roofs
made of Spanish tile, and everywhere were wrought iron lanterns inlaid with
baseball designs. Some of America's famed ballplayers, among them Satchel
Paige, Norm Cash, and Gaylord Perry, played there from time to time. But what
made all this unusual in terms of West Texas legends is that Kokernot Field
 is as real as its builder, Herbert Kokernot Jr. and every bit of the story you 
are about to read is true.
- Nicholas Dawidoff

More About the Author

DJ Stout is a fifth-generation Texan born in Alpine. He received his degree in design communication from Texas Tech University in Lubbock, where he has been honored as a distinguished alumnus. Between 1987 and 1999 he was art director of Texas Monthly, where he helped to guide the magazine to three National Magazine Awards. Stout joined 
Pentagram Design’s Austin office as a partner in 2000. In 1998 American Photo magazine named him one of its "100 Most Important People in Photography," and in 2004 I.D. (International Design) magazine selected Stout for "The I.D. Fifty," its annual listing of design innovators. In 2010 the Society of Illustrators honored Stout with the national Richard Gangel Art Director Award.


Nicholas Dawidoff is an internationally acclaimed baseball expert and the
author of four books.  He is also the editor of the Library of America's Baseball: A Literary Anthology. Dawidoff has been named a Guggenheim, Civitella Ranieri and Berlin Prize Fellow and is a contributor to the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, and the American Scholar.