FARMINGTON – With just a few weeks to go before the opening pitch of the 2026 Connie Mack World Series at Ricketts Park, this month’s premier amateur baseball event will clearly have a heavy Texas theme.
As many as seven teams from the Lone Star State have already stamped their tickets to the event, including the defending champions, Dulins Dodgers.
Following the conclusion of the New Mexico qualifying tournament this weekend at Ricketts Park, more than two dozen teams will face off in the Oklahoma qualifier – the final tournament leading up to the World Series. Half of those teams hail from Texas.
The Texas-sized influx of talent isn’t necessarily new. In 2017, the Dallas-based D-BAT United Baseball Club fielded three teams in the event. Last year, six Texas teams took part in the World Series.
A number of factors have led to the state’s larger presence, the most obvious being population and the sheer volume of teams and players competing in high school and amateur baseball across Texas. Beyond that is the success of the state’s prep baseball programs.
According to Baseball America, Texas boasts an incredibly deep roster of elite talent, regularly sending top high school players straight into the MLB draft conversation and top-tier college baseball programs.
The state’s top-ranked high school programs are anchored by nationally recognized, blue-chip recruits. Among them are Lucas Nawrocki from Aledo High School, who recently committed to LSU, and Cole Koeninger from Keller High School, who played in last year’s Connie Mack World Series and is committed to Tennessee.
CJ Sampson from Tomball High School is an elite infielder and multi-talented playmaker committed to Texas A&M. He was a driving force behind Tomball’s stellar national ranking, which sits at No. 1 or No. 2 in consensus polls.
Texas talent is also making waves at the collegiate level. In last month’s NCAA College World Series, the University of Oklahoma captured the national championship thanks in large part to pitcher Cord Rager, who played in the 2024 Connie Mack World Series representing Maypearl High School and the North Texas Longhorns.
Oklahoma’s Kyle Branch, who played his prep baseball at Lovejoy High School in Lucas, Texas, and also played for Dulins Dodgers in the 2023 CMWS, drilled a 3-run home run and drove in six runs in the national championship game over North Carolina.
Richard Neely, president of the American Amateur Baseball Congress, which hosts the Connie Mack World Series, is tasked with keeping the event worthy of national attention. The tournament’s championship game is now broadcast on national television, and the event’s social media presence has grown across multiple platforms.
“It was my objective 10 years ago to make sure we could get the best teams in Farmington possible,” Neely said. “To make this World Series maintain its status. And right now, with the talent that’s in Texas, they travel, and they win our qualifiers. I’m not going to say no to that.”
Mike McGaha, head coach at Carlsbad High and coach of the Four Corners Blue, one of the teams participating in this week’s New Mexico qualifier, believes the teams coming from Texas this month are going to make the CMWS a truly strong event.
“I think that you’re going to see when they get here, if they have that same staff of kids, they’re as good as anybody in the country. I mean, they have some of the top-end kids in the country,” McGaha said.
On the flip side, McGaha also believes the AABC needs to return to its roots with qualifying events.
“The AABC’s grips are not as deep in, say, Florida, or Mississippi, or Louisiana, or whatever,” McGaha said. “I was one of the ones that was very much in appreciation of the Florida Bombers, the East Cobb Yankees, Puerto Rico.”
Another factor driving the success of Texas teams is the growing popularity of baseball academies.
Midland Baseball, centrally located in Ohio, has teams across the country, while United Baseball Club and the Dulins Dodgers have teams of all ages competing in tournaments nationwide.
“It comes from not only parents, of course, but Dulins has an academy in North Texas and a dorm where they house more than 30 players. That doesn’t happen for free,” Neely said. “It used to be we had the Midland Redskins, but now we’ve probably got six teams like that.”
The history of baseball in the state of Texas is dotted with historically great players. Hall of Famers like Tris Speaker, Rogers Hornsby, Ernie Banks, Joe Morgan and Nolan Ryan were all born in Texas.
Landry Mayo has made this trip before, most recently coaching the Dallas Patriots in the 2024 and 2025 World Series. This summer, he will lead the Texas Marlins into the Connie Mack World Series after securing the Colorado qualifier with a 6-2 championship victory over another Texas-based team, the Frozen Ropes.
“Texas teams are the ones that are populating a lot of these qualifiers, so it’s a give-and-take. I know last year’s Connie Mack World Series was the highest attended one in years,” Mayo said. “It’s still the best event out there, and it’s definitely where we want to be at the end of every summer.”