10. Jack Sanders: Sandlot Baseball, Placemaking, and Building a Living Work of Art

Jack Sanders has spent the last twenty years building far more than a baseball team. He founded the Texas Playboys — Austin’s beloved sandlot baseball club — and later created The Long Time, a one-of-a-kind venue and community space in Far East Austin that feels part baseball field, part art project, part gathering place, part social experiment. What began as a love of baseball has become a much bigger exploration of creativity, collaboration, belonging, and how meaningful places are made.In this episode, Jack shares how his years playing with the Newbern Tigers in rural Alabama transformed the way he understands architecture, service, and community. What started as an architecture thesis project became a life-changing education in collaboration, resourcefulness, and the kind of placekeeping that can’t be manufactured from the outside. We talk about how sandlot baseball became a vehicle for joy, why the best creative work often emerges through iteration rather than perfection, and how The Long Time has become a living laboratory for a more alive and participatory way of making things.Jack’s work is about baseball, but in many ways, baseball is the excuse to reclaim fun, build places where people feel they belong, create with what you have, and to let curiosity and collaboration shape something more beautiful than you could have planned alone.What We Discuss:How the Texas Playboys grew from one sandlot team in Austin into part of a worldwide sandlot baseball movementWhy fun, imagination, and freedom from critique leads adults to play some of the best baseball of their livesHow Jack’s time with the Newbern Tigers in rural Alabama reshaped his understanding of architecture, service, and communityWhat he learned from Rural Studio and architect Samuel Mockbee about service, collaboration, and learning from communityThe surprising role baseball played in supporting community care Why the best creative work comes through collaborative, iterative design rather than rigid plans or individual geniusHow The Long Time became a living, breathing creative project — part venue, part art installation, part laboratoryThe concept of “dirty minimalism” and creating beauty through constraints, recycled materials, and resourcefulnessWhy unfinished, evolving work can still be deeply aesthetic, meaningful, and successfulWhat it means to create places where people feel relaxed, welcomed, and like they truly belongHow Austin’s artistic lineage has shaped Jack’s work and the ethos of The Long TimeWhy baseball is often just the excuse for something deeper: connection, expression, experimentation, and collective joyNotable Mentions:The Newbern Tigers / Newbern Baseball ClubRural Studio and Samuel Mockbee⁠YETI film⁠ featuring the Texas PlayboysSandlot Revolution ⁠podcast episode⁠ featuring Jack SandersCreative Influences: William Christenberry (photographer), Walker Evans, James Agee and Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, Willie Nelson, Richard Linklater, Armadillo World Headquarters, Tim Kerr, Jerry Jeff Walker, Lyle Lovett, Liz Lambert, Ben KwellerSteve Ross (UT professor)Follow The Texas Playboys and The Long TimeVisit ⁠The Long Time⁠ for a game, whether it be the Texas Playboys or one of the many other sandlot teams that play there! ⁠Get a ticket⁠ to the Texas Playboy game at Fusebox Live on April 18! The game (called “The Great Play”) will take place at The Wishing Well in Lockhart. Tickets are $10.  Follow on Instagram: @⁠thelongtimetexas⁠ and @⁠texasplayboysbaseball⁠ and Jack Sanders ⁠@dba_jacksanders⁠Follow + Support The Artist RendezvousFollow the podcast and leave a review or comment with your biggest takeawayInstagram / TikTok / YouTube: @theartistrendezvousWebsite: theartistrendezvous.comReach out: [email protected] Artist Rendezvous celebrates the creative spirit of Austin, Texas, sharing stories of inspiration, risk, and the courage to create.