Will they or won't they? The Monterey Amberjacks' return remains a question mark—for now.

“The Amberjacks aren’t out. The Amberjacks aren’t in.”

Andrew Dunn is describing a baseball purgatory, one to which the Monterey outpost of the Pecos League has been consigned to the past few years. Dunn, who oversees the independent minor league, says his last interaction with the City of Monterey was in November.

“I’ve never heard from them since,” he says. “I think they have zero interest in us.”

At the beginning of the new year, Dunn indicated on social media that the team would not return to Monterey. In their place, the Pecos League planned to install a new team in Grand Junction, Colorado.

But all of that came as a surprise to Monterey’s Parks & Recreation Department staff, according to Recreation Manager Shannon Leon. “We were in the dark,” she explains. “We didn’t hear anything.”

Then on Jan. 21, a door opened when the league dropped Kansas City from its lineup. On the same day—a Wednesday—Dunn put in a call to Monterey’s recreation supervisor, Nate Cota, and learned that he would have to submit a new proposal to the city.

Not long after their conversation, Dunn again turned to social media, posting for local fans that the league was trying to bring the Amberjacks back. And, once again, recreation department officials were dumbfounded.

“It’s news to us,” Leon says.

The last interaction between Dunn and the city was in November. According to Leon, the Pecos League owner proposed a dramatically reduced home schedule for 2026, amounting to one day each weekend throughout the summer. He also asked for changes to the contract.

The team’s current stasis is due to the lack of an agreement. As Leon puts it bluntly, “There is no contract.”

If and when a proposal arrives, it will have to go before both the Parks & Recreation board, as well as the Monterey City Council before an agreement becomes final.

The Amberjacks arrived in Monterey in 2017, part of the Texas-based league’s expansion to the West Coast. But after the 2023 season, the city declined to renew its contract with the league.

“They didn’t want us back—period—in 2024,” Dunn recalls.

Hosting a minor league team, even on the independent level, has proved a challenge. Monterey’s Sollecito Ballpark is used throughout the year by recreation leagues, youth camps and Monterey High School, causing the home schedule to be limited to weekends. The team is often forced to practice in Santa Cruz County.

In 2024 the issue was the league’s insurance policy, which did not meet the city’s requirements. Once that problem was cleared, the Amberjacks returned for the 2025 campaign—on a one-year contract that has since expired.

Leon says that the city had explained this and was awaiting a new proposal from Dunn, which was the gist of the Jan. 21 phone conversation. Dunn has indicated that he will send the documents as soon as possible.

“We’ve always wanted to be there,” he says of Monterey. “I thought we had a great year [in 2025].”

Whether or not the Amberjacks return for the 2026 season is still uncertain. Dunn’s proposal would have to meet with approval from the Parks & Recreation board at their February meeting before being presented to the City Council in March. The Pecos League consists of 16 teams playing a May-July regular season schedule.

But Dunn is acting with renewed optimism. Approval sailed through both bodies before the 2025 campaign. Leon observes that the only thing likely to hold up a contract is an issue with insurance. And Dunn notes that the league can adjust scheduling quickly, adding “The ’Jacks will be back.”

Yet the Pecos League owner can’t stifle his frustration.

“This isn’t the American Legion,” he says. “This can’t happen every year. If I had problems like this with other cities, I wouldn’t be running a league.”