The NBC World Series

From July 25 to August 3, the National Baseball Congress will hold and celebrate the 90^th anniversary of the NBC World Series. The World Series used to be held at the old Lawrence-Dumont Stadium in Wichita, Kansas, and will feature the very best amateur teams from locales across this great country of ours. The NBC World Series is now played at Eck Stadium on the campus of Wichita State University. The 2023 World Series featured teams from Texas, Oklahoma, California and Washington state, as well as six different squads from Kansas.

Any baseball-crazy Kansan in the 1970s always remembers the NBC World Series. It seems when I was younger, it was called the NBC tournament. No matter, times change. I was always fascinated that Liberal, Kansas always had one of the top amateur teams in the nation during those years. In fact, one of my early baseball dreams was to head west and play for the Liberal Bee Jays. The Bee Jays won the NBC World Series in 1968, 1979, 1985, 2000, and 2010. They’ve been the runner-up on seven other occasions and have put 65 players into the major leagues, including former Kansas City A’s star Bob Cerv (who managed the team for a few years), Ken Landreaux, and Mike Hargrove, who hailed from nearby Perryton, Texas.

As for some of the Kansas baseball history, the Jayhawk League was formed in 1976 as an NCAA-sanctioned collegiate league. There are a surprising number of summer collegiate leagues across the country, 77 by my count. These leagues are also known as “wood bat leagues” with some of the more common being the Cape Cod League, the Alaska Baseball League, the Kansas Collegiate League, and the Northwoods League. Players billet with local families while they continue to hone their craft, hoping to get noticed by a scout.

In 1976, the Jayhawk League consisted of the Hays Larks, Hutchinson Broncos, Red Oak, Iowa Red Sox, St. Joseph, Missouri Mustangs, Clarinda, Iowa A’s, along with teams in Amarillo, Texas, Elkhart, and Topeka, Kansas. If you went to the NBC tournament in the 1970s, you saw some serious talent. Among the players who made the majors were Bob Horner, Roy Smalley, Dave Chalk and Burt Hooten, who played for the Boulder (CO) Collegians. Von Hayes played with the Clarinda, Iowa team. The Alaska Baseball League always fielded great teams. This was something that blew my young mind. How did so many future major league stars end up playing ball in Alaska? Among them were Steve Kemp and Floyd Bannister for Fairbanks and Rick Cerone, Bump Wills, Bruce Bochte, Randy Jones, and Chris Chambliss for Anchorage. And that’s just in the 1970’s.

The Jayhawk League had their share of outstanding players as well. In 1984, the Hutchinson Broncos had an outfield of Barry Bonds, Pete Incaviglia and Rafael Palmeiro. That trio eventually hit 1,537 major league home runs but even with that star power, the Broncs didn’t make the NBC finals. The Hays Larks have always fielded a competitive team. Jim Leyritz played for the Larks in 1985, followed by Lance Berkman (1995), Jack Wilson (1996), and Albert Pujols in 1999.

Yes, that Albert Pujols. I can remember my dad telling me that summer about some kid out in Hays, playing for the Larks, who was hitting a ton of home runs. Word travels fast. I’m still amazed that no one took Pujols until the 13^th round of the draft! Granted, a lot of teams, most of them in fact, thought Pujols had falsified his birth certificate and was older than he presented himself to be. You know what? Who cares! If a guy can hit like that, I don’t care if he’s 50 years old, I’ll find a place for him in the lineup. The other Missouri team eventually did, and you know the rest of the story: 3,384 hits, 703 home runs, 2,218 RBI, three-time MVP, future first ballot Hall of Famer, 101 career WAR. Oh, and he played high school ball just a couple of long home runs north of Kauffman Stadium. It was a colossal scouting failure by all the major league teams, but especially for the Royals, who were not only terrible most of those years, but HE WAS LITERALLY IN THEIR BACKYARD!!! In fact, the Royals have a grim history of scouting local talent, seeming to pass on the best players, while drafting a very few who never seem to pan out. Whew. I had to get that out of my system.

Anyway, back to the NBC World Series. The first NBC World Series, then called the Little World Series, was held in 1935, the brainchild of Wichita sportswriter Raymond “Hap” Dumont. Dumont was a bit of a promoter and innovator along the lines of Bill Veeck. In addition to the tournament, he invented a pneumatic home plate duster, an early version of the pitch timer, and put microphones on umpires so the crowd could hear the calls. He employed some of the first female umpires and scheduled games that started at 5 a.m. to accommodate third-shift aircraft workers. Dumont died in 1971 and the stadium where the World Series was played was renamed Lawrence-Dumont Stadium in 1978. The Royals AA farm team, the Wichita Wingnuts, played at Lawrence-Dumont from 2008 to 2018. Wichita has long been home to minor league baseball, starting with the Wichita Braves in 1950, followed by the Wichita Aeros from 1970 to 1984. The Wichita Pilots and Wranglers played in Wichita from 1987 to 2007, followed by our beloved Wingnuts.

My brother-in-law Larry, a Wichita native and hard-core Chief and Royals fan, attended many minor league and NBC tournament games in the 1970s. He said Lawrence-Dumont was a great place to see a game, but the restroom facilities, with the sloping trough in the men’s room, left something to be desired. The stadium was used for multiple purposes such as concerts and road races. Many 5k and 10k races would end at the stadium with participants taking a lap around the playing field at the end of the race.

Lawrence-Dumont was razed in 2018 and a new facility, called Riverfront Stadium was built on the site. My last trip to Lawrence-Dumont would have been in the summer of 2013. The gray lady was showing her age but was still viable. There was a youth tournament going on at the time. I pulled up a chair and watched for an hour or so, soaking up the sun and the sounds of infield chatter and bat-hitting ball. I spent nearly an hour walking around the concourse, reading the plaques dedicated to previous NBC and minor league stars who played at Lawrence-Dumont.

When Hap Dumont set up the inaugural tournament in 1935, he knew he needed a star, someone with some buzz, to get things started. That star was Satchel Paige, who Dumont paid a $1,000 appearance fee to play. That $1,000 is equivalent to about $23,000 today, but in 1935, in the height of the Great Depression, it was a significant sum.

Paige proceeded to strike out 60 hitters over four games to lead the Bismarck Churchill’s to the very first NBC title. Paige, unable to play minor or major league baseball at the time, was also named the tournament MVP.

Many former Royals have played in the NBC tournament including Al Hrabosky (Wichita), Bud Black (Clarinda), Alex Gordon (Beatrice), Jerry Don Gleaton (Liberal), Jim Sundberg (Fairbanks), Wally Bunker (Everett, WA) and Steve Busby (Boulder).

If you’re in the Wichita area during the Series and want to see some excellent baseball, check out the NBC World Series. Tickets are cheap, especially for Seniors and military personnel and I guarantee you’ll see some future major league stars.