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National Baseball Congress Starts What Could Be Last World Series At Lawrence-Dumont

Jonathan Huber
/
KMUW/File photo
The Kansas Stars play the Everett, Wash., Merchants in pool play of the 2017 NBC World Series.

Over the next two weeks, 30 teams from across the country will play 57 games as part of the National Baseball Congress World Series now underway at Lawrence-Dumont Stadium.

But this year's tournament could be the last one played at the historic site.

The World Series has been played at Lawrence-Dumont Stadium every summer since it was founded by Hap Dumont in 1935.

Hear an Audio Postcard from last year's NBC World Series

“There’s not many organizations that say they have played at the same location for 84 years," says tournament director Kevin Jenks.

But the future of the historic stadium in Delano is unclear: The city has announced a nearly $30 million plan to rebuild Lawrence-Dumont as a multi-sport complex and bring in a minor-league team to play there. But so far there’s no timeline, or team.

Wichita’s unaffiliated baseball team, the Wingnuts, has already said this is its last season at the stadium. The NBC says depending on the status of Lawrence-Dumont, the NBC might be held at Wichita State University’s Eck Stadium next summer.

The City of Wichita says it doesn’t have an update on the stadium, but hopes to be able to discuss it in the near future.

Follow Nadya Faulx on Twitter @NadyaFaulx. To contact KMUW News or to send in a news tip, reach us at news@kmuw.org.

Nadya Faulx is KMUW's Digital News Editor and Reporter, which means she splits her time between working on-air and working online, managing news on KMUW.org, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. She joined KMUW in 2015 after working for a newspaper in western North Dakota. Before that she was a diversity intern at NPR in Washington, D.C.