NBC World Series opens Friday with a matchup of century-old franchises

The National Baseball Congress World Series begins Friday morning with two teams emblematic of what makes summer baseball and the NBC unique.

One team has been in existence since 1893 and has won once in four NBC appearances, but the general manager in his 42nd year calls the World Series “the Mecca.”

The other team has been around since 1894 and its GM will wrap up his 49th and final year – heck, who’s he kidding, he wants to be back for No. 50 – making the drive to Wichita in a van that has logged 221,000 miles.

“I think there’s a little stupidity involved in all this,” Jess Bolen joked.

When the NBC began organizing its bracket for the first week of its two-week tournament, putting together Bolen’s Cape Girardeau (Mo.) Capahas and Bob Alles’ Jasper (Ind.) Reds – and their 243 years of baseball history – seemed like a natural. Tournament director Kevin Jenks called both GMs and got their blessings.

“Jess has as much knowledge as any baseball guy I’ve been around,” Alles said, “and better than that, he’s a class, class guy.”

In many ways, Bolen and Alles are mirror images. Their lives are summer baseball and all the joys and pitfalls that come with it.

Alles joined the Jasper Reds as a player in 1973 at age 19. His father was a former Reds played and his brothers all played 15 years or more.

“I told my wife before we got married that I don’t hunt, I don’t fish, I don’t play cards,” he said. “But I like baseball.”

He liked it enough to become manager and general manager. The Reds used to be a team of former college and pro players who were in their 30s and married. These days, Jasper (15-2) is made up of small-college players. Earlier in the week, Alles scrambled to get enough players to make the trip.

Not that he wouldn’t have made it with nine guys.

“Yes, it’s expensive and a long drive,” Alles said, “but oh my, it’s the Mecca as far as I’m concerned.”

Same for Bolen, whose Capahas have been consistent NBC entrants since 1980. Those appearances are sometimes brief, and their best finish is fourth place.

Bolen began the same way with the Capahas, as a player. Fed up with the way the team was being run, he left only to come back the next year under a new coach. When that coach retired, Bolen was the only one willing to take over.

A half-century later, he’s still at it. He likes to tell the story of 1988, when his team took the field in a semifinal game against eventual champion Everett (Wash.). The Capahas had already been in Wichita 13 days and money was running out.

“The hotel had a deal that for $1.60 you could get all the pancakes you could eat and that got us to the nights, when they had $1.60 cheeseburgers and fries,” Bolen said. “We were eating there every meal and still running out of money.”

Bolen has announced that this is probably his last year before he turns the reins over to his son. But Tom Bolen is a letter carrier and the president of his union. He may not have time.

Anyway, “We can’t imagine our lives without it,” said Mary Bolen, Jess’ wife of 42 years.

Friday’s matchup will be the first time Jasper and Cape Girardeau have met in at least 25 years. Neither GM is sure what year it was when Cape Girardeau made the 215-mile trip to Jasper, sweeping a three-game series.

Cape Girardeau is 15-4 – a 37-game schedule was decimated by rainouts – and is probably a favorite Friday given its roster of small-college and Division I players. Either team will have to win a minimum of four games to advance to next week’s championship bracket.

But for both GMs, being at the tournament is half the fun.

“It’s for the love of the game,” Jess Bolen said. “We’ve got four kids and every time we ever talked about getting out of it, they’d start crying because it’s their team, too.”

This story was originally published July 23, 2015 at 9:18 PM with the headline "NBC World Series opens Friday with a matchup of century-old franchises."