Bob Lutz: This NBC was nice, now let’s look ahead

We might as well sign up for another Seattle Studs-Santa Barbara (Calif.) Foresters championship game in 2015. Until further notice, that’s the best potential matchup the National Baseball Congress World Series has to offer.

Santa Barbara rallied for a run in the top of the 12th, then held off Seattle to win its third title in four years, beating the Studs 3-2 at Lawrence-Dumont Stadium.

These are the two elite programs in the NBC at the moment, having appeared in nine of the 14 championship-game slots over the past seven seasons. Seattle was trying to repeat as the champion after beating the Wellington Heat in the final in 2013.

The game was a great finish to a good tournament, the 80th. It was a fun 16 days and it will be interesting to see if Santa Barbara and Seattle can continue their dominance of the NBC World Series in 2015. Here’s guessing they will.

Some other thoughts on the NBC World Series:

What a wonderful celebration of Raymond (Hap) Dumont, the NBC’s founder, before Saturday’s title game. Nearly 20 members of Dumont’s family were in attendance. Dumont, who died in 1971, brought Satchel Paige to Wichita for the first NBC World Series in 1935. That’s called hitting the ground running and the tournament gained immediate credibility and popularity. Dumont is one of the most iconic figures in Wichita’s sports history. The NBC acknowledged its 80-year history frequently during the tournament, and it was one of the highlights of the 16-day event.

With Santa Barbara’s win in the championship game, teams from the Pacific time zone have now won eight of the past 11 championships. A team from the Eastern time zone team hasn’t won the World Series since the Grand Rapids (Mich.) Sullivans won back-to-back titles in 1983 and 1984. Those are the only two NBC titles for an Eastern time zone team since 1960. The NBC has to work hard to get more involvement from eastern teams.

It’ll be interesting to see what the NBC’s board of directors, headed by chairman Steve Shaad, a former NBC general manager, will try to accomplish in the coming weeks and months. I have some ideas, of course. You knew I would have ideas.

Move in the fences at Lawrence-Dumont. They were moved back around a decade ago at the urging of the Kansas City Royals, who at the time operated a Double-A franchise in Wichita, the Wranglers. But the dimensions don’t work for the NBC, which has been a wood-bat tournament since 2001. It’s a big reason why there are so few home runs hit in the tournament these days. And the lack of home runs has to affect crowds. Nobody wants balls flying out of the park, but there have to be more homers. Only nine were hit in this year’s tournament.

Here’s an interesting idea, and it’s not mine. I heard it while talking to some friends and others at the NBC World Series last week. Currently, the winner of the tournament gets a $19,000 first-place prize. That’s not bad, but it doesn’t even pay the expenses for teams like Santa Barbara and Seattle that have to travel far, rent hotel rooms and provide meals during their stays. And finding teams that are willing to do all of that has become a huge challenge. So how about increasing the first-place prize money to $50,000 and seeing what happens? Would that entice more teams and leagues across the country to focus on making it to Wichita? Would it help the NBC with its qualifying process? Would the Northwoods League and the Cape Cod League be more inclined to play here? I don’t know. But it might be time to see. What we do know is that the current prize money isn’t enough to entice those teams. The tournament isn’t growing.

It’s easy to suggest a bigger prize purse, but not easy to actually find the money. The NBC is non-profit now, dependent upon donations. A tournament sponsor, preferably one with deep pockets, will undoubtedly be pursued.

And now for the big one, and something I’ve been preaching for a while now. Lawrence-Dumont Stadium needs work. Lots of it. And the longer it’s put off, the more work will be required. It’s all about fan amenities. The playing surface is fine. But so much could be done with the stadium and the area around the stadium. It’s a shame that improving L-D doesn’t seem to be a priority, except with a select few. An improved stadium would also improve Wichita’s chances of bringing affiliated minor-league baseball back to town. It’s been seven years now since the Wranglers left for Northwest Arkansas.

All in all, the NBC World Series is trending upward. A lot of that credit goes to tournament director Kevin Jenks, who has from the outset shown a willingness and desire to learn as much about the tournament as he can. It shows in his emphasis on highlighting the history of the tournament. But it’s also important that the quality of the tournament today be able to approach its history. For several years, that wasn’t the case. Things are improving, but there is more to be done. Here’s hoping the new NBC board of directors figures out how to make the tournament better and develops the resources to make it happen.

This story was originally published August 9, 2014 at 11:25 PM with the headline "Bob Lutz: This NBC was nice, now let’s look ahead."