The National Baseball Congress World Series is held annually at Lawrence-Dumont Stadium in Wichita, KS. It was first held in 1935 with Satchel Paige’s Bismarck Churchills becoming the first champions.
Originally intended as a tournament for semi-professional clubs or town teams sponsored by local businesses the typical makeup of a team changed in the 1970s as most semi-professional teams folded. The teams were replaced with mainly amateur college players looking to impress Major League scouts.
The Alaska Goldpanners of the Alaska Baseball League have won the tournament the most times with six championships.
Format
The tournament currently features 42 teams in a double-elimination bracket, resulting in 83 games over 16 days. There are 21 leagues and 17 tournaments that are affiliated with the NBC and whose champion receives a berth in the World Series. The tournament organizers occasionally invite teams to play in the tournament (such as the 1995 champion Team USA or the 2003 champion Chinese Taipei national team). A tradition at the tournament is “Baseball Around-The-Clock” where 17 games are played over a span of just over two days, from Friday Evening to Sunday evening.
