History
Dumont said he was inspired to start the league after seeing a huge crowd for the circus clown-firemen baseball game in Wichita (the clowns were not allowed to perform on Sundays because of Blue Laws). In 1931 he started the National Semi-Pro Baseball Congress Kansas State Tournament which played on an island of the Arkansas River.
After a fire destroyed the stadium, the city built the Lawrence Stadium. In 1935 he offered Satchel Paige $1,000 to bring his touring Bismarck Churchills from, Bismarck, North Dakota, team to Wichita. Paige struck out 60 batters and won four games. With the rise of Minor League Baseball, the league now is for amateur athletes.
Read more about this topic: National Baseball Congress
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“One classic American landscape haunts all of American literature. It is a picture of Eden, perceived at the instant of history when corruption has just begun to set in. The serpent has shown his scaly head in the undergrowth. The apple gleams on the tree. The old drama of the Fall is ready to start all over again.”
—Jonathan Raban (b. 1942)
“A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“The second day of July 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more”
—John Adams (1735–1826)