Riverfront Stadium Hosts Peek at New PBS Kansas Baseball Documentary

An evening dedicated to a documentary film about baseball in Kansas couldn’t have ended on a better note than a yelled exclamation from longtime Wichita State Shocker head coach Gene Stephenson:

“I love baseball!”

Wednesday night’s VIP event atop the Wichita Wind Surge’s Riverfront Stadium in the Fidelity Bank Bravely Onward Club provided attendees a first look at PBS Kansas’ latest local documentary. Kansas Baseball: Swinging for the Fences takes viewers on a highly detailed journey through the long and surprisingly storied history of America’s pastime in Kansas.

Written, produced, narrated and shot by PBS Kansas’ Chris Frank, this 90-minute documentary film (two hours when shown on-air) premiered on PBS Kansas Thursday at 7 p.m. and will re-air at the same time Tuesday, June 15.

“Chris [Frank] did a fantastic job. He shot it and wrote it by himself,” said PBS Kansas’ Jim Grawe, who came up with the idea for the film and also served as executive producer.

In the evening’s opening remarks, PBS Kansas president Victor Hogstrom said Frank spent 15 months producing the film, with PBS Kansas’ Mike Oliver spending 200 hours in one month editing it into the final product. Frank traveled 400 miles around the state and read 7 books on Kansas baseball in his journey to make the film.

The film tackles a wide variety of subjects and divides Kansas baseball history into six parts: the story of “town ball” in communities across Kansas in the 1800s and early 1900s; the history of “company teams” across the state; semi-pro baseball; the rise of Wichita State baseball under Gene Stephenson; the unfortunate history of segregated baseball in Kansas; and minor league baseball’s history in Wichita and other Kansas cities.

“All the stories in the documentary are worthy of their own documentary,” Frank said.

The film includes interviews with a number of baseball experts, including noted Negro League historian Phil Dixon, longtime Wichita journalist Bob Lutz, WSU history professor John Dreifort, Kansas Baseball: 1858-1941 author Mark Eberle, Bob Rives, author of Baseball in Wichita, former Wichita Wranglers president Steve Shaad, former WSU coach Gene Stephenson, and more.

The documentary starts with the first game played at the Wichita Wind Surge’s successor facility to Lawrence-Dumont Stadium. In an interview after the film’s premiere, former mayor Jeff Longwell said that Riverfront Stadium was the product of an aborted attempt to renovate the previous facility.

“Initially we talked to the team that is now the [Amarillo] Sod Poodles. They approached us in 2015 because they had to move out of Colorado Springs,” said Longwell.

But when an engineer studied the facility, he told the city it had to come down, said Longwell.

“When we took it down, we found they didn’t put much rebar in there,” Longwell said.

But before Wichita had a chance to sign an agreement, Colorado Springs signed a deal with Amarillo to create the Sod Poodles, Longwell said. Eventually a different team, the AAA New Orleans Baby Cakes, would make the move to Wichita.

Kansas Baseball: Swinging for the Fences covers the very beginnings of Kansas baseball on Christmas Day, 1858 in Emporia. It documents the rise of local teams across the state in what is described as the “town ball” era of baseball.

“When I was growing up, I didn’t think about how old baseball was. But to think that it was more than a century old when I was born…you don’t think about people playing it in the 1850s,” said Frank.

Rules varied in the 1800s, as the film shows when it covers local reenactors portraying a matchup of the Wichita Bulldozers and Topeka Westerns in period uniforms. The retro game includes players yelling their requested pitch to the pitcher (and getting it) and being called out if a fielder catches their hit after one bounce.

Baseball teams sponsored by companies became ubiquitous in Kansas during the early part of the 20^th century. The Boeing Bombers and Cessna Bobcats were among many teams sponsored by local companies throughout the state. This brought nationally-recognized players like Casey Stengal and Bob Boyd to Wichita.

“They were employees of the company, but a lot of them were just hired to play on the team,” Grawe said.

Hap Dumont’s National Baseball Congress tournament also gets a lengthy treatment by the film, with a focus on the inaugural tournament in 1935 featuring legendary Negro League player Satchel Paige and his at-the-time enormous $1,000 salary.

The difficulty of black players finding their place in baseball is depicted by the film near the end of the production. The film states that racial integration of baseball teams in Kansas peaked in the 1890s and then declined until the modern era. Kansas Baseball: Swinging for the Fences also features one of the more unusual stories from baseball history: a 1925 game between the all-black Wichita Monrovians and a local Klu Klux Klan team.

The rise of Wichita State baseball features prominently in the film’s second half, with coverage of the humble origins of the team in longtime coach Gene Stephenson’s first year in 1978: the team’s players had to change clothes in their cars because they had no facilities. The film then depicts the team’s rise to become 1989 College World Series champions.

Unique and little-known stories abound in this film. In particular, the sad career of Lansing Prison Team star Isaiah “Fireball” Jackson kept the assembled audience in a state of silent focus. The film describes how his promising Major League Baseball career was aborted by an unfortunate upbringing followed by a lifetime spent in various penal institutions.

Kansas Baseball: Swinging for the Fences features a treasure trove of photographs depicting baseball teams from across the state, including: Hope, Leoti, Strong City, Fairhaven, Summerfield, Blue Rapids, Frankfort, Trousdale, Carlton, Alton, Barnes, Independence, Maize, Chanute, Wichita, Mt. Hope, Luray, Meade, Mulvane, Elmo, Potwin, Tyro, Basehor, Damar, Arlington and many more.

The hyper-local focus of the film reflects PBS Kansas’ efforts to increase the amount of locally-produced programming on the air.

“It’s very important to see local people on TV,” said PBS Kansas president Victor Hogstrom.