Hap Dumont tournament canceled

On July 25, the city of Pittsburg was ready to welcome teams from across the country for the Hap Dumont 15 under World Series at JayCee Ballpark.
However, on Tuesday, local tournament officials were notified that the tournament has been canceled.
“We received an e-mail last Thursday from the tournament officials saying that the tournament may be in jeopardy,” said tournament director and president of the JL Hutchinson League, Jack Bache. “We got another e-mail today that the tournament was canceled.”
And Bache was not the only one to find out at the last minute.
“I did not even found out about the fact that they were thinking about canceling it until the state tournament last week,” said Kansas State Hap Dumont Director Paul Shelite.
The reasoning that Bache and Shelite were given was because of a lack of entries for the tournament.
“We had just one team enter,” said Hap Dumont World Series tournament director Steve Smith. “The Topeka Bulldogs were the only team enter the tournament and if you count the host team you can’t have a World Series with that.”
But, Shelite said that is not workable for him.
“That is a lot of it but we have had it before and that is a lame excuse for me,” Shelite said. “If you built it, it will eventually grow because that is a hotbed of baseball in southeast Kansas.
“There needs to be more participation for NBC baseball in that area,” Shelite said. “We usually just have three or four teams out of Pittsburg and they are good teams but it needs to grow.”
Shelite said that losing the tournament in Pittsburg is a blow to different aspects of the game.
“This is what everybody shoots for and this does not just affect the teams but is also affects the town and that is what a lot of it is about,” Shelite said.
According to Craig Hull, executive director of the Crawford County Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, the county will take a hit from not having the tournament in town.
For the last two years, Pittsburg has played host to the Hap Dumont 16 under World Series and saw solid economic impact from those tournaments.
Hull said that, in 2007 15 teams came to Pittsburg for the World Series and generated an economic impact of over $35,000. That figures was even greater in 2006 when 20 teams competed thus generating over $94,000 in economic impact.
“Basically, over the last two years, Hap Dumont has brought the county over $120,000,” Hull said. “I think that we just lost an event that was worth about $60,000 in economic impact and that hurts the hotels, restaurants, shopping and other attractions.”
It is not just the loss of economic impact that has Hull frustrated.
“My disappointment lies with the fact that we have been marketing and it was that we had three very prestigious tournaments coming here and that is where our efforts were,” Hull said. “Now, one of the three is out and we spent marketing dollars on that.”
For Hap Dumont, the World Series in Pittsburg is not the only tournament that they are looking at canceling this season.
“They are looking at possibly canceling the 13s in Pratt,” Shelite said. “We have one person on the national site that is trying to make these decisions but he is not notifying the people that need to know about it.”
That one person is Smith, out of Oklahoma. He said that Pittsburg has done well with the tournaments they have hosted in the past.
“In the past we have had the 16u there and it has done very well,” Smith said. “Pittsburg has done a great job with the tournaments they have hosted and it is not a black eye on them.”
Since Pittsburg was the host, the 15s All-Stars have been offered a slot in the 16 under World Series in Broken Arrow, Okla. However, the long-term effects of the tournament being canceled could carry over to the JL Hutchinson League.
“The Hutch League will evaluate our post-season activities during a board meeting in September and we will determine what we want to do at that point,” Bache said.

Matthew Clark can be reached at matthew.clark@morningsun.net or at 620-231-2600, Ext. 140