Wood: Kansas puts Festival in jeopardy

By Ryan Wood     Apr 21, 2004

The River City Baseball Festival is back for its third year beginning Thursday. For three days, 26 teams and more than 400 high school athletes will flock to Lawrence to play in what has become a magnificent showcase for high school baseball.

The future of the event, though, remains uncertain.

From Thursday through Saturday, 34 games will be played — 10 at Ice Field, 12 at Free State High and 12 at Kansas University’s Hoglund Ballpark. While playing on the home fields of Lawrence High and Free State isn’t bad, the opportunity to play at the home of the Jayhawks is what appeals to participants.

But, as we’ve learned on more than one occasion, nothing should be a given regarding KU and its long-standing relationships with anybody.

Last September, a squabble erupted between Free State and KU over the availability of locker rooms for high school football teams at Memorial Stadium. Nobody in Free State’s camp was definitively notified before the Sept. 19 game the locker rooms were on lockdown.

Eventually, both sides made up, the school district wasn’t billed — and now it appears likely Free State will play football at Memorial Stadium again this fall. But the miscommunication did nothing to help the relationship between the community and the new KU regime.

Now there’s this: A 26-team prep baseball paradise that has grown to what FSHS coach Mike Hill calls “one of the premier high school events in the Midwest.” Its popularity and, to some extent, its existence depends on KU.

In exchange, KU baseball coach Ritch Price gets several hundred prep players — perhaps a few of them talented enough to play at KU — to take a free tour of the ballpark, and KU gets several hundred high school students to have a free look of the campus.

Not only that, but KU is compensated for the three-day use of the field, which is fair.

So why is the River City Baseball Festival in jeopardy? Seems like a win-win situation, doesn’t it?

“It takes the cooperation of the city and the University of Kansas as well,” Hill said. “Coach Ritch Price has been phenomenal. He’s bent over backwards to help make this thing work. But with the new administration up there and some new policies and ideas on their behalf, I think we’re in limbo at best for the future.”

Not that the KU administration will refuse to make Hoglund available. It’s just that they have concerns.

“We don’t want to become the answer to everyone’s facility needs,” said Sean Lester, a KU associate athletic director. “That said, we’re working with Free State, and as long as it doesn’t interfere with our needs, we’ll be happy to discuss it.”

Price has bent over backwards because of the possibility that one of the Festival players will have a blazing 60-yard dash time, a rocket for an arm and the ability to lace line drives into the gaps.

Who’s to say that player won’t fall in love with KU and make sure he makes it back here to play for Price?

That’s why the KU administration should make this work — and without any hassle. The pros outweigh the cons by a bunch.

The Festival could go on without KU’s help. Free State’s field is a given in terms of availability. Ice Field, which the city rents to the school district, has never had any major issues in regards to possible use. But no alternative matches the allure of Hoglund Ballpark.

“It’s such a drawing card,” Hill said. “I’d be concerned what would happened if we were no longer able to use it.”

That’d be too bad. To see an event the community could truly embrace and cherish be crippled by the local university would be a big disappointment. Here’s hoping KU makes the right call on this one.

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