Sedalia Bombers Baseball

I frequently have to travel for business up to Whiteman AFB in Knob Noster, Missouri. Knob Noster is about an hour East of Kansas City. Once in a while we'll make the drive back into KC to see a Royals game, but for the last several years I've been trying to get over to nearby Sedalia to see the Sedalia Bombers play in old Liberty Park Stadium.

The Sedalia Bombers are part of the MINK Baseball League (Missouri/Iowa/Nebraska/Kansas) Summer Collegiate wood-bat league. They're named after the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit bomber which is based at nearby Whiteman AFB.

Finally it worked out that I was in town the same time the Bombers were.


Appropriately enough, on my way to Sedalia, driving past Whiteman AFB, two B-2s were doing touch-and-go's so I pulled off the side of the road and snapped a couple shots on my cheapo digital camera. It's always an awesome sight to see these bad-boys fly.




Liberty Park Stadium sits in Liberty Park, along with a high school football stadium, little league fields, water park, and small fishing lake. The stadium was built in 1936-1937 as a WPA project.


Today the Bombers were playing a double-header against the Clarinda, Iowa A's.



After paying the nice lady at the folding table 5 bucks to get in, and an additional 2 for the program above, I got to choose my seat. I suppose that I could have sat in box seats right on field level, but I chose seats a little higher up where I thought it might be a bit cooler. And I chose to sit on the Clarinda side since there was ample seating available.

Eventually I moved around and ended up directly behind home plate. This seat offered a nice full view of the field and grandstand.

Decent Bomber crowd for the first game which started at 5 pm. It was a pretty warm day, and there was no air circulation in the stands which were completely caged in all the way around. I suppose to keep vandals out. If you look closely you can see a large fan in the background meant to keep the fans cool. Not so much.

The crowd that came down from Clarinda wasn't quite as large. Clarinda won the first game handily 7-1, but got bombed by the Bombers 13-1 in the nightcap.

If you've never taken in a minor league, or collegiate baseball game in an old WPA stadium, I highly recommend it. It takes baseball back to its roots.