Kansas City becomes home to the nation’s first College Baseball Hall of Fame

Like Ray Kinsella in Field of Dreams, Kansas City’s Tom Jacobs and the rest of the College Baseball Foundation’s Board of Trustees are answering that call from the corn field: “If you build it, they will come.”

The CBF officially opened the country’s first college baseball hall of fame in July at the Museum at Prairiefire (5801 W. 135th Street, Overland Park), where they expect to host more than half a million and maybe as many as two million visitors a year.

“The thing that’s really cool about the museum and about sports in general are all of the stories that accompany the names and the artifacts,” says Jacobs, a graduate of Shawnee Mission North High School and the University of Kansas. Jacobs serves as the CBF’s and College Baseball Hall of Fame’s CEO and executive director. “When you listen to guys during their induction ceremonies, they all make it clear how much our foundation means to them and how much their college baseball experience means to them—whether they went on to play in the MLB or not.”

Most sports fans know about the professional halls of fame in Canton, Ohio (football), Cooperstown, N.Y. (baseball), Springfield, Mass. (basketball), Toronto (hockey), New York City (track and field), Frisco, Tex. (soccer), and Saratoga Springs, Fla. (horse racing). But many college sports also have halls of fame: football in Atlanta, wrestling in Stillwater, Okla., men’s tennis at the University of Georgia, women’s tennis at the College of William and Mary, hockey in Eveleth, Minn., and of course, basketball here in Kansas City at the T-Mobile Center.

However, until now, college baseball has not had a home other than the Southwest Collection in the Special Collections Library at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. 

The CBF works to “preserve, elevate and advance the game, to inspire the next generation, to teach those who love college baseball about its rich history and traditions, to celebrate those who make college baseball special and to honor those who have built the foundation upon which the game thrives today.”

And now the CBF has given college baseball’s legacy a home in the heart of the Midwest. 

“We want to become part of the fabric of Kansas City and the region—a place that people will enjoy visiting from near and far,” Jacobs says. “We want to continue to represent, tell the stories and celebrate all levels of college baseball.”

The Museum at Prairiefire—which opened in 2014 and welcomed more than 500,000 guests each of the last three years—presented the CBF with a golden opportunity: a quality, museum-ready space in a well-trafficked location. The Kansas City-based sports architecture firm Populous is completing the redesign.

“The existing museum already has a national identity because of its architecture and had space available, which expedited the planning and construction of the CBHOF exhibition,” says Fred Merrill, the museum’s founder and CEO. “The CBHOF is a regional and national draw and contributes to increased exposure to the museum. Their exhibition further extends the education and enrichment of the museum’s natural and social history offerings for the community.”

“A large part of what helped this come to fruition is that we didn’t have to build a museum from the ground up,” Jacobs says. “Prairiefire offered a museum-ready space in a great city that has so many supportive organizations, including vibrant and healthy youth sports here in KC.”

“Overland Park and the Kansas City area have a rich history of baseball tradition at all levels with multiple facilities, leagues and tournaments,” Merrill says. “Baseball has a rich national history centered around families and youth development, which is what Prairiefire is all about.”

Jacobs promises that that dedication to youth will play a prominent role in the museum’s mission. In addition to reaching out to local schools and helping them arrange educational field trips to the museum, Jacobs says he also wants to build the cost of museum admission into tournament entry fees for teams visiting Kansas City so that they will come, too.  

 “We want youngsters from around the country to come here,” Jacobs says. 

An immersive experience

Once inside, visitors will be invited to move at their own pace through the museum, taking as much or as little time as they wish at each of the exhibits.

Eventually, when museum construction is completed, visitors will start their tour with a visit to the Locker Room Theater, where they can watch and listen to a recorded pre-game message from one of the game’s great coaches while sitting in a simulated locker guests can personalize with their name, number and gear and be photographed in.

Then they will walk through what the HOF is calling the Tunnel of Dreams, where various interactive video boards will allow visitors to explore the game’s history.

 After that, doors open and deliver visitors onto the “playing field,”  where a 12-foot Rawlings gold glove statue will stand in the middle of the gallery surrounded by additional, smaller galleries, including the Home Run Dugout; the 810 AM radio studio, which will eventually be used to create audio recordings and podcasts; the Hall of Fame Showcase, which will spotlight the current year’s HOF class; the History and Traditions Gallery, where visitors can use interactive video boards to research the game’s treasure trove of places and traditions; the All-American Gallery, where visitors can research past college players by name or position or school for all levels of play; and finally, the National Championship Gallery, which will feature a highlight video of the current year’s championship teams at all levels.

The museum is opening in three phases.

Phase one, which opened July 7, featured a limited number of exhibits and artifacts as well as the Home Run Dugout—a series of hitting bays in which a baseball pops straight up out of the floor for visitors to hit into interactive, informational display screens.

“Think of it as Top Golf for baseball,” Jacobs says.

The company, which according to Jacobs was founded by a trio of Westpoint cadets who were interested in the gamification of baseball, has its flagship site in Katy, Texas.

Jacobs anticipates the Locker Room Theater, Tunnel of Dreams, Hall of Fame Gallery, Awards Gallery and Sports Radio 810 WHB studio will be ready in late 2026 and the remaining galleries in 2027.

 “We hope people will want to come back many times knowing that the galleries will change over time and that they can have a different experience every time,” Jacobs says.

Touchscreens will dominate the gallery, and just before Memorial Day, the HOF announced a partnership with Formetco Sports to serve as its official digital signage partner.

“The CBHOF will become a premier destination for fans and student-athletes alike,” Jeff Huffman, director of collegiate partnerships at Formetco stated. “We are honored to help bring the stories, traditions and excitement of college baseball to life through innovative digital display technology.”

Of course, the museum will also feature artifacts of the game.

“We can’t even begin to display all of the items we have,” Jacobs says, “most of which will continue to be housed in the Southwest Collection.” 

Some of the items visitors can look forward to seeing at Prairiefire include the jerseys of past college players of the year, including Minnesota’s Dave Winfield and Florida State’s Buster Posey, along with items like pitcher Stephen Strasburg’s cleats, three chairs from the original Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha, signed caps, gloves, bats and balls, as well as historically significant scorecards, including the one from the first game with an all-Black umpire crew.

Hall of famers

The museum will, of course, put a spotlight on the CBF’s award recipients.

Each year since 2006, about 200 representatives nationwide—including media, former inductees, baseball historians, members of the Society for American Baseball Research, and former players and coaches—vote on the CBHOF induction class. 

“Typically, we’ll put 12 or 14 in per class,” Jacobs says. “But this last year’s class reached 21.” 

To date, 175 players, coaches, umpires, administrators and contributors have been inducted.

In addition to the year’s class of inductees, the CBF presents the Brooks Wallace Award to the nation’s most outstanding shortstop. Wallace was a standout player for Texas Tech, and former Royals star Alex Gordon was the first recipient in 2004. 

The CBF also recognizes a Pitcher of the Year, the John Olerud (former MLB great) Two-Way Player of the Year,  the Skip Bertman (legendary LSU coach) Coach of the Year, the Wayne Graham (national champion at Rice University) Award for Teaching Excellence and the George H.W. Bush Distinguished Alumnus Award presented by Rawlings, recognizing a student-athlete who went on to do great things and serve his community.

President Bush, who played first base for Yale, was the first recipient of the latter in 2014. Other Bush Award recipients include MLB hall of fame broadcaster Vin Scully and the University of Kansas’ Forrest Hoglund. 

The CBF is also affiliated with the Dick Howser Trophy, considered the Heisman Trophy of college baseball, as well as the Buster Posey Award for catcher of the year, conferred by the Wichita Sports Commission.

College baseball history

The first intercollegiate baseball game—featuring students from Williams College and Amherst College in Massachusetts—was played July 1, 1859, in Pittsfield, Mass. Billed as a clash of “muscle and mind,” competitors faced off on the diamond Friday and then in chess matches Saturday. Amherst swept the weekend. 

The first collegiate game as we know the game today—with nine players on each team—was played in New York on November 3, 1859, featuring students from St. John’s and Xavier universities. 

By the late 1870s, several northeastern colleges were playing regularly.

The University of California, Berkeley claimed the first collegiate national championship title in 1947, defeating Yale 8–7 in Kalamazoo, Mich. In 1950, Omaha, Neb., became home to the College World Series—Texas upending Washington State in the finale that year—and has hosted it ever since.

The NCAA added a Division II championship tournament in 1968 and a Division III tournament in 1976. This year’s DII tourney was held at the USA Baseball National Training Complex in Cary, N.C., while the DIII event was at Classic Park in Eastlake, Ohio.

“College baseball has a long history, so we have a lot of catching up to do,” Jacobs says. 

More information can be found at cbhalloffame.org.

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