BY KIRK SEMINOFF

The Wichita Eagle

A team made up entirely of former major-league players will compete in the National Baseball Congress World Series for the first time, tournament director Kevin Jenks said Friday.

Many of the names, he said, will be easily recognizable – with at least one a good bet for the Hall of Fame.

“Most of these are pretty impressive names,” Jenks said.

The roster of former big-leaguers will be announced Sunday evening in a news conference. Pitcher Nate Robertson and first baseman Adam LaRoche, who retired from baseball in the spring, are the team’s organizers and will play.

Jenks said the team will have 25 to 28 players, many of whom had long major-league careers, and nine are NBC alumni.

“This all came together in the last couple weeks. It happened fast,” Jenks said. “It’s a collaborative effort between those two (Robertson and LaRoche). I was approached by Nate and had a very long conversation with Adam about it. They gave me reasons why they wanted to do it.”

Robertson, 38, pitched nine major-league seasons for the Marlins, Tigers and Phillies after a collegiate career at Wichita State and an NBC appearance with the El Dorado Broncos. A Wichita native, Robertson is part owner of the Wingnuts independent team.

LaRoche, 36, is from Fort Scott and played 12 major-league seasons for the Braves, Pirates, Red Sox, Diamondbacks, Nationals and White Sox. A Derby Twins player in 1999, he retired from the White Sox in spring training after a disagreement with general manager Kenny Williams about how much LaRoche’s 14-year-old son, Drake, could be in the clubhouse.

The NBC is changing its format from double-elimination brackets to pool play, which enabled Jenks to commit to the major leaguers’ game days and times. The team will bypass the first week of qualifying, which begins July 29, and begin in championship pool play at 9:30 p.m. Aug. 6, with two other guaranteed games at 7 p.m. Aug. 8 and 7 p.m. Aug. 10.

“I think baseball fans will be pretty excited and energized by the names we release on Sunday,” Jenks said. “They’re not coming to play in one exhibition game. We know these guys have committed 100 percent, they’re all-in. They haven’t asked for appearance fees or anything. They’re getting together with Nate and Adam and they still have competitiveness in them.”

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