The Seattle Cheney Studs will return to Wichita this month for the 2026 National Baseball Congress World Series, which opens July 23 and runs through August 1. For most teams, earning a place in the 16-team national tournament is a destination. For the Studs, it has become a summer tradition—and one of the defining chapters in the history of the franchise.
Seattle has appeared in the NBC World Series every year since 2002 except the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. The Studs have won national championships in 2013, 2015 and 2019, reached four additional championship games, and finished among the tournament’s leading teams repeatedly under longtime manager Barry Aden. In 2025, they advanced to the semifinals before falling 3–2 to the eventual champion Hutchinson Monarchs.
Aden’s relationship with the Studs began long before those championship seasons. As a 10-year-old, he once wandered over to watch a team wearing the familiar Cheney Studs colors and was invited to serve as bat boy. He returned to the organization as a pitcher in 1980, helped the Studs make their first trip to Wichita in 1989, and became their manager the following year.
His teams have been fixtures at the NBC World Series ever since. Aden was inducted into the NBC Hall of Fame in 2011—two years before Seattle won its first national title—and recorded his 100th victory in Wichita during the 2025 tournament. Across his managerial career, he has collected more than 50 league and tournament championships while building a program known as much for continuity and loyalty as for winning.
That culture is summed up by the organization’s familiar motto: “Once a Stud, always a Stud.” Generations of players have returned to Seattle summer after summer, forming a baseball family that now includes four NBC Hall of Famers. Many have continued playing long after their college or professional careers ended, drawn back by the chance to compete together on the national stage.
The 2026 tournament begins with four pools of four teams. Each club will play three pool games, with the top three teams in each group advancing to single-elimination play. The championship game is scheduled for August 1.
For Aden and the Studs, the goal in Wichita will be familiar: survive the early rounds, contend deep into the tournament—and bring a fourth NBC championship home to the Pacific Northwest.
