For decades, Lenexa parents have used private non-profit youth sports organizations as a tool to help raise good young men and women: Soccer, Softball, Football, Cheerleading, Basketball and Baseball. And, it is “The 3&2 Baseball Club of Johnson County” that has been serving those parents and children for more than 70 years.

And for over 50 of those 70 years, beginning in 1965, 3&2 (3 balls and 2 strikes) has made the 9 fields just west of the Lenexa Kansas National Guard Armory their home and headquarters.

A few noteworthy milestones in 3&2s history include:

1951: 3&2 was officially incorporated

1951 – 1965: Games were played at Segner Field (named for Chris Segner) at 87th and Grant in Overland Park. Today, rather than serving up ‘home runs’, that land now serves up ‘home repairs’ from the Westlake Hardware store in the Louisburg Square Shopping Center. Various school locations, including Lenexa’s Bonjour School (now a Church) hosted games along with Segner.

1976 – 1985: Games were played on four additional fields that were acquired at 63rd and Pflumm (now a Hy-Vee Grocery Store)

1997: 73 acres were purchased for field expansion just north of 83rd Street at Highway K-7

2000: Play began on 16 newly created fields
2004: Partnered with the Shawnee Mission School District to build, maintain and program high school fields. Two years later 3&2 did the same with the DeSoto School district, including softball fields.

Daytime and “under the lights”, 3&2 athletes have proudly played during spring, summer and fall on fully appointed fields: mounds-dugouts-electronic scoreboards-grass infields and nearby concession stands. Players have been seeded by skill level beginning with coach pitch, on through machine pitch and on to ‘real baseball’ through high school.

For 70 years, 3&2 has scheduled tens of thousands of teams, leagues and tournaments. It has hosted High School State Baseball Championships and National Championships. It has won national ‘Complex of the Year’ awards and ‘Commitment to Excellence’ awards. It has been called ‘remarkable’ by Sports Illustrated Magazine, but its lasting legacy is the young people it has helped raise in an atmosphere of sportsmanship, teamwork, instruction and enjoyment of baseball in safe quality surroundings.