#22: Kauffman Stadium

 Kauffman Stadium

One Royal Way

Kansas City, MO 64129

Capacity:  37,903

Indoors/outdoors:  Outdoors

Game Attended:  Twins at Royals; September 29, 2010

Anyone who knows me relatively well knows that I am a boatload of useless information.  From being able to name every US President in order, to having an uncanny ability to remember song lyrics, if you have a trivia team in need of assistance, I am your man.  I often wonder how much more I could accomplish in life if I devoted only part of my brain’s ability that is currently used to store worthless NBA Finals history, but then I pop open a beer and move on.  Who wants to be perfect?  Anyway, one of the first “factoids” that I can remember learning was from my father.  We were watching an Orioles/Royals game and I remarked how weird it was that you could see a major highway right from the seats in the stadium.  This highway, of course, is Interstate 70 which stretches from Baltimore to Utah.  Imagine my surprise when my old man told me that this was the same road right in our backyard!  The world instantly became a much smaller place.  The purpose of this seemingly random anecdote is that Kauffman Stadium’s location (out in the sticks, right off the highway) is precisely why it’s ranked so low.  The home of the Royals, coming in at #22 on our (slowly) growing list.

As mentioned earlier, the first thing you will notice about Kauffman Stadium (formerly appropriately called “Royals Stadium”) is its poor location.  While technically in Kansas City, it’s not near any sort of discernible downtown.  This gives it two immediate strikes:  bad pre and post game atmosphere and poor views from the seating bowl.  Right next door is Arrowhead Stadium, the home of the Chiefs (and a long list of mediocre quarterback play since, uh, 1993?).  Obviously there is a huge parking lot here but I do not remember any sort of intense tailgating going on, indeed a sin when you are gifted with a bunch of open parking spaces in one of the country’s premier BBQ towns.

Kauffman Stadium opened in 1973, the height of the previously-discussed cookie cutter era.  Make no mistake, this place is far from a cookie cutter.  While the seating bowl itself is quite symmetrical, the outfield view (inside the stadium) is quite lovely.  The giant royal-shaped logo scoreboard can’t be missed and is quite unique – one of the more unique scoreboards in baseball.  And, of course, there are the fountains.  An iconic part of Kauffman Stadium for years, other parks have mimicked the “water inside the park” feature, but the Royals, as far as I know, were the first and, I won’t lie, they’re pretty nice looking, shooting off between innings and whenever the Royals hit a home run. 

I would also recommend checking out the Royals Hall-of-Fame in the outfield.  While I was there I was greeted by a gentleman dressed as a dead-ball era baseball player.  He was very into his job and probably knows more about the Royals than any other person on Earth.  Also inside the museum is an entire exhibit dedicated to the “pine tar game.”  For those not familiar, the Royals and Yankees had quite a rivalry in the late 70s and early 80s.  In 1983, with both teams in contention, they played a game at Yankee Stadium which resulted in Royals’ star George Brett hitting a go-ahead home run in the top of the 9^th inning.  The Yankees asked the umpire to inspect Brett’s bat and, after determining the pine tar on the bat was too far up the barrel, declared Brett out and gave the Yankees the win.  Eventually the Royals protested the ruling and ended up winning the game, but they are pretty bitter, still, about the whole incident.  They have everything in this exhibit, including the bat itself (borrowed from the HOF) with the major league baseball rules attached, explaining why the bat wasn’t illegal.  They also have a letter from Richard Nixon stating he believes the Royals were correct the whole time.  It’s a little looney, but I loved it.

Aside from that, the stadium doesn’t have much else noteworthy.  It’s plenty nice to take a game in, even if it’s in the middle of nowhere.  The upperdeck is very odd on either end.  There are no upper deck seats in the outfield and the sides of the seats literally end in a “point” – something I don’t think I’ve ever seen before.

Finally if you’re in Kansas City, I recommend you check out Arthur Bryant’s for some amazing BBQ (St. Louis residents won’t like this, but KC is superior).  Also, since you probably like baseball, the Negro League Museum is a can’t miss.  The College Basketball HOF and Experience is interesting but a bit cheesy.  Also, you can gamble on river boat in this town.  I lost a few bucks to a nice dealer named “Florida.”

So that’s Kauffman Stadium.  Enjoy.  By the way, did you know Frank Robinson is the only player to ever win the MVP award in both the American and National league?