On the Longest Day (Up to This Point)
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| Kauffman Stadium, 2009 |
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
Minnesota Twins vs. Kansas City RoyalsKauffman Stadium
Major League Baseball, American League Central
Kansas City, MO
7:10 PM
Outside the Game:
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| Shaky start |
I got up insanely early the next morning after not nearly enough sleep to turn in my rental car at the airport and get to yet another gate to get to yet another plane. My short hop flight up to Kansas City from Dallas was pleasantly mundane and slept through, for the most part. I had originally decided not to get a rental car in KC, but as I was going to a few different places, I relented. My not-quite-awake brain just nodded and agreed with everything the rental agent said, and when he offered a "free upgrade," I just continued nodding. The "free upgrade" turned out to be an SUV. I was too worried that my adrenaline rush would wear off on walking back to argue the issue, so I just took the Canyonero and drove out to my Howard Johnson's just outside the airport to take a much-desired and needed nap.
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| Canyonerooooooooo |
One of the reasons I was so eager to get to KC early was to go to the Negro League Museum, located in the historic jazz district in town. After a nap that at least made me feel partially human again, I drove out there. For an extra $2, you get admission to the adjacent Jazz Museum, so I went for the two-fer. As I entered the Negro League Museum, I joined up with a tour group that had just started. As we entered the movie theater, the tour leader mentioned that the group of extraordinarily pale youths that was filling one area of the bleachers in the theater were a tour group from Belfast, who were visiting the US and going to places associated with segregation and discrimination as a reflection on their own Troubles, which was very pleasing to the tour guide. An amusing moment was had during the question and answer session when a mousy girl from Belfast tried to ask, as politely as possible, why the place was called the "Negro League" museum when black people didn't like to be called that. The question was answered informatively and in good humor by the tour guide.
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| Negro League Baseball Museum |
The museum was quite extraordinary and had been under the directorship of Buck O'Neil before his passing. A recreated stadium has statues of Hall of Fame position players from the Negro Leagues, with Buck (cruelly left out of the HoF at the moment) poignantly looking in from the outside. The museum also helped to answer the question: who was the most marginalized group in all of baseball? The museum had three exhibits about black female ballplayers (some of whom played in the Negro Leagues with the men), but there was only one forlorn cabinet on Negro League umpires, containing the uniform of one of the only whose name was even known.
I pretty much had to contain myself to the best of my ability to keep from buying out the gift shop. After prying myself away, I went to the smaller Jazz Museum across the way. It was well done, but suffered from a lack of upkeep on many of the listening stations and interactive exhibits. They seemed to be in the middle of a remodel, so the criticism comes with a grain or two of salt. Part of the museum was an active jazz club attached to the back of the museum complex, which is the only working club in what was the center of jazz for many decades earlier last century.
After my time at the museum, it was a quick drive out to Kauffman Stadium for the game. It was a similarly quick drive back to the hotel after the game, which was good, because I was only getting about four hours sleep in the best-case scenario.
The Stadium & Fans:
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| Home plate to center field, Kauffman Stadium |
Kauffman Stadium had just undergone some renovations, and the fact that this is now one of the older parks operating in the majors tells you how many old parks have bit the dust in recent years. The renovations centered around remodeling the center field area, some modifications to the seating, and replacing the old jumbotron with a larger, more awesome jumbtron. The park itself was nice enough, clearly oriented around the humongous scoreboard towering over the proceedings in dead center field.
Also added into the center field area behind the iconic water fountains was a new Hall of Fame (which was not going to open until the next day) and a new kids play area, along with some specialty food concessions. While the kids area had a lot of what you would expect, it also included something unique to any other major league ballpark: an inexplicable miniature golf course.
In some odd feature of geography, nearly half the crowd were Twins fans. I never got a good enough explanation for this fact, but a couple of women behind me said they were huge Twins fans who just liked to watch the Twins play outside. I would have to imagine that waiting for their series against the White Sox might be slightly more convenient for them, but what do I know?
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| Is that his head? |
Because the crowd was so evenly split, there wasn't much of a home field advantage for the Royals, and I wonder if that had any effect on the outcome of the game.
At the Game with Oogie:
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| Missed it by a day |
I was in 200-level seats behind home plate. Now the field level was split between the 100 level (near the field) and the 200s (up underneath the loge overhang). The seats were excellent and in the shade, which was important until the sun finally set in the mid-innings. In keeping with the stadium as a whole, it was about 50/50 Royals and Twins fans in my immediate area, although the Royals mascot seemed to hang out right in front of my area for most of the night.
The Game:
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| First pitch, Twins vs. Royals |
The home teams had been taking a beating since the Rays walk-off in the first game of the trip. It looked as though the Royals may change the streak by jumping out to an early lead, bringing across their first batter of the game. Both sides went down quickly for the next few innings until the Twins tied it up with a fourth-inning homer. The Royals threatened in the bottom half of the inning, but came up blank. A single, Royal error, and sacrifice fly brought home a second Twin run in the sixth, and while the Royals got runners in scoring position in the bottom of the sixth and eighth, they never got anything else across, losing a close one, 2-1.
The Scorecard:
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| Twins vs. Royals, 06/30/09. Twins win, 2-1. |
The $2 scorecard was separate from the $5 program. It was a cardstock folder with plenty of room to score an AL game.
The Accommodations:
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| Howard Johnson's |
I stayed at a very nice Howard Johnson's right outside of the airport. I was a lot less coherent than even normal for the trip when dealing with the hotel staff, and asked some pretty interesting questions (including things such as "Is my car still outside?") that I'm sure had them thinking quite odd things about me. Of what I do recall, I remember the bed being very, very comfortable.
2009 The Rest
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