Bill's Journal Entry #6

Kauffman Stadium

Date: June 30, 2002

Location: Kansas City, Missouri

Opponent: San Diego Padres

Travel companion: My dad, Marvin Verkuilen

Link to my photos: http://cards.webshots.com/cp-30848358-wRRD-album/42570323YRNmiP 

Game Result: The great thing about interleague play is that you get classic, highly competitive, often dreamed of matchups like the Royals versus the Padres. Yeah right. Three Royals runs in the second, and the home team has established a nice early lead. Another KC run in the fourth, and the lead is that much safer. Four more in the sixth, and this is going from being entertaining offense to being boring. Five more in the seventh, and the rout is on. Final score: Royals 13, Padres 1.

Stadium Summary: When we were first approaching this stadium from the west, I wasn’t immediately certain that this was a stadium. Its receding grandstands make it look like a completed ballpark that was sliced in half diagonally, with the top half discarded. But its location adjacent to Arrowhead Stadium (home of the NFL’s Chiefs), the freeways, and the parking lots as far as the eye can see, confirm that this must be the place. Well, that, and the classic crown-topped “KC” scoreboard in center field, which was an obvious give-away. As you get closer to the stadium, you realize that one benefit of the unusual stadium architecture is that it allows some of the best looking-in-from-the-outside views of any stadium in the Majors. Once inside the stadium, the first thing that everyone notices are the beautiful fountains wrapping around the outfield. These fountains, the incredibly green, grassy hitters’ background, the looking-as-beautiful-as-ever scoreboard, and the surprisingly attractive outfield light towers combine to form one of the most attractive outfield views in the majors. And there isn’t a bad seat in the house—views are great from throughout. They really knew what they were doing when they built this place decades ago. In fact, if they were to first be building this park now, I doubt they’d want to do much differently. Maybe a less concrete look, in favor of the now more popular brick-and-steel look, but that’s about it. Another nice and notable feature of this park are the prices—among the best I’ve seen on this tour, be it for parking, tickets, concessions, or souvenirs.

Best additional incentive to catch a foul ball: At Kauffman Stadium, if you catch a foul ball cleanly (no bounces or ricochets off of the stadium floor, walls, other fans, etc.), not only do you get to keep the ball, but the Royals give you an honorary player’s contract, which includes a $100 gift certificate to the stadium store. And on this day, the Royals definitely lost some money. I don’t remember ever seeing a game with this many foul balls going into the stands—particularly on the third base side. It seemed every inning that they were announcing a couple more gift certificate winners. The one announcement went something along the lines of, “The fan who made the clean catch of the foul ball that half inning should report to Guest Relations to pick up his honorary contract and gift certificate. And might we suggest that he use that certificate to buy a Royals cap so he can throw out the Yankee one he’s now wearing.”

Best way to escape the heat: Or at least it worked on this day. This Sunday afternoon game was very hot and humid, and with the primary breezes coming toward the stadium from behind home plate, the stadium really doesn't aid in relieving the heat of the overhead sun. However, especially in the upper deck where we were located, the entrances into the primary seating tunnels worked as large, cool wind tunnels. Lots of people were making trips to stand in these areas for a few minutes every couple innings.

Best looking ushers: What can I say, I’m a guy, I have to comment on this. At most stadiums I’ve ever visited, the vast majority of ushers have been older gentlemen—friendly, grandfatherly people who have found a great part-time job for their retirement. Which is definitely a nice route to go, but not the one the Royals decided to use. A quick glance around the park made it appear that the entire usher staff was made up of very attractive, friendly, twenty-something, blonde women. And I thought the fountains and scoreboard were nice scenery!

Most unusual dirt patterns: In addition to the regular dirt infield, many stadiums have dirt paths leading from each dugout up to home plate—an obvious nod to the very early days of baseball, when the ‘dirt’ portions of an infield were simply those sections that were trod on enough to tear up the grass. But in Kauffman, these paths never make it to home plate. Instead, there is a secondary dirt ring around the plate—a home plate warning track, if you will—that these paths end at. The batters must still walk across the grass to reach the plate. This secondary ring then extends up the base paths a few feet—but never intersects with the paths. The pattern almost looks like a crop circle, left by an other-worldly baseball fan.

A trend continues: Two Royals blasts, by Randa and Ibanez, made me six-for-six in having the home team homer in games I attend. I’m starting to wonder if thirty-for-thirty is possible…

Stadium grade: A-  On the inside, a beautiful, top-notch park. A bit unusual looking from the outside, and there’s nothing to look at on the outside but parking lots, freeways, and another stadium—but that’s just all the more reason to enter the park and enjoy the interior.

Overall grade of my experience at the game: B+  A very warm day, and a very boring game, are the only detractions from a fun day of baseball with Dad.

-- Bill Verkuilen    biggbill@hotmail.com

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