KC Royals baseball: Terrific stadium, not so terrific team

FROM KEITH GROLLER

Still on the "Ultimate Road Trip" with the Lehigh Valley Yankee Fan Clun and we completed our three-game visit to Kansas City's Kauffman Stadium on Wednesday night.

I have to say I was sorry to go.

I don't know when I will be back here, but I would like to return at some point.Kauffman 001

I will remain a St. Louis fan, first and foremost, but I came to really like this place on the western edge of Missouri as well, even if just seeing images of that 1985 World Series (see trophy below) still gets my blood pressure soaring.Gang 009

I really grew comfortable with Kauffman Stadium and came to love the food (especially the barbeque they use on everything), the carnival-like atmosphere, the fountains, the gigantic HD scoreboard, the family-friendly nature of the place ... everything.

It's a shame that the folks out here don't support this team better. That has a lot to do with the fact that the Royals have been bad for a long time.

The crowds the last three nights were all in the 20,000 to 25,000 range and that's with the Yankees providing at least half of those people. It seems like the folks get all excited when the Yankees or Red Sox come to town because they know more people will be in the building.

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One problem is that this is not a downtown ballpark. It's a 15 or 20-minute ride outside downtown Kansas City on I-70. It would be better if this stadium was located downtown, but as we know -- sometimes putting things downtown are easier said than done.

The Phillies don't play downtown either, and yet they flourish. It comes down to winning. The Royals haven't had a winning season since 2003 and most years they have been at least 20 games under .500. Their record is worse than the Pirates. And before 2003, their last previous winning season was the strike-shortened year of 1994.

Better times are coming, supposedly. Sports Illustrated even said so in a feature story a few months ago. The Royals have a young, solid nucleus. If they can stay together, they can be pretty good. The big news out here is the signing of No. 1 draft pick Bubba Starling, who was introduced at the game tonight.

So, maybe in two or three years when the Royals are back in the playoffs, we can say that we were here to see the seeds of success planted.

But right now, success is elusive, although Kansas City did salvage the third game of this three-game series with the Yankees despite shaky pitching.

The stadium? Well, it reminds me a lot of a Triple-A ballpark in the sense that there's a lot of stuff going on for the kids to do ... a carousel, miniature golf, batting cages, a mini-field where kids can hit and run ... all kinds of stuff.Kauffman 009

I realize that the people who sell out Citizens Bank Park every night don't need the frills.

They don't need concerts like the one they had before tonight's game with a local band (see below). Philadelphia has a World Series-contending baseball team to watch.

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Kansas City doesn't. Not even close. So they try their best to get people out and keep them interested with a lot of bells, whistles and fountains.

Oh, those fountains. I was transfixed by them. I think I drove my son a little nuts by continually talking about the fountains. Maybe it's because I am a Pisces, but I I am drawn to water.

The fountains here were added to the ballpark at the insistence of Ewing Kauffman's wife. The ballpark was paid by the public through a bond issue, but Ewing put $3.1 million of his own money into those fountains.

I hate to admit it, but I loved them. They set these place apart from any other.

My wife didn't come on this trip, but she would have loved them, too.

While I go to Vegas to bet on football games and see some elaborate shows, she Kauffman 010
goes to see the fountains at Bellagio. These were not nearly as impressive as the ones at Bellagio, but they certainly make this a pretty place.

We were treated to an excellent tour at Kauffman this morning, followed by another tour across the parking lot at Arrowhead Stadium, the home of the Chiefs. More on the Arrowhead tour in an upcoming post.

But what comes through everything out here is the general kindness and politness of the people. There's a general cherriness about them. They can't do enough for you. They're eager to please. I just don't sense that edginess, nastiness, that get-in-my-way-and-I'll-run-you-over mentality that we have back home and throughout the east.

I am sure not everyone is pleasant or easy-going, but there's a down-to-earth quality about these folks that I like. And along with images of this beautiful ballpark, it's the goodness of the people that I will take away from my first visit -- but hopefully not last -- to this city in the midle of the country.

Here are a few more pictures from our three nights in Kansas City at what I consider to be one of the underrated gems in American sports:

http://blogs.mcall.com/groller/2011/08/kc-royals-baseball-terrific-stadium-not-so-terrific-team.html