Category: Experiences and reflections

My first Royals game since 2019

June 29, 2023

Last night I attended my first Royals game since before the COVID-19 pandemic. Not that I’ve been avoiding Kauffman Stadium altogether — last summer I ran the Royals Charities 5K and at the end of 2022, I took a behind-the-scenes tour of the K. But it had been quite some time since I last attended an actual Royals game, and to rectify that, I bought my ticket to watch the boys in blue take on the Guardians.

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This return to game attendance was certainly memorable, but unfortunately, not in a good way. For one thing, it was broiling hot outside: 96°F officially when the game started, and it felt like triple digits. As for the game itself, I knew things were going to be rough when the Guardians hit a grand slam in the 3rd inning. This was followed by a two-run homer in the 5th inning and another two-run blast in the 6th. By the time the 7th inning stretch arrived, the Royals were down 14-0.

The Royals did manage to score a run in the bottom of the 7th, but this was small consolation in the face of what was probably the worst defeat I’ve ever seen live at the K. To make matters worse, Relish won the hot dog derby — my least favorite of the three condiments.

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Attendance in general was sparse, with the official number coming in at 11,978. Kansas City is feeling a bit disgruntled with its baseball team these days, and with games like the one we experienced last night, it’s not hard to understand why.

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In spite of all this, I am still glad that I made a point of attending the game. Kauffman Stadium has long been one of my favorite places to visit, and sitting in the stadium last night, I find that the sentiment remains. It breaks my heart that the organization intends to move the team out of Kauffman and into a new venue in downtown Kansas City. Until that day arrives, I want to try and get out to more games and soak it in while I can.

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Kansas vs. Air Force

April 20, 2023

The Royals’ season isn’t going too well this year — if you can count a .211 winning percentage thus far as merely “not going too well.” At the NCAA level, the Kansas Jayhawks aren’t exactly making headlines either, but at least their season is faring better than that of their MLB neighbors. I had the opportunity to participate in a somewhat behind-the-scenes experience leading up to the Jayhawks’ game yesterday, so naturally I signed up for it.

The afternoon began with batting practice, and our group was able to hang out in the KU dugout while we watched the team get in their swings.

Kansas vs Air Force

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Kansas vs Air Force

Afterwards, we were shown the indoor batting practice facility, which I did not get any pictures of.  That building also featured a wall of photos featuring former Kansas ball players, and the nameplate on each photo indicates not only the player’s name, but also the name of an MLB team.  We passed through the building rather quickly, so I didn’t have time to peruse this wall very closely, but given the number of photos up there, I’m guessing these are all players that were drafted by teams, and not necessarily all of them actually made it to the Major League level. 

After a filling lunch of pulled pork sandwiches, salad, chips, and brownies, it was time to head back to Hoglund Ballpark for the game.  In the early innings of the game, I found myself being gestured at by the KU mascot, who invited me to have a seat with him for a bit.  As amusing as it was, conversation with a mascot tends to be sparse and largely one way.  

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The game itself turned out to be a good one — if you were rooting for Kansas, anyways. The Jayhawks collected 3 home runs, and their pitchers held Air Force bats down quite solidly. The game ended in the seventh inning due to run spread, with a final score of 12-2.

The Jayhawks were 18-18 going into this game, so the win over Air Force yesterday puts them back on the winning side of .500. It was also the first Kansas win I have ever been able to see live. All in all, an enjoyable afternoon.

Kansas vs Air Force

Hall of Fame Vodka

April 8, 2023

After purchasing a case of tonic water on my last grocery shopping trip, I naturally needed a reason to use it, so I stopped by the liquor store this morning to pick up a bottle of gin. Contrary to my plan, however, that did not end up being my only purchase of this trip, as this caught my attention:

I’ve never heard of Hall of Fame Vodka before today, but the marketing genius who put this stuff into baseball bat bottles clearly knows the way into the hearts of suckers like me, because I could not pass this up. When I brought my purchases to the pink-haired gal working the register, I asked when they had gotten these in. She responded, “Oh, I don’t know, a couple of weeks ago, I think?”

“Ah, just in time for baseball season, eh?”

But she gave me this what-the-hell-makes-you-think-I-know-anything-about-baseball look, so I shut up through the rest of the transaction and contented myself with being pleased with the find.

The headquarters for Hall of Fame Vodka appear to be located in Bardstown, Kentucky. Appropriately enough, Bardstown is a mere 45-minute drive from Louisville, home of the Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory. The company does not currently produce any other kind of spirits, but according to their FAQs, they do have a goal to expand their brand in the future.

To celebrate the Royals finally winning two in a row, I’ve decided to go ahead a try a bit of this stuff out this evening. Despite its position on the top shelf, this is hardly premium vodka. I imagine the positioning of the bottles had more to do with how ridiculously tall they are than anything else. But it’s not the cheapest of the cheap, either. I’d probably put it in the same league as Svedka or 360 vodka — not anything I’d want to drink straight, but perfectly decent when mixed in with something.

Cheers!

Kauffman Stadium tour

December 31, 2022

As one last hurrah to 2022, I signed up to take a behind-the-scenes tour of Kauffman Stadium today. The weather was about as good as one could hope for on December 31st, but it was still pretty chilly, and I was glad I bundled up for this experience. My tour guide was an older gentleman named Michael, whose daughter also works for the Royals. According to Michael, one month after he retired, his daughter insisted that he needed something to do and helped him get set up giving tours of Kauffman during the off season and working in the Royals Hall of Fame during the season. He’s been working in this capacity for the last eight years, and he certainly knew his stuff.

This post is going to be predominantly pictures, but I’ll try to include explanatory captions where appropriate.

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One of the business suites. According to Michael, folks who purchase these get 24/7/365 access to their suite.

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This is what Kauffman Stadium’s famous fountains look like when turned off and cleaned out for the off season.

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Nines

September 9, 2022

Today is my birthday: September 9th. 9/9. Oh, yeah — and I was born at 9:50 in the morning.

When an employee at the local running store measured my feet a couple years ago, he informed me that my left foot is size 9.5, and my right foot is size 9. (Don’t laugh, I’ve heard that having differently-sized feet is more common than you would think.)

It seems that the number nine is a big part of my life.

The number nine is a big part of baseball, too.

A team is made up of nine players — there are nine defensive positions and there are nine spots in a batting lineup. In fact, in the early days of the game, a team would often be referred to as a “baseball nine.”

A game consists of nine innings. An immaculate inning is comprised of nine thrown strikes. A baseball is nine inches in circumference.

Scott Flansburg, a.k.a. The Human Calculator, takes the exploration of the number nine in baseball, and in other parts of life, even further in this video:

A bit unrelated, this blog is currently over nine years strong. It’s been a fun run thus far, and I’m excited to continue it!

Keeping score

April 24, 2022

My freshman year of high school, I played on the JV softball team. But whenever the JV team wasn’t playing, I was effectively the backup 2nd baseman for the varsity team. And while this meant I got to travel with the team for varsity tournaments, it also meant I rode the bench a lot for those games.

One game, we found ourselves without a scorekeeper. There were no parents willing to do it (or who knew how), and the JV coach was acting as 1st base coach for this varsity contest. Faced with limited options, the varsity coach called me over, sat me down with the scorebook, and gave me a crash course in scorekeeping. For the rest of the year, I also became the backup scorekeeper for the varsity team. From my sophomore year on, when I was a true member of the varsity squad, I became the backup scorekeeper for the JV team.

Equipped with this new know-how, I began keeping score whenever I’d listen to Royals games on the radio late at night in my room. My pencil-and-spiral-notebook system of scorekeeping was a much-simplified system compared to what I knew could be done in a true scorebook, but I still found it a great way to stay engaged with the ballgame.

My habit of keeping score for Royals games became sporadic, at best, after graduating high school, until the practice became virtually nonexistent. Today, however, I sat down with a notebook in the minutes prior to the start of the Royals-Mariners contest and I created that same, crude little table I used to make on those late nights as a teenager. I filled in the lineups for both teams, and as the game commenced, I tracked the results of each at-bat.

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The ghost runner didn’t exist the last time I scored a game, so that was a new experience — I created the not-so-imaginative notation “GR” to note the ghost runner. I really thought I was going to have to start a new page when I used up the last player spot for Royals pinch hitters, but the conclusion of the game in the 12th sadly prevented that from becoming a necessity.

I’m pretty heartbroken that the Royals ended up losing in extra innings (and got swept by Seattle in the process). But I rediscovered how much I enjoy keeping score and the act of watching every at-bat with so much intent. I definitely need to reignite this practice as a habit, and hopefully it won’t take too long before I get to score a Royals ‘W’.

Dreaming baseball

February 21, 2021

Sharing a dream is not something I’ve ever done here, but then, dreaming about baseball is not something that has happened to me for years and years. Baseball appeared in my dreams last night, though, albeit in a very strange and disjointed manner.

I dreamed that some friends and I were attending some kind of retreat or camp. The theme of the camp was not baseball — to be honest, I’m not sure what the theme, if any, actually was — but baseball seemed to play a prominent role. Throughout the first part of the dream, a variety of activities took place, including a sort of jungle gym/obstacle course, which I decided to tackle. (As an aside, I wish I could do as many pullups in real life as I found myself doing in the dream.) Not too much of the national pastime going on in this portion of the journey, though it was hinted at through an array of miniature bats that littered the tables and the fact that a friend of mine seemed to be doing something with a stack of scorecards. Of course, that same friend later sat down to do some cross stitching. So nonsensical.

The second portion of the dream featured something that actually kind of resembled a baseball game. However, this game did not take place on a diamond, but rather, inside of some kind of church or small cathedral. At the front of the church was positioned a battery, the pitcher’s mound located in between the first set of pews and the catcher positioned just in front of the altar. Instead of a baseball cap, the pitcher wore a graduation mortarboard, the tassel flailing wildly with each pitch he threw. The pews were filled with teenagers and young adults, presumably all who were participants in the camp, each waiting their turn to go to the plate. An usher stood in the center aisle between the pews and behind the pitcher, and when the usher nodded at an individual sitting in one of the pews, it was that person’s turn at bat.

In the final part of this strange journey, the game had ended, and I settled into a comfortable corner with a couple of friends. As we sat there, a letter was handed to me. The letter was from a young girl, and it contained a very important question, “We are choosing jersey numbers for my baseball team, and the only ones left for me to choose from are numbers 3, 15, and 37. What is the best way to choose a jersey number?” It is a question no one has ever asked of me, and I knew the answer wasn’t going to be a straightforward one. After giving it a lot of thought, I finally sat down to write a response, “Choosing a jersey number can be a very personal decision….” And I went on to describe how some folks choose a number related to their birthday, or to a loved one’s birthday, or how a jersey number can reflect something else important in one’s life. A part of me shakes my head in disbelief over how seriously my dream persona took this question, but then again, folks in the real world do get pretty particular about their jersey numbers.

I didn’t quite reach the point in the dream where I finished the letter and mailed it off, however. Right about this time, a sandpaper tongue commenced licking my forehead, waking me from my slumber. I had slept fifteen minutes past my usual waking time, and the cat was hungry.

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Opening Day blues

July 24, 2020

MLB Opening Day was yesterday, and as hard as I tried, I just could not get excited about it.  The Royals play their opening game tonight, and while I feel a tiny bit happier about that, it’s still nothing like what I usually feel when Opening Day comes around.

I am making an effort, I really am.  From the time the announcement came down that a season was going to happen up to now, I have been trying to get excited about baseball.

It’s just really hard to do right now.

Every time I think about Major League Baseball proceeding with a season, I find myself thinking, “Half those players are going to get COVID.”  “This season will be ended by early September.”  “It’s not like anyone can go to the games anyways.”  “It’s not about the game, it’s all about the money.”

Now, admittedly, bringing baseball back is not all bad.  It’s been weird not having new games to watch, even from the living room.  I miss the highlight reels, even the repetitive ones.  I miss having to confess to my co-workers, “Um, yeah… I fell asleep in the seventh inning, so I didn’t see that homer.”  I miss the bench-clearing brawls in all their glorious stupidity.  I miss seeing the perfectly cut grass of the myriad outfields and listening to the various broadcasters react to and analyze the games.  I miss baseball itself.

There’s also that ironic voice in my head reminding me, “At least the Royals can’t lose 100 games this year,” like they did last year and the year before that.

But even that can’t drown out the thought in my head that keeps insisting that going through with this season is stupid to the core.  The schedule is so short and compact, it’s almost laughable.  Then there’s the not-so-funny fact that all these players are at risk for exposure.

I will watch some games — it will be hard not to.  But it still won’t be the same.

I’m sorry baseball.  I just can’t this year.

Learning to swing a bat: A brief note for Father’s Day

June 21, 2020

My dad was the first person to show me how to swing a baseball bat.  I believe we were still living in San Diego at the time, and we were spending the day at the park as a family.  My younger brother had received a yellow plastic bat with a white plastic ball for Christmas (or was it for his birthday?), and we now stood on a rough little baseball field at said park.   The grass in the outfield shone a rich green, with a few weeds scattered in, and the backstop consisted of a chain link fence and nothing more.  There were no dugouts, no bleachers, no bases.  I can’t remember whether my mom or my brother stood at the makeshift mound to do the pitching (underhand, of course), but my dad positioned himself at home plate with me.

I am right-handed, so Dad showed me which side of the plate to stand as a righty.  And when I cocked the bat with my left hand on top, Dad explained to me that I needed to switch my grip — right hand over left.  He taught me to keep my back elbow up and he showed me how to step into the pitch with my front foot.  I don’t think I had much success in making contact with any of the pitches that came my way that day.  Or, if I did, I didn’t manage to do anything impressive enough to be worth remembering.  That part doesn’t matter, though.  Dad’s lesson stuck with me through backyard baseball with my brothers and through the occasional schoolyard game.  When I started Little League a few years later, I already knew the fundamentals of how to grip the bat at the plate, and some of the other kids starting out didn’t have a clue.  It gave me a boost of confidence as I embarked on learning the sport, and confidence is key when one is so young.

My dad has taught me so many other things besides how to swing a bat, of course.  When I was very young, Dad created a clock with moveable hands out of pink and blue construction paper, and over the course of many evenings, he patiently taught me how to tell time.  As a teenager, Dad taught me how to drive.  I know how to change a tire, how to check the air pressure, and how check the dipstick in my car.  I know how to do a proper pushup, how to run a lawnmower, and how to perform standard maintenance on that lawnmower.  I even know that when you assemble a piece of furniture, you shouldn’t completely tighten all the screws until the very end.  There are so many other things beyond the items listed here that Dad has taught me (and continues to teach me), and I am forever grateful for it.  Because, even as an adult, having an idea of how to do these kinds of things is a real confidence booster.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad!