All posts tagged: Kansas City Royals

God, I Love the Wild Card

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Fact #1: I love the wild card games in Major League Baseball. Fact #2: I’m glad the Nationals are not playing in these “win or go home” games. Last night saw the Kansas City Royals win a thriller from the Oakland A’s at Kauffman Stadium in 12 innings.  The K is a wonderful place to see a ballgame.  Tonight, I’m sitting on the couch waiting to see who will survive the National League Wild Card game and face the Nats on Friday night in the NLDS.  The game is at PNC Park – one of the great places to watch a ballgame. If you look over to the right-hand column of my blog, you’ll see a link to the name Joe Posnanski.  Joe is among the best writers about baseball, and it just so happens that KC is his home.  His post on last night’s game had some of the funniest lines I’ve ever read from a sportswriter. The first concerns the description of the bizarre double-steal attempt that went bad.   Here’s Joe’s description: The …

Baseball Pilgrimages (Continued)

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It was a night when you wondered if Noah was nearby, putting the finishing touches on his ark. Lightening and thunder in rapid succession. Rain that lashed at the body if you were unfortunate enough to be outside. Howling winds. Waves lapping at the shore. And I was in Tampa, not to help rewrite the Republican national platform, but for something much more consequential: to catch a baseball game. In most cities it would have been a wasted opportunity. But the Tampa Bay Rays play in St. Petersburg’s Tropicana Field, one of the few remaining domes still hosting major league baseball on a daily basis. And for this night, I was glad to have a roof over my head when Ray’s ace David Price threw that first pitch right on schedule. Tampa Bay was #14 on my journey to visit all 30 major league ballparks.  It promised to be a special night.  The Rays were on a hot streak, winning five games to close the gap with the first-place Yankees to four games. Their ace …

Great Day for a Ballgame

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Check one more off the list of MLB ballparks visited as I joined several friends and colleagues to take advantage of our work trip to Kansas City and catch the Royals at Kauffman Stadium on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.  Barb, Dolores (pictured with DJB at left), Barb’s husband Rob, and Royce joined our hosts the Kempers for a great day at the ballpark.  Kauffman, built in 1973, is one of the earliest of the new modern baseball-only stadiums that helped turned Kansas City into a mecca for sports architects.  They just completed a major $250 million renovation before the start of this season.  The clean, modernist design has held up well and helped end the era of cookie-cutter multi-purpose stadiums. With two architects and the rest preservationists in our group, we spent a lot of time talking about the architecture.   But we primarily spent the day having a great deal of fun.  From the beginning, the Royals have come up with some great activities that make you smile.  It was Kids Day at the ballpark and kids …