With apologies to my upcoming wedding day and the birth of my child years from now, there is nothing better than a guys’ baseball road trip.  Men have the luxury of bonding over sporting events in a way that women can’t relate to.  And last weekend, when a buddy called with four tickets to the Cardinals-Royals Friday night game in Kansas City, the only real decisions that were to be made were? When are we leaving? Where are we sleeping? And do we have enough beer? I have been lucky enough to see the Cardinals play on the road in, maybe, 15 ballparks. This was my first trip to Kauffman in which the Birds were playing.  I wasn’t sure what to expect as we arrived at Kauffman, especially since the last time I saw the Royals play in KC, Bo Jackson was scaling walls and eating little children while roaming the outfield, pretending to be mortal. 

I had been told and soon remembered that Kauffman was in the class of ridiculously planned stadiums that are twenty minutes away from anything remotely related to civilization. I would love to be in the city planners, teams owners and engineers meeting when a toolshed of a dude named Carl says, “I have an idea, let’s put the stadium way out of town where no one is bothered by, I don’t know, restaurants, bars and stores.” Sounds like a fantastic idea! This is the exact blueprint I also ran into in recent trips to a Marlins game and a pre-Jimmy Jones Tower of Babel Texas Stadium to watch the Rams and Cowboys.

As we walked in the stadium, to my absolute astonishment, the stadium vendors were incredibly friendly. Not only did they not stare at my ID for 8 minutes and make insane remarks to their co-workers like, “Do we accept Illinois ID’s,” they didn’t even card me. Wow! 

Our seats were nicely tucked in the second deck behind home and we started taking in the stadium. I quickly noticed that they have a new Jumbotron that in roughly the size of North Dakota.  At first, I thought this was a fantastic edition to the ballpark. That was until I realized that everything in the entire stadium was going to center on that screen for the next three hours. I mean, I really think the Royals ownership meeting went like this.

GM:  I think we need to go after a blue chip signing in the off-season. Maybe we could pony up the cash and sign Vladimir Guerrero?

Owner:  Or we could build a huge screen and then we could have nine cap dances, fourteen kiss cams, thirty two pick-the-song games, and seventeen three minute clips of say, Mark Teahan playing pool with some dolt we steal from hosting the Thursday matinee at the Funny Bone.

GM:  You know what? I think you are on to something.

I mean they couldn’t have tried harder to distract the fanbase from the fact that the Royals haven’t made the playoffs since 1985. It was exactly like the South Park episode where Johnny Cochran’s closing argument amounts to him telling the jury, “Look at the monkey, look at monkey,” as he waves a hand puppet in front of them to distract and confuse them.

But the biggest aberration from almost every other park I had been to was the lack of any tenacity from the hometown fans. As the Cardinals were getting thumped by the Powder Blue Royals, this is the exchange I had with a Royals fan:

(Troy Glaus hits meaningless solo homer) Me:  Alright, Go Birds, let’s get something going here!

Grown Man in a John Buck Jersey:  Scoreboard! You’re still losing!

Me:  Sit down! Your squad hasn’t been to the playoffs in 23 years, you have had losing seasons in 13 of the last 14 years and you have three retired numbers, one of which was a friggin’ manager. So let’s not start… (insert a line from the Wolf in Pulp Fiction that references not getting precipitously excited.)

Grown Man in a John Buck Jersey:  I know, I know. It’s sad.

I can assure you given that I am 5’8” and 175 lbs. that conversation would have gone a little differently in Boston or New York.

But the best thing about Kansas City is their new slogan.  Here you go folks, NEW. BLUE. TRADITION.

What? Did the people that brought us Pepsi Clear and Bud Dry think this one up? Okay, let’s take two terms that are oxymoronic by nature (new and tradition for the people from Kansas City reading this) and throw them together. Then, let’s stick the color of our team in the middle. That will get everyone fired up. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you your 2008 Kansas City Royals. NEW. BLUE. TRADITION.