Kansas City: Kauffman Stadium
Be who you are, and be that well.
I’ve referred to them before, but I come from a big, extended Italian-American family. I’m an only child, but my cousins on my mom’s side of the family were the closest I had to brothers and sisters while I was growing up.
Moving to suburban Toledo at age 10 — the “big city” to us at the time — I saw my cousins less and less as our haphazardly merged family suddenly developed a rift of physical distance. My life revolved more and more around the kids I got to know through school and baseball, and, with the exception of the occasional sojourn to Detroit or a summer pass rendezvous at Cedar Point, we mostly lost touch.
I wasn’t the first to leave town, but I also wasn’t the last: my cousins’ diaspora spreads literally from coast to coast. This trip to all 30 ballparks is giving me an opportunity to reconnect with family all over the U.S., some of whom I haven’t seen in a decade or longer.
There are cuisines other than barbecue all over the south, but when you’re in Kansas City, you’d be a fool not to indulge in the sweet and savory delight of smoked meat. I’ve visited KC once before on a work trip several jobs ago and tried a couple of joints recommended by a friend who grew up there: Gates Bar-B-Q — one of the city’s first and longest running joints — and Oklahoma Joe’s Bar-B-Cue, now known as Joe’s Kansas City Bar-B-Que after a schism of the founding partners.
For this trip, we wanted a taste of Kansas City history, so we pulled into the legendary Arthur Bryant’s Barbecue at the corner of 18th and Brooklyn a little after 2 p.m. It was a bit like being transported back in time to the 1950s, as the worn tile floors, formica tables and unflattering fluorescent lighting have remained virtually unchanged for the past 75 years. This is not a hip, nouveau, gentrified take on barbecue; Arthur Bryant’s is as authentic as it gets.
Scott put his trust in me to order, so we split a half rack of ribs, Arthur Bryant’s famous brisket burnt ends1 and a sliced pork sandwich, cut on a deli slicer right at the order station. Paired with the unique, paprika-heavy Arthur Bryant’s BBQ sauce, the ribs were a succulent and spicy delight. The burnt ends here are not what you’d regularly expect from a barbecue joint — cubes of brisket point smoked and then caramelized in sticky sweet sauce — arriving more as something akin to finely chopped beef in a tomato-based sauce. Certainly tasty, but not what I had built up in my mind as a transcendent experience. The sliced pork may be the secret winner, tender and smoky, delicate but hearty, amplified by the array of sauces on the table or enjoyed perfectly well on its own.
There were no leftovers to take to my cousin’s house where we would be staying the night, though she’s a vegetarian so arriving with a pile of pork and beef would be a little untoward. I hadn’t seen my first cousin once removed, Stephanie — or Dee Dee, as we all knew her in Clyde, Ohio — in a very long time, probably not since the passing of her brother Patrick in 2018 or even possibly before that. Like many of us, she left our little ‘burg to discover what else was out there and find out who we really are in the process. Born Stephanie, the family and the town made her Dee Dee; only by leaving could Stephanie emerge, freed from the constraints, assumptions and preconceived notions of small town life.2
But the reality is that we’re never one thing or the other. We’re always going to be the version of us that exists in other people’s minds, even if we’ve made a conscious effort to become something different. Dee Dee reminded me of how, when I was four years old or so, I could give detailed directions from my grandma’s house in Clyde to our farm outside Green Springs, one town away.3 Other members of Dee Dee’s branch of the family tell the tale of how I’d memorize all of the license plates on the cars in Aunt Sarah and Uncle Smitty’s driveway,4 or how I had to be told not to eat or drink while reclining in front of the TV so as not to choke myself to death.
That’s the version of me that they understand: a roly-poly, book-smart little dumdum who can calculate an earned run average in his head but has to be saved from his own id lest he endanger himself. OK, maybe things haven’t changed that much since then.
Stephanie and I caught up for a little while before heading off to Kauffman Stadium to see the hometown Royals take on the Arizona Diamondbacks on a muggy night. Price Chopper, a Kansas City area grocery chain, sponsors discount tickets on Mondays — just $10 each for upper deck seats — so we took them up on the bargain.
Kauffman is one of the older ballparks still in use by MLB, opened in 1973 to house the expansion Royals after the Athletics left for the greener pastures of Oakland in 1968 when Kansas City refused to build them a new home park. The team and the city bucked the trend toward large, generic, multipurpose stadiums and built what was then known as Royals Park as a baseball-only facility. Much like Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles and the original design of Candlestick Park in San Francisco, Kauffman Stadium does not attempt to emulate the jewel box parks of the past, but rather to usher in a modern era of ballpark design without losing the focus on baseball that the big concrete donuts did by attempting to serve two masters, baseball and football.
Just like with ballpark architecture, what’s old is new again: current Royals ownership is looking to build a new park, with a preferred location in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, but local voters rejected a ballot initiative to allocate public funds to the project. As a consequence, the team is now exploring a move to the Kansas side of the city to take advantage of newly-passed state tax breaks.
You can’t talk about the 2024 Kansas City Royals without heaping praise on their young shortstop, Bobby Witt, Jr. As of this writing, he leads MLB with a .347 batting average, and is third in the American League in both on-base percentage (.391) and slugging percentage (.597), the latter powered by his 30 doubles (tied for second in the AL), 10 triples (second in MLB) and 19 homers (tied for 23rd in MLB, but c’mon, haven’t we established that the kid is great?)
In the bottom of the first inning, Witt legged out a triple on a hard hit ball to right field, bringing the small but boisterous Kauffman Stadium crowd to its feet for the first time on the evening. By the time Witt’s turn came up again to lead off the bottom of the third, Arizona had taken a 3-1 lead courtesy of a two-run homer by all-star second baseman Ketel Marte. Witt’s leadoff double ignited a Royals rally, retaking the lead by a count of 4-3. Witt would put the game out of reach just one inning later, blasting a three-run homer to deep left center field, putting the Royals on top 8-3.
I had already witnessed one cycle — a batter hitting a single, double, triple and home run in the same game — three weeks prior in Baltimore as Texas Rangers rookie Wyatt Langford accomplished the rare feat. Just four innings into the Royals-Diamondbacks tilt, Bobby Witt needed just the single, the easiest hit to get, to complete the cycle. An electricity powered by anticipation coursed through the crowd of Royals faithful until his next plate appearance in the bottom of the sixth.
On his first pitch to Witt, Arizona reliever Humberto Castellanos uncorked a wild fastball that drilled the Kansas City shortstop in the shoulder. Royals fans, expecting at least a fair chance for Witt to finish the cycle, took great exception to the hit-by-pitch, unleashing a torrent of boos that had to have been audible on both sides of the Kansas-Missouri border. All of my interactions with the citizens of Kansas City were downright friendly, so to hear this jovial bunch vociferously vent their frustration, not just in the immediate aftermath of the incident, but until Witt would come around to face Castellanos again in the bottom of the eighth, was a stark reminder that your expectations and understanding of others aren’t always an accurate reflection of who they really are.
After taking two sinkers for balls, Witt took a powerful cut at a waist-high hanging curveball, lofting it deep to right, but into the waiting glove of Arizona outfielder Corbin Carroll. The cycle was not to be, but Royals fans left happy, their team 10-4 victors over the visiting Diamondbacks.5
In the morning, we said our goodbyes to cousin Stephanie, stocked up on supplies at a nearby Price Chopper, grabbed some Dutch Crunch sandwiches at Bay Boy in the West Plaza neighborhood, then explored the American Jazz Museum and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, both located in the historic 18th & Vine jazz district, just down the street from Arthur Bryant’s. Kansas City has leaned in hard on an identity as a historical influencer of American culture and paying rightful homage to the Black visionaries6 who propelled the city’s cuisine, art and sport to national prominence.
You can leave your hometown to be influenced by the greater world, just as you can spread and share your own culture and heritage with the people you meet along your journey. Ultimately, we can all learn from each other, embrace new ideas and develop our own identities if we have the audacity and tenacity to try.
NEXT GAMES:
Chicago White Sox at Texas Rangers, Thursday, July 25, 1:35 p.m. CDT, Globe Life Field
Los Angeles Dodgers at Houston Astros, Friday, July 26, 7:10 p.m. CDT, Minute Maid Park
Washington Nationals at Arizona Diamondbacks, Tuesday, July 30, 6:40 p.m. MST, Chase Field
Back in the day, Arthur Bryant’s would give these fatty bits from the brisket point away for free. Now they’re a major attraction. Dig deeper into the Kansas City burnt ends lore here.
Listen, none of this is a knock on small town America. I’m proud of where I’m from, but I’m also glad I left to forge my own path. I can see myself living in a place like Clyde again, when I’m ready for my world to slow down and simplify.
It’s easy: head east on Fair St. Turn right on Main St./Route 101. Cross the train tracks then turn right to stay on 101. Turn left on 228. Our house is, or was, the last one on the left before you hit 19.
There were always a lot of cars in the driveway, since Sarah was one of seven siblings, had five children of her own, and regularly had grandchildren, nieces and nephews like me clamoring around the house while our parents worked.
The curse is lifted! The first home team victory I’ve witnessed in exactly one month raises their record to 6-12 on the trip.
Henry Perry. Ollie Gates. Charlie and Arthur Bryant. Count Basie. Bennie Moten. Charlie Parker. Big Joe Turner. Satchel Paige. Buck O’Neil. Bullet Rogan. Home Run Brown. The lists can go on and on.
We really enjoy reading about your adventures! Did you have any local brews or food at this ballpark?