September 4th at the K

My wife and I went to a Royals game this evening. It was my first visit to the K after the renovations. I tried to go a couple times in May, but they games were sold out. By September, that was no longer a problem. It was also dollar hot dog night with fireworks to follow the game.

The renovations are great. We checked out the KC baseball Hall of Fame. Not a lot there, but some decently cool stuff (including the World Series trophy). There's also a lot more to see and having the ability to walk all the way around the park makes it feel more like a modern stadium. They seem to have gone out of their way to include as many amenities for season ticket holders as possible. It's a good strategy, especially when season tickets account for like 80% of all tickets sold.

With the Royals it's often said that no one goes to the park for what's on the field. That's a bit of a harsh assessment, but it proved incredibly true this evening. We arrived in our "seats" just before the first pitch and we knew it would be a fun evening as a pair of teenagers were loud and engaged in the game sitting right in front of us. One was clearly a girl, the gender of the other was entirely clear to both Katelynn and myself, however we didn't agree on which gender that was exactly. Nonetheless, their crazy, lunatic rantings and adept feel for the game enhanced the experience.

The game itself was rather innocuous for the most part. Jared Weaver of the Angels allowed only one run over seven innings for the win, but ultimately was hit around pretty good throughout. The Royals' spot starter, Robinson Tejeda had a one hitter going through 5 1/3 and was relatively unhittable. However, he was removed in the 6th having thrown only 70 pitches - welcome to Royals baseball.

Things moved along smoothly, although both starters took their sweet time between pitches, which made for slow play. The hot dogs helped preoccupy the time. I had three before the game and two more by the sixth inning.

In the seventh, the Royals brought in their fourth (yes 4th) pitcher of the evening, a young Mr. John Bale. A promising talent, who has been on the DL for most of this season and only recently returned to action. After throwing one pitch, he crumpled to the ground in front of the mound and had to be carried off the field.

This led, almost immediately, to some sort of surreal post-apocalyptic reality. Dozens of concessionaires emerged from the concourses, making their way down the aisles with huge trays of dollar hot dogs handing them, free of charge, to any takers. Apparently, the Royals (currently 50-80) expected a larger crowd on a Friday in September, when it was 60 degrees and cloudy and had rained all day.

A number of little league teams in attendance managed to get their hands on whole trays of hot dogs. These foil wrapped beauties then began to rain all over the lower bowl. Thousands of hot dogs were flying through the air in all directions, then caught and tossed again. They were coming free of their wrappings in mid air and striking unsuspecting women on the side of the face.

Finally, one group of mostly drunk frat boys commandeered about a dozen tray of hot dogs and set up shop atop the visitors dugout and began chucking foil wrapped missiles at anyone who moved. This lasted until the police arrived and began to restore order. As I left to get a drink of water, people were still handing out piles of hot dogs (I got three more).

The game ended predictably. The Royals already had another guy warmed up in the pen when Bale went down (after one pitch); it's how we roll in KC. This guy (we found out later he was also the last uninjured pitcher on the roster, so another injury would have meant a few outs by the backup third baseman) walked the first two batters, allowed two runs and managed to escape with a 2-1 loss after the started dominated the first half of the game and the offense posted a lead. Typical Royals.

Almost everyone had left before the post-game fireworks bonanza, but things did not improve. The first volley of explosions was beautiful and impressive, but it was soon obvious that wind speed and direction placed the smoke from said fireworks squarely between the fireworks and the stadium. We spent the next fifteen minutes watching dark smoke with the occasional hint of red or green behind it.

Again, this is a professional sports franchise.

All in all, it was a fun evening and a good start to a busy holiday weekend. I saw a few innings of decent baseball, enjoyed a really great ballpark, ate nine hot dogs and am still alive.

Viva los Royals!