Tuesday, August 23, 2011

SoSG Road Trip: Kansas City (Part 3: Fun Stuff And The Royals Hall of Fame)

We were there at Kaufmann Stadium so early before first pitch, that there was a ton of time to explore the stadium. And explore we did.

Back behind left-center field was a great playground for the kids, complete with one of those timed-sprint run-the-bases things, a batting cage, a carousel, and a playground. One could see how parents could take young kids here and the stuff could occupy the kids for hours. Very cool.

The carousel.

The playground structure. There were more kids activities here; it highlighted how family-friendly the Royals are.

For the adults, the left field concourse at Kaufmann Stadium has a cool Royals Hall of Fame building, complete with a screening room and standing exhibits about the Kansas City Royals' history. We were lucky, as one of the main exhibits was about Royals phenom Bo Jackson:

Decades later, Bo Jackson is still a force.

The Royals recently thawed this man from a block of ice and have him greeting guests into the Royals HOF museum.

Original designs for the Royals logo.

Kansas City Municipal Stadium initially had a Ladies Gate, which apparently let ladies in for free for some games. Cool.

A George Brett exhibit, complete with a ball for each one of his hits as well as a bar coated in an awful lot of pine tar.

The Royals' World Series trophy from 1985. Hey, why don't the Dodgers allow their fans to see one of their six WS trophies?

The 1985 Royals roster. Very cool.

It's neat to see a team with not that much history celebrate its past successes with such reverence and appreciation. The Dodgers should have something like this accessible to the public as well (I know the Dodgers have a lot of stuff on the Club Level concourse, but there isn't anything like this open to the masses).

And now, some more fun in the field. I have more pictures from this that I have to edit, but here's the sanitized shots of an autograph signing with the KCrew (the Royals' cheerleading crew) and their mascot, Sluggerrr (whose three Rs at the end of his name reference his drunken slurring of words, I believe):

Approaching the autograph table.

The KCrew at the autograph table.

The KCrew is not in the league of the Marlins Mermaids, but it was still nice to see such team spirit. (Don't get any ideas, Dodgers.)

Random K-State Wildcat on the concourse (it was K-State Day at the stadium, so there were purple Royals hats and shirts everywhere).

Tommy Lasorda signed picture being offered at a silent auction. Unfortunately, there were no bids.

Gotta love the Bruce Chen fan shirt at the Royals Team Store. Is it said in an encouraging voice, or an angry and disappointed voice? We'll never know for sure.

Next up: the game itself, and baking under the hot Kansas City sun.

Earlier: Part 1, Getting to Kaufmann Stadium; Part 2, The Fountains

3 comments:

Mr. LA Sports Czar said...

Bruce Chen has been in the league since 1998? Really?

Neeebs (The Original) said...

I see absolutely nothing wrong with the way the Royals spell, Slugerrr.


cc: Myself

ctrosecrans said...

c'mon chen is said like this:

http://kansascity.royals.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=17085765