More than anything, Kansas City Royals fans now have another choice. A number of other choices, in fact.
The $250 million in renovations to Kauffman Stadium, the bulk of which debuted with this weekend’s home-opener series against the New York Yankees, have been a polarizing issue for Royals fans. Many believe Kansas City taxpayers and/or the Royals should have put up the cash for a new downtown stadium years ago, and that spending so much to upgrade now-36-year-old Kauffman was a silly venture to undertake when a brand new ballpark could’ve been had for roughly a couple hundred million more.
But that’s moot now — voters did approve the 3/8-cent sales tax to pay for the renovations to Kauffman (as well as Arrowhead). What matters now is that, regardless of how you felt about the upgrades to the K, the money’s been paid for them, most of them have been made, and Kauffman Stadium isn’t going anywhere for awhile.
And after checking out the park’s new features at Saturday night’s game, it’s clear to me that the walkway around the outfield fountains, the right-field sports bar, the new entertainment options and other amenities provide an invaluable service to fans of what’s been one of baseball’s most consistently frustrating franchises.
Though many Royals fans cite the 1994 strike as the point when baseball lost them forever, the current dark period of losing Royals baseball really had its origins in the 1990 season. If you’re a Royals fan, and have made the two-hour trip from Emporia to the K with any regularity since that year, chances are that you’ve witnessed the Royals get waxed a time or two.
Back in the olden days, 1990 to 2008, if the Royals were getting absolutely pummeled — 8-1, 13-2, something along those lines — what options did you have? You could leave early and not get your money’s worth. Or you could sit through the remainder of a depressing loss and nominally get your money’s worth, since you’re paying for nine innings of baseball — but leave the park feeling profoundly unsatisfied and, more than likely, bored.
Bored fans of a bad team need more choices when a game gets out of hand. I’m a baseball zealot and have strong feelings about fan involvement; you should go to a baseball game to see the game, and backdropping a 4-3 game with a seventh-inning Wave, for example, is just unacceptable.
But there comes a point, when the home team has no chance, when the kids are getting restless, when Tony Pena Jr. steps up to bat, that the game ceases to provide entertainment value to perfectly reasonable fans. At that point, a good ballpark experience will have an alternative at the ready.
Saturday’s game wasn’t quite at that point when I left my upper-deck seat and checked out the features of the new K, but it was close enough. KC was down 4-0 after four innings, and with C.C. Sabathia on the mound for the Yankees and the Royals doing the same hapless impersonation of a major league offense they’ve been doing for most of the last 20 years, most who were watching had a pretty good idea of what the outcome would be, and there was a “new” stadium to look at. I went to the lower level and made a trip around the new walkway.
What I saw wasn’t the most eye-popping fan experience you’ve ever seen, nor does it come close to duplicating the atmosphere of Wrigleyville in Chicago. But it achieves the “park within a park” feel the Royals were going for. The sports bar, barbecue food court and expanded concession options are nice, and the ability to stop anywhere on the walkway and watch the game from just about any spot beyond the outfield fountains is even better.
The stuff that can potentially distract you and/or restless kids from a forgettable game — the arcade, the miniature golf course — were all in use. The new team hall of fame beyond left field won’t be open until July, but it’s a much-needed addition to pay tribute to a young franchise that — for the first half of its existence, at least — still has a rich history as one of the better-run expansion teams ever.
Kauffman has a new, fun, carnival-like atmosphere, and it’ll be even more enjoyable once the weather warms up this summer. Sure, the cost of concessions and such are still outrageous, but that’s picking nits; overpriced concessions are simply a fact of life sports fans will likely have to deal with for their entire existence.
There’s some hope for the Royals this year — they’re 4-3 after last night’s victory over Cleveland and tied for first place with Chicago in one of baseball’s weaker divisions, so fans should be able to hold on to hope at least through the end of April. But as long as they’re filling out their rotation with the likes of retreads like Sidney Ponson, and Alex Gordon and Billy Butler continue to fall short of their potential, and Pena remains on the roster, KC is still likely to be closer to 70 wins than 90, and the Royals are still going to take their share of depressing beatings in front of the home crowd.
When they do, that’s when the K’s new features will really shine.