Going to Kansas City.
Kansas City, here I come.
They got some crazy little women there
and I’m a-gonna get me one.
Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller wrote that tune back in the 1950s, and it’s been recorded by a lot of people. It hit Number 1 for Wilbert Harrison in 1959.
It doesn’t say anything about baseball, though. Yet, in spite of a very spotty history -- the Royals haven’t made the Playoffs in over a quarter of a century, and in 58 seasons of Major League Baseball (13 for the A's, 1955-67; 45 for the Royals, 1969-2013), the city has been in the postseason just 7 times -- Kansas City has quite a fascinating baseball history, and should still be regarded as a good baseball town.
Disclaimer: I have never been to Kansas City. Much of this information is taken from the Royals’ own website, and therefore I believe it to be reliable.
Before You Go. Check the Kansas City Star website for the weather forecast before you go. (The rival Kansas City Times stopped publishing in 1990.) The Friday, Saturday and Monday games will be at night, while the Sunday game will be an afternoon start. K.C. can get really hot in the summer, and early June is close enough to summer for you to remember to keep hydrated. If you’re going for more than just a single game, be sure not to spend too much time outside, aside from the games themselves.
Kansas City is in the Central Time Zone. Adjust your timepieces accordingly.
Tickets. In spite of renovations to modernize the 41-year-old Kauffamn Stadium, the Royals’ perennial underachieving has kept their attendance down for years. They averaged only 21,614 fans per game last season, about half of capacity, 26th out of the 30 MLB teams. Their fellow Missourians, the St. Louis Cardinals, averaged nearly twice as many fans, even though the Royals won 86 games to the Cards' 97. This season, so far, the Royals are 4 games under .500, and are averaging 20,406, 27th.
What this means for a fan visiting Kansas City is that you can pretty much walk up to the ticket booth on the day of the game and buy any seat you can afford. But that's a question mark, because the Royals, like a lot of teams, jack up their prices when the Yankees come to town. Dugout Boxes run $175, Dugout Plaza $148, Field Boxes $119, Field Plaza $102, Loge seats $112, Outfield Boxes $77, Hy-Vee Boxes (these and all after them are upper deck) $63, Hy-Vee Infield $37, and Hy-Vee Outfield $41.
Getting There. Kansas City's Crown Center is 1,194 road miles from New York's Times Square, and it's 1,190 miles from Yankee Stadium to Kauffman Stadium. Knowing this, your first reaction is going to be to fly out there. Round-trip, while changing planes in Chicago, can be just over $600 round-trip. If you want non-stop, it’ll cost more than twice that, even if you order early. When you do get there, the 129 bus takes you from Kansas City International Airport to downtown in under an hour, so that’s convenient.
Bus? Not a good idea. Greyhound runs 6 buses a day between Port Authority and Kansas City, and only 2 of them are without changes in Pennsylvania (possibly in Philadelphia, possibly in Harrisburg). The total time is about 29 hours, and costs $332 round-trip. The Greyhound terminal is at 1101 Troost Avenue, at E. 11th Street. Number 25 bus to downtown.
Train? Amtrak will make you change trains in Chicago, from their Union Station to K.C. on the Southwest Chief – the modern version of the Santa Fe Railroad’s Chicago-to-Los Angeles “Super Chief,” the train that, along with his Cherokee heritage, gave 1950s Yankee pitcher Allie Reynolds his nickname. Problem is, the Southwest Chief arrives in K.C. at 10:11 PM, meaning you would need to leave New York on Wednesday to get there last Thursday night, in order to attend the entire series. And we’re talking round trip fare of $654. But if you want to try it, Union Station is at Pershing Road and Main Street. Take the MAX bus to get downtown.
If you decide to drive, it’s far enough that it will help to get someone to go with you and split the duties, and to trade off driving and sleeping. You’ll need to get on the New Jersey Turnpike, and take Interstate 78 West across New Jersey, and at Harrisburg get on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, which at this point will be both I-70 and I-76. When the two Interstates split outside Pittsburgh, stay on I-70 west. You’ll cross the northern tip of West Virginia, and go all the way accross Ohio (through Columbus), Indiana (through Indianapolis), Illinois and very nearly Missouri (through the northern suburbs of St. Louis). In Missouri, Exit 9 will be for the Sports Complex. But you’d be crazy to come all this way and not get a hotel so you’ll get a decent night’s sleep, so take I-70 right into downtown.
If you do it right, you should spend about an hour and 15 minutes in New Jersey, 5 hours in Pennsylvania, 15 minutes in West Virginia, 3 hours and 45 minutes in Ohio, 2 hours and 30 minutes in Indiana, 2 hours and 30 minutes in Illinois, and 4 hours and 15 minutes in Missouri before you reach the exit for your hotel. That’s going to be nearly 21 and a half hours. Counting rest stops, preferably 7 of them, and accounting for traffic in both New York and Kansas City, it should be about 28 hours.
Once In the City. Kansas City, founded in 1838 and named for the Kanza tribe of Native Americans who lived there, is one of the smallest cities in the major leagues, with just 460,000 people, and one of the smallest metropolitan areas, with 2.4 million -- indeed, if you rank the 30 MLB markets (remembering to divide New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco in half, although the fandom doesn't really break that way), only Cincinnati and Milwaukee have smaller markets.
Kansas City is set on the confluence of the Missouri and Kansas rivers, and on the Missouri/Kansas State Line. Kansas City, Kansas is a separate city with about 140,000 people, and is known locally as KCK, while the more familiar city is KCMO. As for KCMO, Main Street runs north-south and divides Kansas City addresses between East and West, while the north-south addresses start at 1 at the Missouri River.
The base fare for buses and light rail is $1.50, though to go to the Missouri suburbs or KCK it's doubled to $3.00. A 3-day pass is $10. The sales tax in Missouri is 4.225 percent, but it more than doubles to 8.475 within Kansas City.
Going In. The Harry S Truman Sports Complex, including Kauffman Stadium (known as Royals Stadium from 1973 until the 1993 death of founder-owner-pharmaceutical titan Ewing M. Kauffman) and Arrowhead Stadium, home of the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs and site of a 2001 U.S. soccer team win over Costa Rica, is 8 miles southeast of downtown Kansas City, at the intersection of Interstates 70 and 435, still in the city but on the suburban edge of it. The official address is 1 Royal Way. You don’t have to worry about the ballpark being in a bad neighborhood: It’s not in any neighborhood. Parking costs $11.
Public transportation is not much of an option. In fact, aside from Arlington, Texas, this may be the most unfriendly ballpark in the majors for those without a car. The Number 28 bus will drop you off at 35th Street South and Blue Ridge Cutoff, and then it’s a one-mile walk down the Cutoff, over I-70, to the ballpark. The Number 47 bus will drop you off a little closer, on the Cutoff at 40th Terrace, about half a mile away.
Most fans will enter by the spiral walkways behind home plate, a holdover from the 1960s sports stadium architecture that also befell Giants Stadium, among others. The ballpark faces northeast, and if you’re old enough to remember those Yankees-Royals Playoffs from 1976 to 1980, you’ll notice some differences. For one thing, the field, then artificial, is now all-natural grass. For another, the red seats that you might remember as horribly clashing with the sea-green artificial turf and the Royals blue & white uniforms are gone, replaced by navy blue – or, should I say, “Royal blue.” A revamped version of the old big crown scoreboard is in center field, and so is the Water Spectacular, the fountains that remains the stadium’s most famous feature.
The park’s outfield distances have never changed: 330 to the poles, 387 to the power alleys, and 410 to center. This means the park has traditionally favored pitchers and, due to its distances and artificial turf, contact hitters and speedsters. Bo Jackson hit the park's longest home run, a 475-foot shot in 1986.
With the carpet replaced by real grass, the Royals’ go-go-go game of the 1976-85 era is reduced, although the franchise was in decline well before the switchover to grass in 1995. Seating capacity is currently listed as 37,903, pushable to 40,933 with standing room.
Food. Kansas City has a reputation for great barbecue, and “The K” has that, and some other good food items. Royals All-Star Barbecue is behind Sections 221 (3rd base) and 422 (Upper Deck behind home plate). The .390 Bar & Grill (named for George Brett’s 1980 batting average) is in the upper deck on the 3rd base side.
Blue Moose Sausage Emporium is under the right field stands. Boulevard Brewing Company is behind 223. Boulevard Pub is at 230. The Captain Morgan Bar is at 420. Crown Classics (presumably the usual ballpark fare with a team-themed name) are all over the place. Dugout Dog House stands are behind 208 and 247. Farmland Grill is at 239. There are several Hot Corner Grills and FryWorks stands. There are 4 Hostess Sweet Spot stands (Deep-fried Twinkies, perhaps?), Mexican-themed KC Cantina Cart at 224 and 232, an Irish Pub (no cutesy faux-Hibernian name) at 218 and 237, German-themed Leinenkugel's Leinie Lodge at 412 and Nutty Bavarian at 213 and 242, and – brace yourselves, Yankee Fans – the Pine Tar Pub in the outfield corners.
Team History Displays. The Royals have their championship flags on poles in the outfield: 1985 World Champions; 1980 American League Champions; 1976, 1977, 1978, 1984 AL Western Division Champions. (They have not made the Playoffs in the 3-division, Wild Card era, and therefore have never won their current division, the AL Central. Nor have they won the Wild Card.)
Their retired numbers are on the crown scoreboard: 5, George Brett, 3rd base, 1973-93; 10, Dick Howser, manager, 1981-86 (also former Yankee infielder, coach and 1980 manager); 20, Frank White, 2nd base, 1973-90.
The Royals have a team Hall of Fame, inside Kauffman Stadium's Gate A. Besides Brett, White and Howser, those included are: Team founders Ewing and Muriel Kauffman, GM Joe Burke, chief scout Art Stewart, manager Whitey Herzog; pitchers Steve Busby, Dennis Leonard, Paul Splittorff, Larry Gura, Dan Quisenberry, Bret Saberhagen, Kevin Appier, Mark Gubicza and Jeff Montgomery; 1st baseman John Mayberry (father of current Phillies player John Jr.); 2nd baseman Octavio "Cookie" Rojas; shortstop Freddie Patek; outfielders Amos Otis and Willie Wilson; DH Hal McRae; broadcaster Denny Matthews; and groundskeeper George Toma. This Hall includes statues of the Kauffmans, the retired number players, and Buck O'Neil -- more about him in a moment.
Splittorff was also a Royals broadcaster before his death in 2011. Toma, a.k.a. "The Sod God," has worked for Kansas City sports teams since the 1950s, including the A's, and was recommended by Chiefs founder-owner Lamar Hunt to prepare the field for Super Bowl I, where the Chiefs lost to the Green Bay Packers at the Los Angeles Coliseum. The NFL was so impressed with this AFL groundskeeper that he was kept on, and while he retired from active work in 1999, he still oversees the work at Kauffman and Arrowhead, and is one of a few people to have been at all 48 Super Bowls. He also took care of Arrowhead's newly-planted real grass for the 1994 World Cup, and was imported for the Olympics by Los Angeles in 1984 and Atlanta in 1996. The oddity is that, as good as he was with grass, for over 20 years he was working with artificial turf at both Kansas City stadiums.
Ewing Kauffman, Brett, White, Herzog, Busby, Patek, Mayberry, Wilson, McRae, Leonard, Splittorff, Quisenberry, Gubicza and O'Neil are also members of the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, which is located in Springfield, in the southwestern part of the State. Members of this hall, but not the Royals', include pitcher Al Hrabosky, catchers John Wathan and Mike Macfarlane, 1st baseman Mike Sweeney, and outfielders Jim Eisenreich and Bo Jackson. Also inducted, though not connected with the Royals, are Kansas City native Casey Stengel, Clear Creek native Clark Griffith, and Sedalia native Zack Wheat.
Beginning with the 2007 season, the Royals had a red seat placed in the stadium amongst the all-blue seats behind home plate to honor John "Buck" O'Neil, the star 1st baseman and manager for the city's long-ago Negro League team, the Kansas City Monarchs. One person is selected every game from community nominees to sit in that seat, formerly Buck's season-ticket seat. Previously, it was Section 101, Row C, Seat 1. Due to the renovations and section renumbering in 2009, the seat number is now Section 127, Seat 9, Row C.
Note that the Royals were named after Kansas City's annual American Royal Livestock Show. It has nothing to do with either the Monarchs or the downtown Crown Center complex.
Brett, and Satchel Paige and James "Cool Papa" Bell of the Monarchs, were named to The Sporting News' 100 Greatest Baseball Players in 1999.
Stuff. The Royals Majestic Team Store is located at Gate C, behind home plate. The usual items that can be found at a souvenir store can be found there.
Books about the Royals are not exactly well-known outside the K.C. area. Their Hall of Fame (Cooperstown and Kansas City) broadcaster Denny Matthews wrote Tales from the Royals Dugout, but that’s probably the closest you’re going to get to an inside story about the club. Jeff and Jeffrey Spivak, father and son, wrote a 25th Anniversary retrospective, Crowning the Kansas City Royals: Remember the 1985 World Series Champs; and Sara Gilbert (not the Roseanne actress, now a panelist on CBS’ The Talk) wrote The Story of the Kansas City Royals, which takes the franchise from its 1969 beginning to the 2006 season.
There is, as yet, no Essential Games of the Kansas City Royals (or Essential Games of Royals/Kauffman Stadium), but the official 1985 World Series highlight film package is available.
During the Game. Because of their Great Plains/Heartland image, Royals fans like a “family atmosphere.” Therefore, while they hate the Yankees more than they hate their Central Division opponents Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit and Minnesota, and their former Western Division rivals in Oakland and Anaheim, they will not directly antagonize you. At least, they won’t initiate it. But don’t call them rednecks, hicks or sheep-shaggers. And don’t say anything unkind about George Brett. Sure, he deserves it, but what’s the point? He can’t hurt you anymore; his supporters, theoretically, can.
The Royals have a mascot, Sluggerrr, a lion (royal, king of the jungle) with a crown on his head. (Why the 3 R’s, I don’t know, maybe he encourages kids with the legendary “Three R’s: Reading, ‘Riting and ‘Rithmetic.” I didn’t make those up, and neither did the Royals.) From his page on the Royals’ site:
Height: 7'0". (That may be his actual height, but it may also be a nod to Interstate 70.) Weight: Muscle weighs more than fat. Position: King of the Jungle. Bats: Doesn't remember, "It's been a while since I was a designated hitter." Throws: Hot Dogs, T-shirts, and visiting fans out of the park! Steals: Cotton candy, peanuts, and sometimes popcorn. Favorite Food: Cardinal Wings, Filet O' Mariner, Rays Soup, Tiger Steak, Oriole Sandwich, Blue Jay Bites.
Steals popcorn? Shades of Don Mattingly. No mention of Yankee Bean Soup among his favorite foods? Sorry, Sluggerrr: No soup for you!
The Royals do a takeoff on the Milwaukee Brewers' Sausage Race, with a "Heinz Condiment Race," featuring Ketchup, Mustard and Relish. They don't play a song after "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" during the 7th stretch, but in the middle of the 8th inning, they play "Friends in Low Places" by Oklahoma native and Royals fan Garth Brooks. They do not appear to have a postgame victory song. Perhaps, to welcome people to the ticket windows before the game, they should play "Come to My Window" by Leavenworth, Kansas native and Royals fan Melissa Etheridge.
After the Game. Since the sports complex is not in any neighborhood, let alone a bad one, you should be safe after a game, day or night. As I said, leave the home fans alone, and they'll probably leave you alone.
Chappell's Restaurant & Sports Museum, not really a museum but with a huge memorabilia collection, has been called the best sports bar in town. 323 Armour Rd., at Erie St, 11 miles northeast of the sports complex, and 5 miles north of downtown.
If you want to be around other New Yorkers, I’m sorry to say that I can find no listings for where they tend to gather. Even those sites that show where expatriate NFL fans watch games in cities other than their own came up short.
Sidelights. Kansas City’s sports history is a bit uneven. When the Royals and Chiefs have been good, they’ve been exceptional. But they’ve also had long stretches of mediocrity. Still, there are some local sites worth checking out.
* Site of Municipal Stadium. This single-decked, 17,000-seat ballpark was built as Muehlebach Field in 1923, by George Muehlebach, who also owned the beer and the hotel that bore his name, and the American Association’s Kansas City Blues. It hosted the Blues’ Pennants in 1929, 1938, 1952 and 1953 – the last 3 as a farm club of the Yankees. (They'd previously won Pennants in 1888, 1890, 1898 and 1901, for a total of 8 Pennants -- or 6 more than the A's and Royals combined in nearly 60 years thus far.) Future Yankee legends Phil Rizzuto (Sporting News Minor League Player of the Year in 1940) and Mickey Mantle (1951) played for this club at this ballpark.
The Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues also played at Muehlebach, renamed Ruppert Stadium for the Yankees' owner in 1937 and Blues Stadium in 1943. They won 13 Pennants there from 1923 to 1955, including 3 straight, 1923-25, and 4 straight, 1939-42.
Hall-of-Famers Satchel Paige, Willard Brown and Hilton Smith were their biggest stars, although it should be noted that, while he played with them in the 1945 season, Jackie Robinson was, at the time, not considered as much of a baseball prospect some of the other players who were thought of as potential "first black players," like Paige, Monte Irvin and Larry Doby; it was his competitiveness and his temperament, as much as his talent, that got Brooklyn Dodgers president Branch Rickey interested in him. And in a travesty, Monarchs legend Buck O’Neil has never been elected to the Hall of Fame. The Monarchs had to leave after the 1955 season, because of the arrival of the A’s.
In 1954, the Philadelphia Athletics were sold to trucking company owner Arnold Johnson, and he moved the club to Kansas City, where his pal Del Webb, co-owner of the Yankees, had his construction company put an upper deck on what was renamed Municipal Stadium, raising the capacity to 35,020. Thanks to the Webb-Johnson friendship, a lot of trades went back and forth (including Billy Martin out there in 1957 and Roger Maris to New York in the 1959-60 off-season), and it was joked that Kansas City was still a Yankee farm club. When Johnson died during spring training in 1960, insurance magnate Charles O. Finley bought the club, and he put a stop to that.
Finley was convinced that the reason the Yankees won all those Pennants was the 296-foot right field foul pole at the old Yankee Stadium, and so he brought the fence at Municipal in to 296 feet – though reaching back to its former 353-foot pole, thus obeying the letter of the law that said that all parks entering the majors had to be at least 325 feet to the poles. (This rule has notably not been enforced every time: The new Yankee Stadium maintained the outfield distances that the old one had in its last years, and Baltimore’s Camden Yards, opened well after the 1958 debut of the rule, is 318 feet to right.) Commissioner Ford Frick ruled that what Finley called the “KC Pennant Porch,” with a small bleacher between the old and new fences, was illegal. So Finley scaled it back to 325 feet at its closest point, making it the “KC One-Half Pennant Porch.” Finley also debuted some of his promotional shenanigans at Municipal, including Harvey the Rabbit, a Bugs Bunny lookalike that mechanically popped out of home plate to deliver fresh baseballs to the plate umpire.
But Finley wanted a new ballpark, and Kansas City wouldn’t give it to him. It's not that they didn't support big-league ball, it's that they couldn't stand him. After flirting with Atlanta, Louisville, Dallas and Denver, he moved the team out of Kansas City in 1967, leading Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri to say, “Oakland, California just became the luckiest city since Hiroshima.”
Despite being from the St. Louis side of the State, Symington lobbied Major League Baseball for a replacement team in K.C., and MLB granted an expansion franchise to Ewing Kauffman, to start play in 1969. Symington was invited to throw out the first ball at the first Royals home game. For the new team, with Kauffman rather than Finley as owner, the city built a new park. The Royals moved out after the 1972 season. Neither the Royals nor the A’s ever came close to October while playing there.
The Chiefs began playing at Municipal Stadium in 1963, won AFL Championships in 1966 and 1969 (in addition to their 1962 title as the Dallas Texans), won Super Bowl IV, and played their last game there on Christmas Day 1971, a double-overtime loss to the Miami Dolphins that is still the longest game in NFL history. And Finley convinced Brian Epstein to let the Beatles play there, on September 17, 1964, their only concert in Kansas City.
The U.S. soccer team played Bermuda at Municipal Stadium on November 2, 1968, and won. The attendance was 2,265. That gives you an idea of how far U.S. soccer has come.
The stadium was torn down in 1976, and a housing development is going up on the site. 22nd Street and Brooklyn Avenue, near the 18th and Vine district that was the home of Kansas City jazz, making it a favorite of the Monarchs players. The legendary Arthur Bryant’s barbecue restaurant is 4 blocks away at 1727 Brooklyn Avenue. Number 123 bus.
* Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and American Jazz Museum. Founded by Buck O’Neil and some friends, this museum "tells the other side of the story." As Buck himself said, the pre-1947 all-white major leagues called themselves “Organized Baseball,” but, “We were organized.” The museum’s lobby features statues of several Negro League legends, including Paige, Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard and Oscar Charleston – having played for the Monarchs was by no means a requirement for that.
The Negro Leagues were a sometimes dignified, sometimes willingly silly, and very successful response to the color bar. But the raiding of their rosters, with no regard to contracts and thus no money changing hands, by the white majors from 1947 onward, was the beginning of the end. But Buck O’Neil had the right perspective, as he said in Ken Burns' Baseball miniseries: “Happy. Happy... Of course, it meant the death of our baseball, but who cared?” The owners of the Negro League teams cared. Other than that...
1616 E. 18th Street. The same building is home to the American Jazz Museum, which includes a working jazz club, the Blue Room. Number 108 bus. The Museum is 5 blocks west of Arthur Bryant’s, and a short walk from the site of Municipal Stadium – neither of these facts is a coincidence.
* Municipal Auditorium. Built in 1935 in the Art Deco style then common to public buildings (especially in New York), it replaced the Convention Hall that was across the street, which hosted the 1900 Democratic Convention which nominated William Jennings Bryan for President (and at which a 16-year-old Harry S Truman served as a page) and the 1928 Republican Convention that nominated Herbert Hoover.
The arena seats 7,316 people, but for special events can be expanded to 10,721. The NCAA hosted what would later be called the Final Four here in 1940 (Indiana over Kansas), ’41 (Wisconsin over Washington State), ’42 (Stanford over Dartmouth, ’53 (Indiana over Kansas), ’55 (Bill Russell's San Francisco over Tom Gola's LaSalle), ’57 (North Carolina over Kansas, Wilt Chamberlain losing in triple overtime), ’61 (Cincinnati over Ohio State's defending champs including Jerry Lucas and John Havlicek) and ’64 (John Wooden starting his UCLA dynasty by beating Duke and completing an undefeated season with Walt Hazzard and Gail Goodrich).
The NBA’s Kansas City Kings played their 1972-73 and 1973-74 home games here after moving from Cincinnati – having to change their name because Kansas City already had a team called the Royals. An accident at the Kemper Arena forced the Kings to move back to the Auditorium for a few games in the 1979-80 season. The basketball team at the University of Missouri at Kansas City (UMKC) played their home games here from its opening until they opened an on-campus arena in 2010.
Elvis Presley sang there as a new national star on May 24, 1956, and as an entertainment legend on November 15, 1971 and June 29, 1974. The 2nd Presidential Debate of 1984 was held there. This is where Ronald Reagan joked about his age and experience compared to Walter Mondale's, then gave a closing statement that made him look like the Alzheimer's he was later diagnosed with was already in effect. 301 W. 13th Street. Pretty much any downtown bus will get you close.
* Kemper Arena. Built in 1974, it immediately began hosting 2 major league sports teams – neither of which lasted very long. The NBA’s Kansas City Kings played here until 1985, when they moved to Sacramento. The NHL’s Kansas City Scouts were the ne plus ultra – or should that be ne minus ultra? – of expansion teams, lasting only 2 seasons before moving in 1976 to become the Colorado Rockies – and then again in 1982 to become the New Jersey Devils. A few minor league hockey teams have played here since, but its only current tenant is the American Royal show.
In the Kings’ final season, they hosted the Knicks in a game that resulted in one of the most frustrating injuries in NBA history, Knick star Bernard King jumping for a rebound and tearing up his knee. I’ll never forget watching on TV and hearing him yell, “Oh, damn! Oh, damn!” and then crumpling to the floor, repeatedly slapping it with his hand. Bernard did play again, and well, but a great career turned into a what-might-have-been. But that wasn’t the worst injury here, and I don’t mean the 1979 roof damage, either: This was where professional wrestler Owen Hart was killed on May 23, 1999.
Kemper was also the last building seating under 20,000 people to host a Final Four, hosting the 50th Anniversary edition in 1988, in which the University of Kansas, led by Danny Manning, upset heavily favored Oklahoma. In fact, KU made the 40-mile trip from Lawrence many times, creating an atmosphere that got the place nicknamed Allen Fieldhouse East, a name they have now transplanted to the Sprint Center. They went 80-24 at Kemper, including the 1988 title game.
The 1976 Republican Convention was held there, nominating Gerald Ford. Elvis sang there on April 21, 1976 and, in one of his last concerts, June 18, 1977. 1800 Genesee Street, at American Royal Drive, a block from the Missouri-Kansas State Line. Number 12 bus.
* Sprint Center. This arena opened in 2007, with the idea of bringing the NBA or NHL back to Kansas City. (The arena builders appear not to care which one they get, but with K.C. being a "small market," they'll be lucky to get one, and will not get both.) It almost got the Pittsburgh Penguins, before a deal to build the Consol Energy Center was finalized. It was also being considered for the New York Islanders, before they cut a deal to move to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
For basketball, it seats 18,555; for hockey, 17,752. For the moment, no teams, major- or minor-league, play here regularly, although has hosted college basketball: KU games, the Big 12 Tournament, NCAA Tournament games. 1407 Grand Boulevard, at W. 14th Street. Number 57 or MAX bus from downtown.
On May 12, 2014, the New York Times printed a story that shows NBA fandom by ZIP Code, according to Facebook likes. You would think that, being between Chicago and Oklahoma City, with no team in St. Louis, the Kansas City area would be divided between Bulls and Thunder fans. Instead, the distance is so great (509 miles from Sprint Center to United Center, 349 miles to whatever OKC's arena is called now, and 475 miles to Indiana's Bankers Life Fieldhouse), that they divide up their fandom among the "cool" teams: The Bulls, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Miami Heat. (As yet, there is no hockey version.)
The closest NHL team to Kansas City is the St. Louis Blues, 249 miles away. The Kansas City metropolitan area's population would rank it 24th in the NBA, and 23rd in the NHL.
* Sporting Park. The new home of Major League Soccer's Sporting Kansas City, formerly the Kansas City Wizards, has also hosted 3 games, all wins, by the U.S. soccer team. It hosted the 2013 MLS Cup Final, which SKC won.
It is across the State Line in Kansas City, Kansas. Seating 18,467, it is at State Aveune & France Family Drive, with the ballpark for the independent baseball team the Kansas City T-Bones, the Kansas Speedway racetrack, and the Legends Shopping Mall all adjacent. Number 57 bus, transferring to Number 101 bus.
* Museums. Kansas City has 2 prominent art museums. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is K.C.'s "Metropolitan Museum of Art," 3 miles north of downtown, at 4525 Oak Street, in Southmoreland Park. And their "Museum of Modern Art" is the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, 2 blocks away, at 4420 Warwick Boulevard at 45th Street. Both can be reached by the Number 57 bus.
Kansas City is still, in a way, Harry Truman's town. The 33rd President, serving from April 12, 1945 to January 20, 1953, was born in nearby Lamar, and grew up in nearby Independence. He opened his Presidential Library and Museum in 1957, and frequently hosted events there until a household accident in 1964 pretty much ended his public life.
Upon his death in 1972, he was buried in the Library’s courtyard; his wife Bess, born Elizabeth Wallace, followed him in 1982, at age 97, to date the oldest former First Lady; and their only child, Margaret Truman Daniel, was laid to rest there in 2008. Currently, the Library is run by his only grandchild, Clifton Truman Daniel.
500 West U.S. Highway 24, Independence. Number 24X bus to Osage & White Oak Streets, and then 4 blocks north on Osage and 3 blocks west on Route 24. The Truman Home – actually the Wallace House, as Bess’ family always owned it – is nearby at 219 N. Delaware Street. Same bus.
Just west of the Crown Center is the Liberty Memorial, including the National World War I Museum, honoring the 1914-18 conflict that was then frequently called "The Great War" (accurate) and "The War to End All Wars" (not accurate, as it turned out). 100 West 26th Street.
There aren't a whole lot of tall buildings: One Kansas City Place, at 1200 Main Street, is the tallest in the State, at 624 feet, but only one other building is over 500 feet. The Kansas City Power & Light Building, at 1330 Baltimore Street, and the twin-towered 909 Walnut were built in the early 1930s and are the city's tallest classic buildings.
There haven't been many TV shows set in Kansas City. By far the most notable was Malcolm & Eddie, the 1996-2000 UPN sitcom that starred Malcolm-Jamal Warner and Eddie Griffin (a KCMO native). But the show was taped in Los Angeles and did no location shots, so if you're a fan of that show, there's nothing in Kansas City to show you.
*
Kansas City is a great American city, almost literally in the center of this great country. And its citizens, and the people who come from hundreds of miles around to see the Royals and Chiefs, love their sports. It’s well worth saving up to check it out.
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