The following Secretary’s Report comes straight from our beloved Secretary-slash-Historian—a dual title that pays in glory, not money. This particular entry captures a single glorious chapter of BO04: Day 5, the legendary road trip to (and back from) Kauffman Stadium, just east of downtown Kansas City.
Our expedition began and ended in the fine city of St. Louis, with accommodations generously provided by two gracious hosts: Will’s sister-in-law (off-site but in spirit) and the ever-hospitable Sarah and Brannon Claytor.
Secretary's Report...
The Drive
8/22/04
Recently, I was telling a family member about BO04, and, after I recounted the Day 5 roundtrip from St. Louis to KC, she said “that sounds like fun!” Perhaps this same person also finds disco, ‘80s hairstyles, and long lines “fun” because we endured all of those things that day, too.
The day began, like most others, with a blurry glimpse of some ceiling-like structure over my head. Unlike other days, however, I also began this one waking up next to my smelly son Taylor. I can say “smelly” because he was; Taylor was abiding by the official showering choices of BO04 (and apparently all other BOs): Right Guard, Old Spice, Gold Bond Medicated Powder, or combinations thereof. Not that I was in position to complain. Taylor and I were some of the select few who got to sleep on a bed in the beautiful home of our gracious and absent hosts, Will’s sister-in-law and her husband. Of course, the other participants needed some grounding anyway. In any event, over the next several minutes, our day’s mission came into focus: to get in the car and drive/ride to the other side of the state for a ballgame.
Missouri’s Interstate 70, that ribbon of highway that links the state’s two largest cities, is not known for scenic vistas, and its reputation is well deserved. As the four official BO ‘04 vehicles wove in and out of formation across the dull landscape, we couldn’t help but think of previous generations of travelers, including the championship starved fans of the ’85 Royals and Cardinals and, dare we forget, the baseball-crazy, Conestoga-driving settlers who hitched up their wagons to go see the underdog KC Cowboys host Charlie Comiskey’s perennial powerhouse St. Louis Browns¹. Luckily for us travelers, we didn’t have to dwell on the endless cornfields or ubiquitous “Waffle House” signs; we were focused on a pursuit worthy of our brave forefathers and foremothers: the quest for baseball trivia answers. In a marathon that tested both modern technology and travelers’ patience, we spent hours struggling to remember important facts such as the last KC Royal to win the batting championship or the long list of Texas Rangers to hurl no-hitters. (Look it up for yourself.) Walkie-talkies and cell phones were in constant use as names such as “David Clyde” and “Freddy Patek” were resurrected, and then cast aside like so many Dennis Leonards. But ultimately, we savored the moment when Tim would radio a deep and husky “Correct-a-mundo!” over the airwaves (a habit, unfortunately, passed on to his son). Some of us would utter a collective “ahhhh” to acknowledge the restoration of nirvana, while others shook their heads in disbelief, as they heard “Amos Otis” uttered appropriately in public for the first time in decades.
As we passed through the land of Trivia on our way to Beer and Hot Dogs, we did stop to refuel our vehicles and our weary bodes. After several hesitation pitches, we succumbed to the Waffle House signs, turning off somewhere between Wentzville and Williamsburg to satisfy our curiosity and hunger. Treated to front row seats for the ballet known as “Give me two eggs over easy and a side of bacon with raisin toast!”, we marveled at the swiftly moving cooks and their younger, impatient, heavily make-uped supervisor. Say what you will about the unappealing eggs and the cardboard waffles; when we left full from our Waffle House stop, we felt like we were leaving home.
By 11:30 a.m., we all had reached our destination, even “Speed limit” Gene. Arriving at the asphalt-covered grounds surrounding Kauffman Stadium and the adjoining Arrowhead Stadium (used for less civil pursuits than baseball), our van was greeted by a cheerful, ageless stadium parking attendant who happily took our money and summed up the impending showdown this way: “We’ve got Greinke going today, and we need him to have his good stuff against these guys.” We had no idea what she was talking about, but we were sure glad to be at the ballpark.
Kauffman Stadium is a monument to the Not In My Back Yard movement, as it appears to be situated several miles from nearest home. Nevertheless, once we stepped into the open-air facility, welcomed by the calm, cooling effect of the fountains that spray skyward beyond the outfield fences and by the friendly, young park employees handing out Back to School freebies, we felt very much at home. It is the cleanest park I’ve been to. Of course, it is relatively easy to clean concrete (no termite haven is Kauffman) after each day’s minor-league-sized crowd has come and gone.
Being in a ball bark well before game time allows you to warm up to the game, just as the combatants do. We were surprised that there was no Batting Practice awaiting us, but perhaps that’s custom for a getaway day game following a night game. Even still, watching the colorfully clad participants trickle out from the dugouts and saunter around the manicured field, stretching their gums as much as their hamstrings, gave you a sense you were observing a picnic.
There was Zack Greinke, the Greinke made famous by the parking attendant, meditating in the grass out in right field, getting ready to stretch before long-tossing with the ancient, smiling bullpen catcher. Later, on the other side of the field, we could see Alfonso Soriano high-kneeing his way back and forth behind the infield, stopping each time to adjust his gray uniform and chat with a couple of relaxed teammates. On the infield, the business-like ground crew was scurrying about, lining the field and meticulously raking the dirt around home plate before spraying the plate and the pitching rubber with white paint. Other players milled about in front of the dugouts, signing autographs and saying hello to friends who had come to watch them play. And all of it took place as 22,000 or so paying customers gathered around, eating unimpressive hot dogs and working on their tans.
Members of BO ’04 chose different ways to participate in the pre-game. Some joined the lines for scheduled Royals’ autographs. Others tested out the local cuisine (short lines!) while still others escaped the warm sun by climbing up to the shade of our fine, 2nd level seats. As soon as Cooper got there, he and Chris “I’ve-got-to-get-Alfonso’s-autograph-for-my-wife” Haynes staked out a prime spot for the obligatory, unsuccessful autograph-seeking session on the visitor’s side, and we waited until the polite, college-aged women ushers explained we were no longer welcome near the field. They got hot and sweaty, and, ultimately, had to settle for Texas reliever Brian Shouse’s signature for their efforts. After buying the also-obligatory hot dog and playing the overpriced mini-golf course behind right center, we set out for some more unsuccessful autograph hunting before the final “ushering” to our seats for “play ball”.
The Kansas City Royals started the 2004 season with high hopes, following a surprising 83-win season in 2003. But injuries to several starters, coupled with the trade of star Carlos Beltran, left them with the worst record in the League by the time we caught up with them. By mid-August, they were raiding their minor league teams for prospects.²
Starting pitcher Zack Greinke is a 20-year-old control artist who broke into the major leagues in May, two years after graduating from high school. The starting lineup also featured 21-year-old second baseman Ruben Gotay, 24-year-old centerfielder David DeJesus, and 20-year-old shortstop Andres Blanco up the middle. For me, the biggest surprise came when the Royals’ Designated Hitter was announced: Calvin Pickering.
Pickering made his major league debut with the Orioles in 1998, and his first hit was a home run off David Cone. A highly touted prospect, Pickering was Rafael Palmeiro’s heir apparent at first base, but, apparently, he never panned out. He struggled in the handful of games he was granted with the big club in ’98, ’99, and ’00, and before the 2001, the Orioles cut him loose. Ironically, his last at-bat of the 2001 season was a 3-run homer against the Birds. But following the season, he fell into the player abyss, and I thought he had quit baseball. Pickering sat out with injuries in 2002 and went to Mexico in 2003 to get himself back into baseball shape (In 2004, he was fit enough (at 6’5”, 260 lbs.) to bash 35 home runs for Kansas City’s AAA team before his major league call-up the day we arrived.
In the other dugout, a similar rebuilding predicament had developed completely different results. During the off-season, the Rangers traded away the franchise, Alex Rodriguez, and were immediately better. By late August, their bunch of youngsters and castoffs were still very much in the wild card hunt. The average age of the Ranger starters (not counting our day’s starting pitcher, the 36-year-old rehab project, Scott Erickson) was 25 ½, and no one in the Ranger lineup was over 30. The infield included last year’s American League All-Star hero Hank Blalock (23 years old), slugging phenom Mark Teixeira (Ta-SHEER-a, 23), converted shortstop Michael Young (27), and former Yankee star Soriano (26). They all were making controversial Manager Buck Showalter look like a genius (not an easy task) and helping their fans forget about A-Rod.
So, with all that in mind, we were really just a year removed from watching a match up between the Omaha Royals and Oklahoma City RedHawks as Greinke delivered the first pitch—a ball—to Soriano. The second pitch was over the plate, and Soriano poked it down the left field line before jogging into second base with the first hit of the day. However, Greinke threw 10 of his next 12 pitches for strikes, and he set down the Rangers without Soriano sniffing third.
In the bottom of the first, the Rangers’ Erickson walked center fielder DeJesus on five pitches to start, a sign of things to come. But he did make it through the first unscathed, getting DeJesus thrown out trying to steal second with two outs.
Greinke and Erickson both threw scoreless second innings, but they were not pitching equally well. While Greinke appeared to be in command, striking out two of the four batters he faced, Erickson struggled to find the plate. He threw twenty-three pitches, walking the bases loaded, before getting Blanco—the number nine hitter—to ground out hard to the shortstop to end the inning.
In the third, Greinke threw ten of eleven pitches for strikes, and he retired the side in order. In the Royals’ half of the inning, Erickson surrendered a lead off triple to Dejesus, followed by a sacrifice fly, two singles, and a walk, to load the bases for the Calvin Pickering. Pickering had walked on four pitches in the second, and he now came up—still looking to record his first major league at-bat in nearly three years—facing his old teammate, with a chance to break the game open. Erickson was clearly laboring in the heavy, summer air, and he worked himself into a 3-1 deficit. But he came back with a strike to make it a full count, and Pickering proceeded to foul off the next three pitches. The ninth pitch of the at-bat (and thirtieth of the inning) got a little too much of the plate, and Pickering lined the ball 406 feet over the left field wall for a grand slam, and a 5-0 Royals lead! Erickson went on to retire the next two batters and end the inning, but he was replaced to begin the fourth.3
Greinke sailed through the Ranger lineup for the next two innings, scattering two more harmless hits and allowing no runner to advance past second base. In the Royals’ fifth, 27-year-old right fielder Abraham Nunez led off with a double, bringing Pickering to the plate amidst a cheering crowd. This time, he teed off on a 2-1 pitch and drove the ball high over the centerfield wall, 440 feet away from home plate. Two at-bats, two home runs, six RBI, and 1.000 batting average. Not bad for a guy who was playing for Omaha twenty-four hours earlier.4 The Royals went on to get two more runs that inning, giving Greinke an eight-run cushion through five. (It is worth noting that the man the Rangers brought in to stop the bleeding in the fifth was none other than the great Brian Shouse.5)
Greinke turned out to exceed the expectations heaped upon him by that parking attendant back at 11:30 a.m. Although the young right-hander loaded the bases in the sixth on two singles and a walk, he got Gary Matthews, Jr. (29-years old) to pop out to shortstop and Gerald Laird (24) on a weak come backer to the mound to end the inning and preserve the shutout. With the Royals’ coaching staff playing it safe with their top pitching prospect, Greinke’s day was done. And, although the slugging of Calvin Pickering overshadowed his performance, Zack Greinke pitched long enough and well enough to go down in BO history as ‘one to watch’.
The Royals got consecutive doubles from youngster Blanco and replacement Desi Relaford in the seventh to add their ninth and final run of the game. For their part, the Rangers broke through with a couple runs in the eighth off reliever Dennys Reyes. Two singles, a walk, a balk, and a ground out to short produced the closest thing to a rally the visitors could muster all day. By that point in the game, three-fourths of the Rangers’ infield had been lifted for pinch hitters, with ancient veterans Manny Alexander (33 years old) and Eric Young (37!) entering the game. Twenty-five year-old, six-foot, four-inch Jeremy Affeldt, also just recalled from Omaha, pitched the ninth without incident, and the Royals left the crowd of 22,286 (including 16 BOers6) cheering.
Following the game, Jeff and Cooper considered joining the line to run the bases. But since the line ran all the way up the spiral, concrete ramps behind the grandstands, they decided instead to summon us with the BO ’04 Theme Clapping7 instead. Thankfully for the fans and vendors still in the area, we eventually gathered and helped bring the Clap to a concluding crescendo. Then it was down to field level for the traditional group photo.
The group photo is a seemingly innocuous practice that could get boring after a park or three, if not for unpredictable nature of various stadiums’ ushering crew. Two days earlier, at U.S. Cellular Field, we were locked out of the field level after the game. Although we managed to gain entry, a stern-looking supervisor of some kind who wanted to know “what the problem was” stopped us. Upon hearing our request for a brief photo with the field in the background, he shook his head and explained that “it was too late”8. At Kaufmann Stadium, an elderly usher obliged us without incident. The crowning moment of our most enjoyable day at Kauffman Stadium followed the photo shoot, as the usher returned our cameras and shouted the name of the day’s hero, “Alvin Pickering”.
We lingered outside the park to discuss logistics for the return trip to St. Louis and take more pictures in front of a poised, bat wielding, bronze George Brett. Some of us older fans recalled the exploits of the Royals’ greatest player9 while others critiqued the statue or tried to mimic George’s immortalized stance. Then it was off to the waiting, baking-hot vehicles of BO ’04 and the drive “home”.
Our trip back east to St. Louis started smoothly, with the younger boys huddled around Sam’s laptop in the back of the van and the older boys searching the radio “dial” for some news of the world, and, more importantly, ESPN’s coverage of the Sox/Sox game. But then, all hell broke loose on the control panel, with the instrument dials wiggling around and lights flickering on and off. Steve calmly asked out loud, “what the hell is going on here?” before getting us safely to an exit with a service station.
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: never travel without an engineer. While we fueled up the vehicle and relieved ourselves in wonderfully maintained convenient store rest rooms, engineer Tim popped open the hood and studied the situation. Before long, he had diagnosed the difficulty and taken appropriate action; he expertly reattached the loose fuse box cover, and we were off to the races.
Around mid-state, following several cell phone check-ins, we met up with the rest of the crowd at a little family restaurant called Applebee’s for the day’s final meal. Fortunately, the place had enough room for our party of sixteen, and we were neatly packed around two large tables, located in front of a television showing something called Olympic diving. After ordering our food, we exchanged stories about our original, childhood heroes of the diamond. Willie Mays, Dewey Evans, Jim Palmer, and other giants of the game were uttered, but the conversation was punctuated by the shocking revelation by one proud and loud (aren’t they all) Yankee fan that his first, favorite player was none other than Red Sox slugger Jim Rice. With that, and enormous plates of food, to chew on, the group settled in for a long, good stuffing.
Following dinner, we all staggered back out into the dusk and convened in the Applebee’s parking lot for our last meeting of the day. BO Commissioner Jeff awarded carefully thought-out, hand-picked prizes to the best attendance guessers of the weekend (Sam and Cooper, the two youngest BOers), updated us on the hotly-contested fantasy baseball competition (oh, if I had only known Calvin was going to be playing!), and also made a touching presentation to brother Tim recognizing his outstanding driving pro-cess. Then, with the sun set on another day’s work, we circled up for one final Theme Clap, and went our merry ways towards our respective and gracious host homes.
Our van followed Will’s car back into St. Louis and into a neighborhood none of us were particularly familiar with but had all slept in the night before. After a brief tour of the community and a little back tracking, the lead car guided us safely to our destination, and we debarked for the night. As I hunkered down in my designated bedding area, I had one last moment of conscious recognition of our special day together. Our traveling community had significantly tightened our bond as a result of our day’s journey, for our journey had intertwined with others’. There was the journey of an aging pitcher, who was trying to reestablish himself in the Show after years of injury and frustration. And the journey of a 20-year-old phenom, who took one step closer to establishing himself with an organization that desperately needs him. And the journey of another man, who had affected the fate of the others, as well as all who witnessed his day’s work. A man who grew up in the tropical Virgin Islands and chose to play baseball, a sport where perseverance, passion, and attention to detail lead mostly to failure but, occasionally, produce moments of exhilaration and wonder.
August 25, 2004
Andrew Tonachel
_________________________________________________
1 Yes, that’s the same Charlie Comiskey who brought the American League to Chicago in 1901. Long before that, “Old Roman” established himself as a solid first baseman and strategic manager of the old St. Louis Browns, who represented the American Association in three straight “World Series” in 1885-87.
2 The week after our trip to Kansas City, I read on the Royals’ website that 16 of the 25 players on the active roster had had two years or less of Major League experience.
3 Several days later, I learned, he was placed on waivers, went unclaimed by the other 29 teams, and was sent down to AAA Oklahoma City. Calvin Pickering’s return to the majors may just have signaled the end of Erickson’s career.
4 In the Omaha Royals 5-2 win at Memphis on Saturday, 8/21, Pickering hit his league-leading 35th homer of the season and boosted his average to .314. He would end the year tied for the lead league in homers and be named the DH on the All-Pacific Coast League Team, as voted by the league managers and media.
5 As it turned out, Shouse was the only major leaguer to sign Cooper’s baseball during BO ’04, although he did also collect the signatures of “Steve”, the skydiver in Chicago, and James Meyer, the neighbor of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ pitching coach who got to be in full uniform on the field the day we saw the Pirates-Cardinals game.
6 Commish Jeff Haynes, Chris Haynes, Tim and Sam Haynes, Bill and Andrea Bates, Jon and Sarah Bates, Brannon Claytor, Steve DeMichele, Will Jacobsen, Gene Dankbar, Jim Carr, Taylor, Cooper, and me.
7 Not for the faint of heart, the BO ’04 Theme Clap involves a complex series of handclaps that start slow but progressively quicken to the point where faces become scrunched and shoulders shutter to keep the beat. The Clap ends with the sudden and simultaneous recognition that “I can’t do this anymore” and is generally followed by a shout of “Go [insert home team here]” or, for the less accommodating, “Go Yankees” (which leads to taunts and, inevitably, an exchange of naughty words).
8 During the Sox/Sox game we witnessed at “The Cell”, a fellow upper deck fan explained that fans with upper deck seats were no longer welcome on the main concourse during or after the game. This rule was imposed last year, after two inebriated spectators made their way onto the field long enough to punch the Royals first base coach during a game.
9 Hall of Famer Brett was a 20-year-old rookie in 1973, and immediately became a fixture at third base. During the Royals’ glory years of 1976-85, Brett made the All-Star team every year and led K.C. to the playoffs seven times, winning it all in 1985. Brett retired in 1993, after 21 seasons and 3,154 hits. By that time, his hands were also sore and very sticky.