MIDWEST BASEBALL TOUR - LEG 2: Kansas City, Part 2

If you haven’t read Tim’s reports on preparing for this trip (this is his first time planning a trip), be sure to check out what it took to plan and prepare for this trip in a wheelchair.

In Part 1 of our time in Kansas City, we saw where President Truman lived, had a meal at the City Market, and got frustrated with the hotel and our fellow guests at the Residence Inn.  Now it's game time...

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Before reading on, you have to know that the player I most despise in the major leagues is one Jose Guillen. A hothead and clubhouse cancer, his temper and subordination caused the Angels to fire him (and his admittedly strong bat) one week before entering the playoffs. It was that important to them that he be off the team that they’d rather take their chances of losing the playoffs (they did) than have Guillen around poisoning the team’s chemistry…

About 4 miles from downtown Kansas City, along Interstate 70, is the Truman Sports Complex consisting of Arrowhead and Kauffman Stadiums. Football’s Chiefs play at Arrowhead, baseball’s Royals of the American League play at Kauffman.

Our tickets, in the Dugout Boxes section, allow us to enter through the VIP entrance behind home plate. Along the way, a utility cart was driven by with two Royals players sitting on the back. Yes, there within spitting distance is the man I love to hate, Jose Guillen. While I’d love to let him have a few pieces of my mind, I let it go lest I be denied admission to the park.

It’s nice being treated like celebrities going in through the nice entrance but we find out that they don’t have any of the night’s giveaway…a Royals shirt for the women…here and we have to go back out of our way to the regular entrance at first base to get one for my wife.

Our seats are spectacular. About ten rows back, just a hair off of home plate on the third base side. Close enough to see the bags under the players’ eyes. I walk a few feet and get this shot of Chicago White Sox manager, Ozzie Guillen (no relation to Jose, I hope). Absolutely no overhang, wonderfully wheelchair accessible, and our section comes with two giant snack bars that server about 95% of the food offerings in the park along with giant plasma TVs so you don’t miss any action while standing in line.

The stadium, around 40 years old, had a refurbishment done before last season. It looks like a brand-new stadium with retro 70s touches. The signature features are the many fountains in the outfield and the crown shaped video board in center field. Food choices range from hot dogs, many gourmet sausages from Scimeca’s (Polish, brats, Italian, and Sheboygan), KC barbecue, pan fried chicken, and more. Two higher end restaurants are in the outfield, one in left and one in right. There is a wide selection of beers on tap and the best popcorn I’ve ever had at a baseball game is being popped at one of the several Topsy’s stands at only $4 for a good sized bag or $8 for a giant tub. It’s always fresh popped and they butter it to order. Food prices are very reasonable.

All this and the seats are only $43…the cheapest of the trip!

OK, food and drink in hand, it’s game time.

The Royals, the worst team in the league at this point, had fired their manager, Trey Hillman, the day before this game. Former Brewer manager, Ned Yost, is taking over. Yost was working in the Royals front office until this point.

The visitors are the Chicago White Sox. Taking the mound is Gil Meche for the Royals, Mark Buerhle will be the arm for Chicago. Meche has a no-hitter going into the 4th inning when right fielder Mark Kotsay breaks that up with a single. Meche then strikes out the next two batters to end the inning.

Hits start coming for the White Sox in the fifth and Omar Vizquel scores on a single by the Sox catcher, A. J. Pierzynski. In the bottom of the fifth, Buerle picks off a snoozing Jose Guillen at first base. The guy didn’t move an inch. Oh, what sweet justice, even though we are rooting for the home team.

The Royals tie it up on a solo homer by shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt in the bottom of the sixth. The Royals are first to use the bullpen when Dusty Hughes replaces Gil Meche in the top of the seventh. Other than a single by Vizquel, the side is retired.

It comes apart for Buerhle and the White Sox after the stretch when the first five batters single and drive in three runs. Tony Pena takes the mound after Buerhle is knocked out of the game. Two batters later, catcher Jason Kendall singles in third baseman Alberto Callaspo. Pena is out of the game to be replaced by Randy Williams.

A throwing error by Sox third baseman Mark Teahen (a much loved former Royal) scores another run. Two batters later, manager Ozzie Guillen makes a now familiar walk to the mound, replacing Williams with Scott Linebrink. Linebrink induces a ground out from first baseman Billy Butler to stop the carnage and end the inning. This will end the scoring and the final score is 6-1, Royals win.

An after-game fireworks show puts a nice cap on our last game of the trip. The only knock I have on the Royals ballpark is that it is not located downtown, necessitating a short drive to the suburbs. Traffic flows well and we’re out of the parking lot in five minutes. Kauffman gets the nod as our favorite stadium on the tour, just edging out Busch Stadium which is just a notch better than Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati.

It’s back to the hotel. The next day, there is a yellow slip of paper stapled to a note that was slipped under our door. It says that due to Rockfest, we will need to put the yellow slip of paper on our dashboard to keep our car from being towed away. We also notice that the hotel is filling up with people, many with spiked hair, leather jackets, studs, and drinking heavily. It’s time to visit the front desk.

“What is this Rockfest you’re telling us about?” I ask the friendly girl at the counter. It turns out that it is an outdoor, heavy metal concert starting in just a few minutes and going on through the evening in a park 200 yards from the hotel. We tell her about the noise last night and she tells us that if we thought that was bad, “just wait until tonight! I’m glad I’m off at 3pm.”

“Even if it’s after 12pm, can I check out with no penalty?” I ask. No problem. I tell her to just give me an hour and I’ll be out. While we’re packing, the concert begins and it’s blisteringly loud. We get everything in the car, I use the hotel’s wifi to find another hotel (Drury Inn just a few miles away!) return the keys, and leave. Most of the adjacent streets are closed. Cars are double-parked and thousands of fans are streaming into the concert…just dodged a bullet there!

Don’t get me wrong, I hope they had fun and have nothing against the metal heads and partiers. It’s just not what we were looking for and I wish the hotel would have let us know what was going on. To their credit, the staff at the Residence Inn was gracious in letting us leave without penalty. Still, that and the other problems we had there…the noise, the broken A/C, the torn carpet, and the roll-in shower that was an inch above the bathroom floor causing flooding…kill any good feelings I have. I cannot recommend this hotel.

We had plans to see the Federal Reserve money museum and the World War I museum but this killed that, plus both are located in the very park the concert was happening at so I doubt they were even open that day.

About a half-hour later, we pull into the Drury Inn & Suites Overland Park, Kansas…a suburb of Kansas City. The girl at the counter is very friendly and gives us the keycards to our spacious, two-room accessible suite on the third floor. Just like in St. Louis, we have a gorgeous, quiet room. Dinner, drinks, soda, popcorn and hot breakfast are free, among other things. I almost feel like I’m back home, in a familiar place. I think we have a new contender for hotel chain of the year.

Dinner tonight is a celebration of escape at the Overland Park branch of the Hereford House, one of Kansas City’s upscale steak houses where we are wined and dined with a succulent, prime, Kansas City strip.

There's more to come, stay tuned for the trip finale!

Darryl
Copyright 2010 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

MIDWEST BASEBALL TOUR - LEG 2: Kansas City, Part 1

If you haven’t read Tim’s reports on preparing for this trip (this is his first time planning a trip), be sure to check out what it took to plan and prepare for this trip in a wheelchair.

Finally, we're driving to the final destination of this tour.  It seems like we've been on the road for a month, but it's just been a week since we landed in Cincinnati.

It’s not nearly as long a drive as we took from Cincinnati to St. Louis. 247 miles as opposed to 384, so this day will be much shorter with only a planned bathroom, gas, and lunch break half way in Columbia, home of Ole Mizzou.

Watch the Video!

On the way in, we pass Kauffman Stadium, our goal for this leg of the trip, and then into downtown to find our hotel. It’s not hard to find as we climb up the hill by the Liberty Monument with it’s not-so-eternal Eternal Flame. Our home here will be the Residence Inn by Marriott on Union Hill.

We check in and find the hotel’s only wheelchair accessible room, a downstairs unit in a cave-like outdoor hallway. The room is spacious and roomy, with a king-size bed against the wall, a roll-in shower in the bathroom, a full kitchen next to a work desk, and a living room with a sofabed. The sofa is too close to the TV to unfold it for a bed so I scoot it back a bit, revealing many tears in the rug repaired with duct tape.

I look for and find the thermostat for the air conditioning, try to set it, and find out that it does not work. That will not be a problem on this chilly day but if the weather takes a turn to hot and muggy…as it did in St. Louis…it will be. We leave the room to walk to dinner and let the front desk know that the A/C needs fixing, which they promise to do.

A two block walk up Main Street leads us to Gates Barbecue, whose motto is “hi, can I help you?” I would think you’d get that motto at a lot of places, but if it helps, why not? We order at the cafeteria-style counter. I can see the smoker a few feet back, open, with many pieces of perfectly smoked meat. Our eyes grow big. I want to try a burnt ends sandwich. My wife wants a full rack of ribs. Tim will share with us along with beans, bread, and salad.

The meat is perfect, delectable, and juicy-tasty. There are three sauces to try, mild, regular, and hot. We get all three and stuff ourselves silly. We still have over half of our food left, which the waitress in the dining room helps us pack to take back to the hotel. That fridge in the full kitchen will come in handy.

In the morning, after the hotel’s perfectly adequate breakfast (I think I’ve been spoiled by the
Drury Plaza Hotel St. Louis at the Arch), we had a day to explore before tonight’s game. It’s a short drive over to Independence, home of one Harry S. Truman.

At the visitor’s center, we are informed that both the Truman home and farm are closed to visitors at this time because of ongoing refurbishment. We’re welcome to look from the outside and take pictures, but that’s it. The Truman Presidential Library is open, so we’ll stop by there in a little while.

At the end of the block is Clinton’s Soda Fountain. We go here to get some ice cream. We also go because this is where young Harry Truman got his first job, working after school. It’s not in the original location; a ranger tells us the original building burned down and it was moved here afterward.

The ice cream is good and the service Missouri friendly.

A few blocks away is the Truman home, which we walk around and snap a few pictures before moving on. A couple of blocks from here is a huge building with a spiraling steeple. We drive over to see what it is.

In 1831, Mormon pioneer Joseph Smith declared that the plot of land near the courthouse square was to be the new temple for New Jerusalem, the spot where Christ would come back to earth. The Mormons were eventually driven from the area but many returned and built the temple. The giant we now see is a newer version serving the Community of Christ branch of the Latter Day Saints.

Continuing on, we head over to the Truman Library. It’s eight dollars to get in ($12 in 2022 - Ed). A short movie about Truman’s life is shown, then you head out into the museum where you walk through different stages of his presidential career…taking over for the deceased FDR, the decision to drop the bomb on Japan, recognition of Israel, the Korean War, the firing of Douglas MacArthur, “Dewey Defeats Truman,” and the economic and civil rights laws he pushed for.

There is a peaceful courtyard, overseen by a life-sized statue of the man where an eternal flame burns near the graves of Harry Truman, his wife, daughter, and her husband. Behind that, you can see the office where Truman spent days after the presidency working here at the library which is next to the research room. It’s a very worthwhile stop when you’re in the area.

Back at the hotel, we turn in for the night. Soon, I here shouting outside and I take a look. There is a couple getting to know each other VERY well in the porch across the way and several of their friends are running in and out of the room along with others laughing and causing a general noisy mess in the parking lot. We have a full-blown hotel party going on next door.

I ask them several times to be quiet and am summarily ignored. It does quiet down. Next, around midnight, a group checks into the room above ours, being noisy. Then, just stomping across the floor all night. This is never stopped. We have a very bad night.

Frustrated with the noise, we skip breakfast, not wanting to see anybody else from the hotel. Instead, we head downtown to the City Market where each weekend they have a fresh farmer’s market along with the shops and stalls that are there every day.

Most of the farmers today just have vegetables. Very little fruit except for strawberries. I taste some, but they are very bland. There’s a table that has a lady with baked goods and we try her cinnamon rolls. Very delicious, so we take some to share and head to a trailer at the end that’s making coffee and breakfast. We get some joe and a breakfast sandwich to share and head to some nearby picnic tables to eat. It’s all very good but while we’re there it starts to rain. Not heavy, but steady.

After eating, we head over to the walkway around the perimeter of the market that is covered and browse the shops and stalls. Delicious looking meat is being grilled at an Italian deli. A friendly gentleman is giving away many samples at the Bloom Bakery. After trying some of his mouth-watering morsels, we head in for more and get some cupcakes, danishes, and some bread for later.

Tim and I share a sausage from the grill and it’s delicious.

We get some cheese for later (the Amazing Race finale will be on Sunday night so we plan some snacks and wine in our room) in the deli. Many everyday produce stands are here with fruit, so we get some to help with our deficient vacation nutritional needs. The market is busy, friendly, happening, and a fun place to spend a day.

Back at the Residence Inn, we note that the A/C is now working and we rest up for tonight’s game.

Stick around, part 2 and the game is coming very soon!

Darryl
Copyright 2010 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved