Royals vs. A's May 8th

Apparently the Usher had taken these pictures before. And apparently his last job was at Burger King.

The Royals Stadium has the unfortunate distinction of being separate from the city by about 15 minutes putting it, like The Ballpark in Arlington, in the middle of nowhere. Also like The Ballpark, it was surrounded by overpriced empty parking lots and no bars or restaurants.

So far as the stadium itself, it is my favorite by far. Sunk into the ground with fountains spurting in the background and a large scoreboard, it had everything that you could ask from a Major League Ballpark with the exception of a Major League caliber team.

Even at that, there were some cool things about the game, most notably was a play at the plate in which the catcher was creamed by the charging A's baserunner, but held onto the ball for the out. I know all this because I scored the game, the Solitaire for baseball fans. For anyone out there who claims that baseball is a slow game, try sitting in the stands and scoring a whole game, keeping track of strikes, balls, outs, walks, rbi's, etc. I'd imagine it is the only way that a true Royal's fan can muster sitting through an entire Kansas City game.

Most of my diversions from Scoring came from the heckling of the usher in our section. The poor kid could not have been older than 17 years old, and was doing a damn good job of keeping the riff raff out of the third base line section that, for some reason, he let me sneak into. So diligent was he in keeping the brave 10,000 fans who suffered through their team's game out that it was the only lower section barren by the end of the 5th inning. It was at that time that the drunken "those guys" decided that they'd had enough of simply razzing the usher for kicking out every last person who moved in, and moved in a drunken mass into the section. This apparently broke the kid, who sat dejectedly in the corner for the rest of the game.

Fan and Hero of the Game: While Royal's leadoff man David Dejesus's leadoff music was a rap song about needing money because of all the kid's mouths he has to feed, he paled in comparison to the young burgeoning superstar who sat in front of me. Resplendent in his Jorts and mesmerizing with his precision dance moves, this little tyke stole the show.



As for the Royals, their losing and spoiling my perfect home team record was not nearly as disappointing as the fact that I lost the Scoreboard race. Mustard beat Relish, and Ketchup wasn't even close. I knew it was over when my horse got out to an early lead. The early leader never seems to go wire to wire in these things. It was a tough loss for everyone.

Lastly, after the game I talked Trevor, the Royals guy who throws t-shirts into the stands and is largely ignored because of the surrounding girls he works with that, into taking me to the Bar scene of KC. He took me to Tom Foolery's, your average big name bar, which just so happened to serve the best beer I've ever drank. That's a lot of beer to compare to, I mean, ALOT, and I stand by my verdict. If you are ever able to get your hands on a case of Boulevard Wheat Beer, take it and run. And call me.





Trevor the K-Crew guy gives Boulevard Beer a big thumbs up.