Kauffman Stadium

St. Louis Cardinals @ Kansas City Royals
June 26, 2004

Cardinals 3, Royals 1 (10 inn.)

W: Julian Tavarez
L: Rudy Seanez
S: Jason Isringhausen
Attendance: 40,963
Time of Game: 3 hours, 36 minutes

Stadium Facts

Location: Kansas City, MO
First Game: April 10, 1973
Capacity: 40,793
Type: Open
Surface: Grass

After the game in St. Louis, I stayed at Scott Air Force base with my buddy Dom who was stationed there for the summer. After my second night there, Dom and I took off for Kansas City on Saturday morning. The drive across Missouri took less than four hours.

We arrived in Kansas City relatively early in hopes of being able to find somewhere to watch the White Sox vs. Cubs game that afternoon before heading to the Royals game. We drove around downtown Kansas City looking for a sports bar. I have never seen a quieter downtown of a semi-large city than Kansas City on this Saturday afternoon. Apparently not many people hang out in the city on weekends. Eventually, we did find a place to eat, but unfortunately we were not able to catch the Sox/Cubs game.

Kauffman Stadium is located in the southeast outskirts of Kansas City in the same complex as Arrowhead Stadium, home of the Kansas City Chiefs. The advantage of being so far from downtown is that there is plenty of space, so there is ample parking. However, there isn't a lot to do before or after games in the immediate area. This was my second game at Kauffman Stadium, but I was quite young the first time around.

In my opinion, Kauffman Stadium is the best baseball stadium built in its era (60's and 70's). The fact that it was built for baseball only is a huge plus, but what really sets it apart is its openness. The upper deck does not extend to the outfield. In fact, the only outfield seats are near the right and left field foul poles. The rest of the outfield area is covered with grassy hills, water fountains with the signature giant waterfall, and a couple large scoreboards. The large upper deck is well designed to keep a majority of the seats between the bases. There are very few upper deck seats way down the baselines. So there are not too many bad seats in this park.

One thing this ballpark lacks (as of 2004 anyway) is a decent out-of-town scoreboard. In fact, electronic info/score boards are few and far between in the entire park. Maybe I wouldn't have even noticed this except I was trying to get updates during the late stages of the Sox/Cubs game. Of course, this was before I had mobile web access, which has almost obliterated the need for out-of-town scoreboards today.

For some reason, the park had an artificial surface until the mid-90's, which never made any sense in a baseball only park. Fortunately, they fixed that mistake and now have natural grass. This is definitely one of the best parks for pitchers. The symmetric outfield wall has deep dimensions to all fields. There are very few cheap home runs hit at Kauffman Stadium.

The Royals had a rare sellout for this game, only because they were hosting their cross-state rivals from St. Louis. The Cardinals fans may have had the Royals fans outnumbered. Knowing the game would probably be a sellout, I purchased tickets ahead of time. Our seats were actually not together. One seat was a row in front of the other. They were in a good location though, in the lower part of the upper deck behind the plate.

This was my second Cardinals game in three days. As usual, the Royals entered this game buried in last place of the AL Central. They got a surprisingly good start out of Dennys Reyes, who has almost exclusively pitched out of the bullpen since 2004. Cardinals starter Woody Williams was equally effective. After three scoreless innings, the Cardinals finally crossed home plate with a run in the fourth on a double by Edgar Renteria, scoring Albert Pujols. The Royals tied it in the fifth on a RBI singly by Tony Graffanino.

Things got really interesting starting in the eighth inning. Both teams left the bases loaded without scoring a run in the inning. The Cardinals stranded three more runners in the top of the ninth. The Royals also missed another great chance to win the game in the bottom of the ninth. With two on and one out, Mike Sweeney hit a line shot right at the shortstop, Renteria, who doubled off the runner at second to send the game into extra innings. The Cardinals finally got a couple key hits in the top of the tenth. Renteria and Mike Matheny notched RBI singles to break the tie, giving the Cardinals a 3-1 lead. Jason Isringhausen closed things out in the bottom half for the Cardinals extra inning victory.

This game was the Royals third straight loss, and was just the start of a terrible stretch in which they lost 13 of 14 games. As I mentioned in the St. Louis review, the Cardinals had a terrific 2004 season. They were 2-0 on my trip on their way to a 105 win season.

With all the great parks built in the last twenty years, Kauffman Stadium is no longer mentioned as one of the best. However, considering its age, it is a very nice park. It's unfortunate that they rarely ever field a competitive team to give the fans a better reason to visit this nice ballpark.

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Next stadium: Great American Ballpark, Cincinnati