I was all set to do a big exposé on the Royals “Fan of the Game” feature at Kauffman. That’s the one where fans are told to yell and scream in hopes they get selected for the prize of the day.
Well, last year I noticed the winning fan was chosen before the yelling even began. A Royals’ staffer draped the person with a big “Fan of the Game” billboard ahead of time. Everyone else wasted their time cheering, but most of them didn’t know it.
When I brought this up recently with Toby Cook, the Royals vice president of community affairs and publicity, he said that this year the fan of the game is picked after the cheering starts. Cameras survey the yelling crowd and one person is zeroed in on to be fan of the game. Credit the team for trying to bring a little credibility to the process.
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Does anybody but me wonder why so many Royals players, along with some visiting players, wear their pants so low they practically drag the ground at the heel? Alex Gordon is a good example. It’s probably considered fashionable. Or maybe they just have a bad tailor. But it seems as if pants that low could interfere with a player’s footwork. On the other extreme, players sometimes wear their pants to just below the knee, with their socks pulled way up, which looks kind of dorky. There must be a happy medium.
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I have a couple definitions of non-serious baseball fans. One is the person who reads books or magazines during the game. Another is the person who leaves for the refreshment stand just when the Royals put two or three runners on base. I saw that happen in the row in front of me the other night. Do these fans pay any attention to the game? If I cared that little about a game, I’d do something else.
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The jury is still out on how good Trey Hillman is as a manager, but I give him high marks for accessibility. I hear lengthy interviews with him on talk radio shows, in addition to what he has to say before and after the game. He is frank and often insightful. Gee, why can’t all the public officials I have to deal with be like that?
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