Monarchs Plaza honors Kansas City sports greatness. It shouldn’t be about New Yorkers

I was appalled as I read a recent Star guest commentary by Negro Leagues Baseball Museum co-founder Phil S. Dixon, which was critical of the newly-refurbished displays at Monarch Plaza at 22nd Street and Brooklyn Avenue. While I am not a celebrated baseball historian of Dixon’s stature, I was one of the creators of the displays at the former site of Municipal Stadium. The thrust of his piece was profoundly misguided. As such, I would like to humbly offer a nuanced counterpoint that I hope might enlighten him.

First, the Monarch Plaza was not intended to be a “new tourist spot.” Rather, it was designed to be a neighborhood plaza within a subdivision named in honor of the Kansas City Monarchs. And again, I am not the baseball expert. However, I know baseball greats Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle and Phil Rizzuto all played for the New York Yankees within a segregated major league and all have been enshrined in Major League Baseball’s National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

Second, the dismissive characterization of what the commentary calls Monarch Plaza’s “odd assortment” of tributes to our honorees is troubling. Note that all of the people we highlight played their respective sports at the highest levels at Municipal Stadium and still have family ties and roots within our community. I don’t believe the author meant to tell Kevin, Angel and Terry Wyatt (John Wyatt’s children); Linda and Pam Paige (daughters of Satchel Paige); Bobby Bell Jr.; Willie Lanier Jr.; Kevin Muhammad (Willie Lanier’s sons); Mauranda Douglas and John Mayberry Jr. (John Mayberry’s legacy) and Otis Taylor Jr. that their fathers are not worthy of this neighborhood-based salute and recognition.

While I understand and appreciate the idea of inclusion, please remember our monument is still in its infancy. There is still plenty of room to expand it with additional deserving honorees in the future. However, I feel strongly that our children need to see positive examples of people who look like them and who have reached the upper echelon of their profession.

Hence, it is within this context that the commentary’s obtuse comparison of our plaza to controversial monuments such as Confederate statues that were installed long after the Civil War was at best unfortunate, and at worst extremely misplaced. Consider that none of our honorees ever led or participated in the Trail of Tears, owned slaves nor oppressed anyone. They simply excelled at their respective sports and delighted generations of Kansas City sports fans both Black and white. And they still have deep roots and family ties within our community.

With all due respect, I think Mr. Dixon misunderstood the assignment.