From nixed Royals games to Chiefs draft prep + soccer, another busy week in KC: Replay
Looking back, the benefit of hindsight being 20/20 and all, baseball’s work stoppage — The Lockout — came at us with all the velocity of a sleepy sloth.
Signs trouble loomed lumbered into view months ago. Those closest to the game warned us that the previous collective-bargaining agreement between MLB’s owners and players was expiring and the two sides didn’t see eye to eye on key issues.
So here we are: baseball fans and that sloth, broken down together on the side of the road. Last week, all of this became painfully clear when MLB commissioner Rob Manfred announced the cancellation of all teams’ first two series of the season.
So where do we go from here? Not to Kauffman Stadium. Not for a while, anyway.
The sports news in and around Kansas City wasn’t all gloomy last week, though, and we’ll get into some of the highlights here.
Play ball? Not yet, and not on time
The big question in Kansas City last Tuesday was how the cancellation of games would affect the Royals.
They’d been scheduled to open the season with a three-game road series against the Cleveland Guardians (March 31-April 3), followed by a three-game set against the Chicago White Sox at Kauffman Stadium (April 4-7). That’s no longer the case. Those games are nixed and will not be made up.
If MLB’s owners and players can somehow forge a new CBA relatively soon, the Royals could theoretically play ball as scheduled on April 8, when they’re supposed to open a four-game home series against the Guardians. But entering this weekend, the rhetoric around their negotiations wasn’t exactly promising.
Chiefs get quality time with prospects
Chiefs general manager Brett Veach and head coach Andy Reid were in Indianapolis last week to check out the top NFL Draft prospects at the league’s annual scouting combine.
While there, according to Veach, they’d also hoped to meet with representatives for safety Tyrann Mathieu, who just finished up a three-year stint in KC. Both sides are interested in continuing their union, but that might require a bit of a “hometown discount” on Mathieu’s part (our words, not Veach’s).
But back to the prospects in Indy. Veach and Reid were doing their diligence ahead of the opening of free agency on March 16 (March 14, for legal-tampering purposes). There’s talent in this year’s crop, and true areas of need will become apparent in the next few weeks as the Chiefs keep some of their own free agents, say farewell to others and bring in a new face or two (or more) via the open market.
Needs unaddressed in free agency will then be answered through the April 28-30 draft.
Sporting KC opens with a loss in Atlanta
Are there mulligans in soccer?
There was this weekend, at least in Kansas City, as Sporting KC welcomed the orange-clad Houston Dynamo to Children’s Mercy Park for its Saturday home opener — an opportunity for an MLS do-over following last weekend’s listless 3-1 loss at Atlanta, where a second-half goal by Daniel Salloi at least avoided the shutout.
A regular in the MLS playoffs, Sporting KC will no doubt win its fair share of games this year. Peter Vermes will see to that. But there are better ways to start a season than what Sporting Kansas City showed us in Atlanta.
KC Current are in power-boost mode
Don’t look now, but the Kansas City Current are shaping up to be more competitive than they were in year one. Bearing in mind the usual disclaimers about preseason games, the fact remains that KC has yet to concede a goal through two preseason friendlies.
The Current beat the Washington Spirit 6-0 and last week tied the Orlando Pride 0-0 — promising developments for a side that finished an NWSL-worst 3-14-7 in 2021.
Are the Current going to win it all? We’ll pump the brakes on that notion, for now, but neither are they likely to again lose 14 games. Not with the firepower they’ve added, and not with the defense and goalkeeping they’ve displayed this preseason.