This Briton painted Kauffman and 29 other MLB stadiums. Now he’s reliving the journey

Painter Andy Brown had just moved to Korea after spending all of his life in Great Britain. The year was 2009, and he had just taken a job as an art teacher overseas on a three-month contract.

Early in his stay in Asia, Brown was invited by a friend to a Korean league baseball game — that country’s equivalent of Major League Baseball — at Busan’s Sajik Stadium. They watched the Lotte Giants. And the scene at the ballpark captivated him immediately.

When his initial three-month contract turned into a 10-year career as a professor instructor in Korea, well, that just meant more baseball games for Brown to enjoy.

Until that first summer in Korea, Brown had only seen baseball games on TV or in films. The screen, small or large, couldn’t capture the essence of walking up a concourse and seeing the huge field and bright, green grass. It couldn’t mimic the sounds of raucous fans singing and dancing. And it sure couldn’t re-create the smells of the chicken and beer sold at baseball games in Korea.

To Brown, those moments, as well as the game itself, created a fascinating story line about baseball and what the game teaches about life itself.

“There’s so many twists and turns,” he said. “You can be a villain one day and a hero the next day. The history of players’ careers is fascinating — the way that they succeed and the way that they fail, the reflections that has on our own lives and the reflections that the game itself has on our own lives.

“I always find that you watch the game (and) it’s got so many beautiful dramatic moments, joyful moments, sad moments, tragic moments.”

Since the day he first watched baseball live and in person, for the last 11 years, really, Brown, 40, has been capturing those emotions through unique artwork. He has traveled to nine countries — Canada, China, Cuba, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Taiwan, his native UK and now the U.S. — to paint some 90 different stadiums.

Last summer, after 10 years of teaching overseas until leaving his job at the school in June, he spent July to October touring MLB’s 30 stadiums with canvas and oil paints in tow. His goal? To display just what America’s pastime means to Americans on its 150-year anniversary.

Brown painted the images he saw on particular days he visited each ballpark. He wanted to capture and convey the specific experience enjoyed by fans at each venue. He arrived at each stadium a couple of hours before game time, would typically start drawing right before the first pitch was thrown, and aim to be done by the seventh inning.

Brown started his quest by visiting six West Coast stadiums, beginning with Oracle Park in San Francisco. That was over spring break, when he was still at his teaching job in Southeast Asia. When spring break ended he returned to Korea, but only briefly. Once the 2019 school year ended in June, he resumed his journey in July.

Along with touring all 30 MLB venues, Brown’s adventure also took him to some minor-league ballparks and a few in Mexico.

“When you look at it, it was just mad — I mean absolute madness,” Brown said. “Is this a thing that a logical person would do? It’s definitely not, but it was amazing.”

In addition to working through scheduling for his time in each city, he also had to secure permission from the various major-league teams to tote his canvas and oil paints through the entry gates and into the stands. Remember — he was painting his works of art during actual games.

Brown’s 12th big-league park on the U.S. tour was none other than Kansas City’s Kauffman Stadium, where he said he was treated extremely well by the Royals’ staff, who gave him suggestions about where he might paint. His Kauffman painting was made from the perspective of the right-field line.

Brown calls The K “a beautiful ballpark” — he loved its one-of-a-kind features, like the water fountains past the outfield and giant, signature crown atop the scoreboard.

Though renovated in 2007-09, Kauffman isn’t a newer stadium like Baltimore’s Camden Yards or Pittsburgh’s PNC Park. But Brown appreciated its authentic and historical feel.

“Most of my favorite ballparks are generally ones where you can almost sense that people sat in those seats or have been in those places for many, many years,” Brown said. “All the excitement, joy, anguish and all the emotions that have been held in that stadium; I feel like it almost gathers in a place.”

Brown noted that the fans in KC also treated him extremely well. He wished he could’ve stayed here longer, but as one might imagine, he was in a bit of a rush to complete his project of a lifetime.

Brown says the paintings he created last summer, including the one of Kauffman Stadium, reside in America with a friend. This summer, he’s reliving his adventure through daily recaps posted to his Twitter account: @andybisanartist.

While the original canvases of his ballpark paintings are for sale on his website (andybrownstadiums.com), Brown hopes to exhibit them one day. And he’ll never forget the summer of 2019.

“It’s the ultimate road trip for a baseball fan,” Brown said. “But also, just culturally and artistically, it was a special analysis and document on North America during this time. I feel like it’d be of great interest to many people in America and in many other places across the world.”