Kansas City Royals unveil uniform patch to honor Art Stewart during the 2022 season
The Kansas City Royals announced Friday that they’ll place a jersey patch on their uniforms as part of their efforts to honor the memory of the franchise’s legendary scout Art Stewart.
Stewart, the club’s longtime scout and executive, died last November at age 94 after having spent 69 years in professional baseball.
The uniform patch will feature Stewart’s signature, a staple of Royals history for decades. Stewart’s signature appears on the first contracts of more than 70 players who reached the Major Leagues, including Royals Hall of Famers Kevin Appier and Mike Sweeney, as well as Bo Jackson, Brian McRae, Johnny Damon, Joe Randa and Carlos Beltrán.
The patch will appear on the club’s jerseys starting during spring training and continuing throughout the 2022 regular season.
The Royals will also designate an Art Stewart Scout Seat for every home game during the season. That seat will be reserved for a scout.
“The Royals have always been built around the excellence of our scouts, and Art is the one we all look up to,” Royals president of baseball operations Dayton Moore said in a release from the club. “Nobody loved baseball or watching baseball players more. He made us all better and was a consistently positive force in so many of our lives. There’s nobody like him, and we’re proud to honor his life and work in this way.”
Stewart was the longest-tenured associate in the Royals organization, working for 52 years, including the last 21 as the senior advisor to the general manager. His previous job titles included senior special assistant to the GM (1997-2000) and director of scouting (1985-96).
The Royals inducted Stewart as the 23rd member of the Royals Hall of Fame in 2008, the same year he went into the Professional Scouts Hall of Fame. The Royals also honored Stewart by renaming the observation tower at their facility in Surprise, Arizona, “The Art Stewart Tower” that year.
In 2007, he received the Roland Hemond Award for longtime service in scouting and player development.
The jersey patch in honor of Stewart will be the eighth such patch in Royals history, following honors in memory of Dick Howser (1987), Joe Burke (1992), Ewing Kauffman (1993), Muriel Kauffman (1995), Paul Splittorff (2011), Yordano Ventura (2017) and David Glass (2020).
