Mellinger Minutes: Matias’ moment, Fisher’s timeline and challenging the Royals’ way
At the moment my brain tried to process whether the images being imported by my eyes were real or imagined, I happened to be having a somewhat serious conversation with a lifelong baseball man.
We were talking about baseball players and pitching changes and a little about life when the loudest crash of the spring interrupted.
“That ball’s crushed,” the baseball man said.
“Holy (expletive),” the less articulate sports columnist said.
Here is a video that absolutely does not do this home run justice.
“If that wasn’t 500 feet then there was never going to be a ball hit 500 feet,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “That looked like it was launched out of a potato gun.”
Seuly Matias has more natural power than anyone in the Royals organization, and that includes Jorge Soler, who led the American League in home runs in baseball’s last full season (2019).
So it is not a shock that Matias turned an 83 mph changeup from Scott Moss into a memory in the Royals’ second Cactus League game of the year — an 8-6 win over Cleveland, if you care.
What’s a shock is just how high and far this baseball traveled.
The left field wall here at Goodyear Ballpark is 380 feet from home plate. From there is a bullpen, which is probably 20 feet deep. Behind the bullpen and 18 steps up a sharp hill is the tallest palm tree in the stadium. It is planted behind the scoreboard, and rises well above the scoreboard — 75 feet up, perhaps.
Matias’ ball hit near the top of this tree. It actually exploded part of the inflorescence, which is apparently the technical name of the honeycomb-looking part of a palm tree just below the branches.
It simply does not seem like something a human being should be capable of accomplishing.
“That ball might still be in the air,” Cleveland manager Terry Francona said. “They might have to find that tomorrow.”
Goodyear Ballpark’s in-house analytics measured the home run at 495 feet, according to a source, which would have tied this home run by Ronald Acuña Jr. and this one by Joey Gallo as the longest in the last three seasons.
Look, when I flew out here this week I expected this space to be about the joy of watching baseball with other human beings. And it was a joy!
Men ate hot dogs and kids brought gloves and women laughed. A Cleveland fan razzed the ballboy in left field for throwing a foul ball to a Royals fan. You can hear individual fans now with limited seating, which means an opportunity for hecklers but also a little pressure to raise their game.
Mostly, there was joy, and baseball, and it was beautiful to feel in person.
Then, the Royals announced a contract extension with Hunter Dozier — the deal is four years and $25 million guaranteed, with a club option for a fifth year at $10 million. This deal covers one and possibly two years of Dozier’s free agency, and is the classic win-win extension.
The Royals get long-term control over a valued player at slightly less than he may have made by going year-to-year, and Dozier gets financial certainty and guaranteed lifetime wealth for his family.
There’s a cool story behind all this, not just for Dozier but for how the Royals approach things. Maybe we’ll get into that more soon. It’s a story worth thinking about.
But at the moment all I am capable of thinking about is that poor baseball that will never be the same. Matias is 22 years old, and rose to No. 52 on Baseball Prospectus’ prospect rankings before an awful 2019 — .566 OPS with four home runs and 98 strikeouts in 221 plate appearances.
His Instagram is full of clips that stretch the imagination. He’ll probably start the season at Class AA Northwest Arkansas, and nobody can be sure what to expect from any minor leaguers after what is essentially a lost 2020 season.
If he can more consistently recognize curveballs and sliders then he can make a lot of money and create a lot of highlights. You could say that about a lot of players over the years, but few had the ability to turn otherwise mundane and meaningless baseball into a sight you’ll never forget.
We talk a lot about the joys of sports here, and particularly baseball. Games can be long, and the work put in by those who rise to the top can feel endless. You can get buried in routine. Every once in a while you see a moment break through all of that routine and grab you by the brain.
Seuly Matias gave us such a moment. Sports are the best sometimes.
“It looked like the tree blew up,” Matheny said.
This week’s reading recommendation is David Hill on the beach bum who beat Wall Street and made millions on GameStop, and the eating recommendation is the Cuban at Harry’s Country Club.
Thanks to everyone who’s listened to our Mellinger Minutes For Your Ears podcast, and here is a big warm invitation to start if you haven’t already. We’re out from behind the paywall and free on Apple or Spotify or Stitcher or wherever you get your shows.
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This was by far the most interesting and surprising thing to come from Brett Veach’s video call with reporters on Monday. He provided a lot of information — Veach is more transparent than most — but whatever was the second-most interesting or surprising thing he said is wwwwwwaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy down the line.
Veach said he expected all three players who had postseason surgery — Patrick Mahomes (toe) and Mitchell Schwartz (back) are the others — to be back in time for training camp.
Mahomes and Schwartz are not surprises. But including Fisher quite literally jolted me, enough that I ditched a question I wanted to ask in exchange for clarification. Here’s what Veach said, reading from notes provided by vice president of sports medicine and performance Rick Burkholder:
“I think with that injury and with the time leading up for the season, Rick has here a mid-August return, and you know how that works. It’s always to be determined until the players actually reports back to camp and goes through the offseason and (we) see where he is.
“But I think the mid-August timeline was put in front of my notes, so I’ll defer to Rick on that and trust his medical expertise.”
Fisher’s Achilles tore in the AFC Championship game on Jan. 24, so a mid-August return would be about 6 1/2 months after the injury. That would not be without precedent. Some athletes
The average recovery time is around 11 months, but some athletes have returned within six months. Just to use a Chiefs example, Derrick Johnson suffered a rupture on Dec. 8 2016 and played the entire 2017 season.
There’s a lot to be said about no two injuries being identical, and no two bodies recovering identically. Burkholder and Fisher cannot be certain about the recovery timeline. These are projections.
But the fact that they are this optimistic is a positive sign.
Doesn’t mean the Chiefs are set at tackle for the 2021 season, which we’ll get into more soon.
But this is really, really positive news.
None.
But that’s not the point, or the value in the Royals operating the way they do, which I’ve come to think of in the articulation of a former player who spent time for the Royals and several other teams:
“Dayton Moore’s biggest problem is he’s the only one of 30 general managers who gives a (expletive) about players.”
The veteran meant that in half-jest, but only half. The point was that Moore and the Royals genuinely care about players as humans in a way that other clubs simply do not.
But the point of operating like this isn’t to attract big name free agents. Nobody is pretending the Royals can get a discount because Mike Matheny remembers the names of a player’s kids.
Moore and other club officials would tell you they operate this way primarily from a responsibility about making the game better. They care deeply about growing baseball, as corny as that sounds to many, and believe that treating the game with honor and respect is the best way forward.
They are also insanely competitive, like all who rise to this level.
The value in treating players like men instead of assets comes not from getting more from the free agent market, but from getting more from the guys already in the organization.
It doesn’t always work, of course. The Royals lost for six straight seasons under Moore before 2013. Only the Orioles and Tigers have lost more games over the last three seasons.
But I don’t know how you could watch the Royals’ rise from dust to champions and not believe that a love for each other and shared history was at least part of it.
Those Royals teams won in such bizarre ways. They won the American League while finishing last in home runs. They were good that year that they made it all the way to Game 7 of the World Series, and so flawed that once there they started Jeremy Guthrie.
The erased deficits that should have had them buried, made plays in moments that nobody could have expected, and at a time when teams were putting maximum emphasis on power and walks they won a world championship while hitting few home runs and walking less than all but one other team in the sport.
You don’t think pulling this off required some sort of next level belief in each other?
This isn’t just about players, either. The Royals treat their coaches and scouts well. They make sure they’re compensated, make sure time is available for family, and those things can go a lot way.
It can’t be a coincidence that after spending a decade after the strike digging new lows by cutting corners that the Royals eventually built into champions by investing in people.
Look, I know how all this sounds, like the Royals are going to war armed with lollipops and juice boxes.
I’ve argued these points with club officials, too. Players don’t — and shouldn’t! — give discounts so why shouldn’t teams maximize the rules to their advantage? Someday, we may view giving up a year of Brady Singer in exchange for a week of him in 2020 as an all-time blunder.
But can we ever know whether Singer will be more productive knowing the Royals have only his and the roster’s best interests in mind? Can we know if others players see the same thing, and find just a little more belief that they can flourish here?
If it’s me, I think there can be a middle ground between operating like the Royals and being known as a habitual service time manipulator. I think you can make business decisions in your own best interests while still supporting players on the field.
But I also believe baseball would be a better overall game if all 30 teams operated like the Royals.
You really don’t have to squint that hard to imagine the Royals contending.
The last month of available evidence says Adalberto Mondesi is everything the Royals have hoped for and more. Andrew Benintendi and Hunter Dozier are due for strong seasons. Whit Merrifield is one of the most consistent and versatile players in the game. Even if Michael A. Taylor doesn’t hit much he’ll be a significant defensive upgrade at a premium position. The Royals have insurance if Nicky Lopez can’t hit.
And they are loaded with rising pitchers.
In the best case, the Royals won’t have a static style. They will not depend on Jorge Soler hitting a three-run homer, or Mondesi taking an extra base, or Benintendi and Carlos Santana being on base five times between them. They will not rely on Salvador Perez repeating (by far) the best offensive season of his professional life.
They do not need every young pitcher to reach his ceiling, and every veteran to have one more.
Because in the best case, the Royals will be a little bit of all of these.
They are a collection of talented players with diverse skills. They should be one of the game’s better defensive teams, and it’s hard to imagine them being good without at least a few of the young pitchers taking a step, but they are not a team totally dependent on one or two things breaking their way.
Which might be their greatest collective strength.
Now, all that said, yes. It is likelier that the Royals lose 90 games than retain playoff hope in the season’s final week.
They still play in a loaded division, still have a lot of guys who need to prove it in the big leagues, and are still counting on a lot of players (especially pitchers) who have never gone through a full 162-game season.
But this thing is moving in the right direction, finally. I do think you’ll see that in the results of this season.
There is no way that Mondesi becomes trade bait. Mondesi and Bobby Witt Jr. are not an either-or. The Royals need them both to turn into players. One of the valuable things about Witt Jr. is that he can play virtually anywhere, and play it well.
If Nicky Lopez doesn’t hit enough, then Bobby Witt Jr. could play second base and the Royals would have one of the most athletic middle infields in baseball. If Lopez does hit, then Witt. Jr. could move to third and Hunter Dozier to the outfield or first base. I’ve also heard some who believe Witt Jr. could play center.
But I do wonder if the Witt Jr. stuff is being overhyped. Not about his ceiling, which is significant, but about the timeline. He won’t turn 21 until June, and the entirety of his professional game experience consists of 37 games of rookie ball and only slightly more spring training games than you have played*.
* Or maybe less! Who knows who’s reading this. We’re a big tent time suck, we welcome all backgrounds.
One thing to remember about Mondesi is that if the Francisco Lindor ceiling isn’t there anymore, neither is the washout floor.
If Mondesi does not develop beyond a No. 9 hitter, he can still play on a winning team because he runs like hell, will hit the occasional home run, and can be one of the game’s best defensive shortstops.
That’s a good player.
I’m conflicted on this, and depending on the mood you find me in I could give you different answers.
Because baseball is slow. It just is. Football can get away with long games (though college football is pushing it) when teams are playing once a week. Baseball games averaged 3 hours and 5 minutes in 2019. That means your favorite team played 500 hours of baseball, which is the equivalent of more than 62 full workdays.
It’s too much.
So, part of me wants to talk about hitters needing to stay in the box, pitcher-catcher mound visits being limited, shorter commercial breaks (which would mean more in-game advertising) and fewer pitching changes during innings.
There are a lot of good conversations to be had here.
But there is also part of me that wonders about the wisdom of turning over a sport and many of its charms in a pursuit of fans who probably are never going to love the game anyway. They won’t love it the way a lot of us do, anyway, and at some point chasing the finicky fan will frustrate the passionate fan and it becomes bad for everyone involved.
Honestly, the best solution I’ve heard might be this one from Joel Sherman: a 174-game season, all with seven-inning games.
The number of plate appearances in a season would stay essentially equal, and each game would be more digestible for fans — something like 2 1/2 hours instead of more than 3. An added bonus could be the urgency of strategy involved in a shorter game.
It’s a radical change for a sport that doesn’t often do radical change, but it’s really interesting, one of those ideas that you want to dismiss out of hand at the surface but find more intriguing the more you think about it.
I mentioned this before, but the more time that passes the more I believe that was a significant part of what went wrong.
Let us be clear: the Super Bowl loss cannot be blamed on the crash involving Britt Reid, at least not by any rational human.
The Chiefs got destroyed at the line of scrimmage, on both sides, and there’s a huge gap before you get to whatever is No. 2 on the list of things that went wrong.
But the Chiefs did look flat. We didn’t see the adjustments we’ve come to expect from this coaching staff. The comeback never even threatened. For the first time since 2017 the Chiefs lost by more than one score. The Chiefs had never failed to score even one touchdown in any of Mahomes’ previous 53 starts.
Again: the line of scrimmage is the biggest problem. Eric Fisher’s Achilles tear was one injury too many, and a line full of backups could not adequately protect the quarterback against one of the league’s fiercest pass rushes.
But it just doesn’t make sense on any level that the beloved head coach’s son could be behind the wheel for such an awful tragedy, flipping a family’s life upside down, and have it not impact the way the Chiefs performed in the most emotional game in American sports.
I’m probably including nuance here that we’d all be better off without, but this is the way my brain works so I have to say it this way:
I’m all for rolling innings. I understand the thinking behind it, particularly early in camp. There is never a time when development matters more and results less.
I also understand that we just had the most bizarre baseball season in history, where guys were doing 60 games at the most, but just as often glorified backfield scrimmages against the same competition all summer.
So, sure. We don’t need to be injuring pitchers just to create an outcome that nobody cares about.
But, come the bleep on.
Do your rolling on the backfields, away from fans.
Once you put games on TV for fans to watch, and charge humans actual American currency to watch in person, you have an obligation to provide something that at least resembles real baseball.
If you’re not ready to do that by Feb. 28, fine, we all understand that. But don’t try to have it both ways by selling tickets and advertising. You’re lying to fans at that point.
We talked a little earlier about the Royals’ approach, about making decisions based on what’s best for players specifically and the game more generally.
This is such an easy spot to make the right decision. Because the people watching these games have other things to do with their time. They have many things to do with their time. If they are choosing to spend that time watching baseball, then baseball has a responsibility to make sure they feel like it was the right decision.
When Carlos Santana comes to the plate with the bases loaded, instead of rolling it and sending everybody back to the dugout, what if he hits a double? A home run? Doesn’t that do something for the team?
Doesn’t that give the people watching a reward for giving baseball their time?
Shouldn’t that be important?
Again: I do understand the thinking, particularly at this point in the year.
I also understand that the only way we can be sure to keep pitchers healthy is by not letting them pitch. We could keep them at home, give them unlimited bowls of cereal, and their UCLs would never pop.
Roll it all you want on the backfields. But once you put them on a field in front of TV cameras and paying fans, that situation should be treated with respect.
So, this question was asked before Watt reportedly agreed to a two-year deal with the Cardinals worth up to $31 million with $23 million guarantees.
I do not believe the Chiefs should have matched or beaten that offer, and please don’t get me wrong. JJ Watt is one of the greatest defensive players of his generation. It’s him and Aaron Donald and then everyone else. But he’s also about to turn 32 years old, has played just two full schedules out of the last five, and has one great season since 2015.
I never would’ve expected to believe this two years ago, but if the Chiefs want to add pass rush through free agency then Justin Houston at significantly less than $16 million could be a better investment. The Chiefs can also look at guys like Leonard Floyd or Trey Hendrickson or Haason Reddick or others in a fairly loaded free agent class of pass rushers. There are also interesting names in the draft.
The Chiefs, like all teams, are going to have to walk and chew gum this offseason. They don’t just have one need. They could use a pass rusher, they could use a WR2, and if Bashaud Breeland signs elsewhere they could use a defensive back (even with deserved expanded roles for L’Jarius Sneed and Rashad Fenton).
But remember this above everything else: the Chiefs will always prioritize what’s best for Patrick Mahomes.
That is the single best way to filter and understand the Chiefs’ personnel decisions.
And what’s best for Patrick Mahomes is making sure he doesn’t have to be John Wick every Sunday.
Speaking of the offensive line...
The only certainties with the Chiefs are that Patrick Mahomes will continue to be awesome, Andy Reid will call a few plays every game that make you laugh, Tyrann Mathieu will make a few plays every game that you don’t fully appreciate until later, and Eric Bieniemy is available to interview.
Mitchell Schwartz made a seemingly optimistic Instagram post, including the key words here: “Looking forward to a healthy 2021!”
But the Chiefs aren’t — can’t, really — approach the offseason depending entirely on Schwartz being entirely healthy for the entire 2021 season.
They’d love to have him at full strength, obviously. He’s one of the league’s best right tackles, and when he’s able to wipe out an edge rusher without help it makes the whole operation work better. Offensive lines operate together, so we don’t talk about linemen this way very often but Schwartz makes the other guys better.
It is not a coincidence that we started to see more problems on the inside after Schwartz’s injury than before.
But he’ll be 32 in June, just lost 14 weeks to a back injury and will be coming off surgery. Backs are the worst injury for linemen.
The Chiefs would be fools to count on him 100 percent for the entire season. The Chiefs are not fools.
This is a fluid situation, because the Chiefs will learn a little more about Schwartz’s progress every day. The front office and coaches simply do not have the information right now that they will possess in a month.
My expectation is that they will move mountains to acquire at least one above average starting tackle.
Remember what we just talked about. The single and simplest way to understand what the Chiefs do is to remember they will always prioritize whatever is best for Mahomes.
That means better protection.
You’re talking about cuts, and it’s important to remember the Chiefs would save at most $4 million of cap space by cutting Schwartz. His cap hit for 2021 was only $6 million, and $2 million of that became guaranteed by injury.
Fisher is perhaps more interesting because he could be cut for a $12.3 million cap savings or (more likely) a potential extension could be worked off that number.
If Fisher is truly on track to protect Mahomes’ backside in the season opener, then the Chiefs can adjust their offseason accordingly. But they have seen what it looks like when both tackles are hurt, and they cannot afford for that to happen again.
If that means adding depth they don’t end up needing, then do it and be happy to have the best-case scenario with Fisher and Schwartz.
But there’s more than enough uncertainty with those guys — not just in 2021, but beyond — that the Chiefs will be best served adding as much line depth and quality as possible.
Mike Remmers is a good player, but I don’t think the Chiefs want him at left tackle as anything other than a last resort.
They need to add some dudes.
Yeah, it’s a good question, and in the year of the lord 2021 I do not feel comfortable telling you what is a good basketball team outside of Gonzaga and what isn’t outside of Iowa State and K-State.
I haven’t watched as much college basketball compared to other years, but for most of the year KU has looked to me like a very good team that was just missing a star.
This is a touchy topic among some fans, but KU has one of the country’s most extreme homecourt advantages. With that virtually gone now, maybe the margins have shrunk.
I know this is a weird way to think about it, but they looked like a top 5 team playing without an injured lottery pick. They just didn’t have that one guy to get a bucket out of bad offense, or make a big play to shift the game.
As it turns out, maybe that player is David McCormack?
This team is really good defensively, and before Saturday I’d have said they can be great when they’re hitting shots, but then on Saturday they beat the No. 2 team in the country by 13 points while missing all but three of its 16 three-point attempts.
It’s an interesting mix. They defend like dogs, are physical, and seem to be gaining an understanding of how all the pieces fit together. KU has had a lot of No. 1 seeds that lost too early, maybe now they have a team that outplays something like a No. 4 seed.
A list? A list*!
5. Lil Sumpin Sumpin. This beer just hits me right, and does so every time.
4. KCBC Pils. A grilling beer should be easy. We’re not looking for stouts or double IPAs here. Give me a smooth, easy, delicious brewski.
3. Most any pilsner from Alma Mater. Same reason as above.
2. Two Hearted. This is about the highest ABV I want with a grilling beer. Maybe a little higher, actually, but it’s such a good beer.
1. Banquet. This is the GOAT for me. The other four spots on this list are up for grabs, but it’s hard to imagine the king being dethroned. It’s perfect, and I will not debate this.
* Drink whatever tastes good to you, of course. These are simply one man’s favorites. Also, I’ve found myself trying fewer new beers lately than I’d like. If you have any I should try, let me know!
Well, fine. I got a little excited there.
My standard order is the two crispy beef taco combo meal with medium ole’s and a taco bravo. I think that ends up being around $8.50 or $9 or so, but, well, now it’s time to make sure we’re all in the trust tree, in the nest.
Are we?
Yes?
Promise?
There have been multiple times when I, an alleged adult with a wife and kids and mortgage, have rocked the 6-pack and a Pound with no intention of sharing.
If you get that and a drink we’re talking about $13 or so and lots of shame.
We actually did this a few years ago, sort of. We replaced a deck that I believe predated Dick Howser in Kansas City with a patio.
I’m glad we went patio, and not just because we finally got the family of opossums living under the deck to relocate. It’s more expensive, but I love the look, find it easier to keep clean, and I’m probably making this up but it feels less buggy. We have a built-in bench that goes across the longest edge, which is handy for extra seating when you have people over.
The guys put a little spotlight on my grill, which I swear they did to both flatter and up-charge me, but I actually find it really helpful when cooking after sunset. Party lights hung across the patio and back are a nice touch.
A lot of people will tell you that a built-in fire pit is a must, and I’m not here to argue with them, but we have a portable one that we love. Making it portable saves space.
Speaking of space, the one regret I have is not making it bigger. We’d just put in a playset a few years before and didn’t want to move it, but we should have just sucked it up. I can’t imagine ever regretting about building a deck or patio too big.
I love a screened in porch, but my wife doesn’t, and I pick my battles. The technology on outdoor TVs seems to have really improved in the last few years. We don’t have one, but I’m thinking about it.
A friend built an outdoor pizza stove, and it’s incredible, but I wonder if that’s sort of like what they say about boats: best to have a friend with one than have one yourself.
I’m probably taking all of this too seriously, but the thing about a backyard is it only matters what you want. Think about how you’ll use it — be realistic — and make those activities as easy and accessible as possible.
Some people will sacrifice it all for a pool, others wouldn’t want one if you paid to put it in. Some people need two or three grills, others just want a cooler.
The only two must-haves that I can think of are comfortable seating and spraying the yard for bugs.
I have, and I got yelled at.
If I’m remembering this correctly, the last time was shortly after the world stopped last March. Restaurants were closed, so it made sense to do stuff you could cook at home.
Many of you yelled at me, or otherwise shamed me enough that we went back to restaurants.
I’m glad we did, for a lot of reasons, but I’d love to exchange some at-home tips. I’ll start.
- The best burgers I know how to make involve an iron skillet on a grill with the heat as high as you can get it. Get the patties very thin, season with salt, and since it’s in the skillet you don’t have to worry about losing juice. Serve them, top to bottom: toasted bun, patty with melted cheese (melt it on the grill!), patty with melted cheese, pickles-mustard-ketchup, and then toasted bun on the bottom.
- You mentioned brisket. I’ve done the best brisket I’ve ever had in my life, and also brisket that I wouldn’t serve my dog without knowing what I did differently. It’s a really hard cut to do right, and it requires a mix of patience and confidence and at least a little luck. Before you do it, read up on the stall.
- My favorite thing to smoke is ribs. That’s probably common. I do the 3-2-1 method with foil, and I finish with sauce and a higher temperature at the end and I know that makes me a Jabroni to some purists, to whom I’ll say this: my ribs are delicious, and I assume yours are too, so leave me the heck alone and I’ll do the same with you.
- The best salmon I’ve found is a method I stole from a friend. Pat ‘er down with plenty of brown sugar, add some seasoning (I can’t remember the name of the one I use, but it’s a yellow label and it’s delicious), cover with cilantro, squeeze a lime or two on it and smoke on a cedar plank. I try to do the heat between 225 and 270, depending on how much time I have, but the fish is done at 140.
OK, now your turn.
I want all your tips. Particularly interested in anything on the grill and/or midweek type stuff you can put together fairly quickly.
First of all, how dare you insinuate that the Viking Voyager is obscure. The Viking Voyager is a treasure, and going forward I would appreciate if it were treated as such. Thank you.
We lived a couple hours south of Kansas City for most of my childhood until we moved to Lawrence when I was in seventh grade, so please keep that in mind as I give you an incomplete list of specific Kansas City memories from back in the day:
The voices of Fred White and Denny Matthews filling my house on the speakers my dad bought in Vietnam, weekends at the Embassy Suites where we’d swim and play elevator tag and I would attempt to eat the joint out of bacon, the AstroTurf at Royals Stadium getting so hot you could literally see waves coming up, Annie’s Santa Fe and my parents bringing back trash bags full of chips and tubs of salsa, GoJo’s on Broadway, the Zambezi Zinger and Fury of the Nile, driving the 45 minutes and back to the Plaza to impress my girlfriend but not really knowing anywhere to eat except Houlihan’s, the way my dad didn’t ever really say much during Royals games except quiz me on random pitch selections and scream out HIDEY HIDEY HIDEY HO!!! when Minnie the Moocher came on, placing my first bet at one of the riverboat casinos on my 21st birthday, getting irrationally angry at the guy at the baseball card shop who said my autographed Bo Jackson card was actually worthless because the signature defaced the card, my first ribs and burnt ends at the Gates off State Line, and the car show.
But, you know what? I just word-vomited all of that but am now realizing the most awesome and obscure KC thing that should absolutely be on a t-shirt is the Independence Avenue Bridge continuing to take down challenger after challenger.
But I’m thrilled that the Viking Voyager went national. Much deserved.
This week I’m particularly grateful for our first-grader, who turned 7 last weekend. He’s smart and strong, nerdy and fast, has the most active brain of anyone I know and loves sports as much as I do.
This story was originally published March 2, 2021 at 5:00 AM.