Kaufmann Stadium, Kansas City (And the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum)

 

I’m enamored by the stories of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, of whether Shoeless Joe Jackson really tried to throw the Series, and whether Ty Cobb was as much of a jerk as his reputation. But I’m also fascinated by their contemporaries who didn’t get a chance to play in the majors simply because they were Black. That’s one of the reasons we went to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum today.

In 2020, MLB officially declared that the various top Negro Leagues of 1920-1948 were “major leagues.” This seems appropriate, given that the best Negro League players of the day often competed with the best of the white players of the day in exhibitions and winter leagues, and all accounts suggest they were comparable (the museum has lots of stories about that). While it’s easy to say that the Negro Leaguers were Major League good, it’s harder to say how good individuals were compared to individuals in the white majors, because the schedules and the fields weren’t the same at all, and even the balls weren’t really the same. And the statistics of the Negro Leagues weren’t kept nearly as well as those of the white majors of the early 20^th Century, which, in turn, weren’t kept as well as the statistics of the 21^st Century. Thus, trying to say how the best players compare is very difficult, though fun.

The baseball Hall of Fame is in Cooperstown, New York, primarily because an early 20^th Century attempt to brand baseball as a purely American invention led to the story that the game was invented by Civil War hero Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown. The story is almost certainly not true, and the first written reference to the term “base ball” is from England, but Cooperstown is a quaint little town, and has become intertwined with the Hall of Fame, and the game as a whole.

On the other hand, the reasons for having the Negro Leagues museum in Kansas City are many. The first organized Negro League came out of a meeting that happened in 1920 just a few blocks from the current museum, presided over by the legendary Rube Foster. The Kansas City Monarchs, one of the premier teams in the Negro Leagues, played in the area, and you can still see “Monarchs” jerseys - I saw one person wearing one at the game yesterday, another person wearing one in the museum today. And two Negro League greats, Satchel Paige and Buck O’Neil, had long connections with Kansas City, both living the last years of their long lives there.

Paige was legendary. He was one of the best pitchers in the Negro Leagues for years, arguably the best overall. Then, as a 42-year-old rookie, he was instrumental in the Cleveland Indians (now Guardians) winning the World Series in 1948. When he was 59, he pitched three innings of a major league game. Although it was clearly a stunt, he only gave up one hit and no runs to the team that would win the American League that year.

O’Neil was far from the best player in those leagues. He was very good as a player and as a manager (of the Monarchs), but he really excelled as a spokesman for Negro Leagues, as anyone who has seen the Ken Burns documentary “Baseball” can attest. He was long involved with committees selecting Negro League players to be inducted into the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, but wasn’t himself inducted until after his death. He was also one of the driving forces behind the Negro League Baseball Museum. I don’t have too many pieces of autographed baseball memorabilia, but I was thrilled when I got a baseball autographed by O’Neil. At each Royals game, they honor some individual who has done good things for the community by seating them in the “Buck O’Neil Legacy Seat,” and recognizing them on the scoreboard.

 

As well as a 15-minute film about the history of the Negro Leagues (narrated by James Earl Jones, who else?), the museum has a very solid set of displays about the history of the Negro Leagues and how that relates to American history. As you go in, there's a funky bench that you're not supposed to sit in (in the top picture) commemorating some of the very best - if you don't know them, they're worth finding out about. And the museum is popular. There were license plates and baseball caps from around the country. We also found that we weren’t the only people who were at the Field of Dreams site last week and the Negro Leagues museum today. My only complaint is that I think they may have outgrown their current premises – there were so many people there that it was sometimes hard to get close enough to read the text of the signs, and they need a dedicated parking lot. Too many visitors is a good problem for a museum to have.

It's clear that this, along with Cooperstown, is a place where baseball fans should and do make a pilgrimage.

The game:

The Royals, with the next-to-the-worst record in baseball, used a Alec Marsh, making his major league debut, against the Dodgers, who had the best record in baseball last year. The Dodgers aren’t as good this year, but they are still very, very good, and in some ways, the game went about as you’d expect.

Dodger star Mookie Betts led off the top of the 1^st with a home run. Marsh avoided further trouble until Betts hit another home run in the 3^rd, then Betts drove in a run with a single in the 4^th (Mookie also had a double and two walks – the guy is flat-out good, and had a spectacular night).

Even so, the Royals were only behind 5-3 in the bottom of the 6^th, with the tying run on base. But they didn’t score further, the Dodgers scored a few more, and it ended 9-3.

Maybe I was too harsh on Cleveland yesterday, when they had four players thrown out on the bases. The Dodgers had two today, one caught stealing and one trying to go first-to-third (making the first out, which drives me nuts), so I should probably be giving Kansas City’s defense more credit. On the other side, one of the reasons the Royals were able to stay close was that on each of their three runs, someone singled, stole second, and then ultimately scored. The Dodgers have established a reputation this year as a team that can have troubling stopping stolen bases, and that was certainly the case tonight.

The weather:

We’ve had two rain delays on this trip, before the start of the game in El Paso, and in the bottom of the 9^th in Denver, and the forecast didn’t look good tonight. Two days ago, the forecast was for a 20% chance of rain at gametime today, and a 35% chance by the end of the game. By 5 o’clock today, when we were in a cantina having our Friday margaritas (Kerry can find good Friday 5 o’clock margaritas, even in Kansas City), the forecast was a 40% chance of rain at gametime, and a 75% chance an hour later. But while it got windy, and we could see lightning in some dark clouds a few miles away, the storm apparently moved around us. Maybe my Omaha Storm Chasers shirt chased it away.

Dodger fans:

By my count while walking the concourse before the game, about a third of the attendees were Dodger fans, but they seemed louder. Actually, that may not have been an accurate count, because I did my walk-around shortly after the gates opened, and Dodger fan are notorious for coming to the game late and leaving early. If you’ve ever tried to get in and out of the Dodger Stadium parking lot, with the 50-foot exits and on-ramps to the Pasadena Freeway, you’re no doubt sympathetic, though. I try not to perpetuate stereotypes, but I do have to note that the number of Dodger fans around us increased continually for the first few innings. There were some Dodger fans who bought the seats next to us showed up in the 6^th inning and left in the 8^th. In all fairness, that particular group of six included two adult males, two adult females, and two kids, and the men did show up in the 3rd inning, so the kids and their moms (?) were probably at the playground. But still.