|
|
by
bud simpson |
February
8, 2006 |
Tall, Green
and Handsome
“Shocking” rememberance of the KC
Athletics and the field of my dreams
After
being closed for only two years, the Municipal Stadium
was in bleak condition. |
The
state of the ball field in 1974: the left-field foul pole
was there, marking the limits of nothing. Photos: Bud
Simpson |
Kansas
City no longer has a stadium anywhere close to Downtown, and
while that may not come as a sudden revelation to anyone, it
was not always the case. Before Jackson County built its twin
concrete alien motherships at I-70 and Blue Ridge Cutoff, baseball
and football were played by professional athletes at the corner
of 22nd Street and Brooklyn Avenue. In the matter of baseball,
“professional” in this sense means they took money
for playing the game.
A short bus ride west from our stately mansion overlooking the
old trolley turn at 12th and Spruce, Municipal Stadium was a
second home to a whole generation of baseball addicted kids
like me. If the sky was clear and a game was on, I was there
with my cohort of hopeless junkies. We always left the bus at
21st Street and walked along the yellow-painted concrete outer
wall and into the stadium on the third base side. The stands
towered above us, the smell of the manicured field was intoxicating.
I couldn’t begin to count how many games I saw there from
1959 to 1967, but I’d bet it was a hundred or more. Nothing
else mattered. In the off season, we counted the days until
pitchers and catchers reported to spring training. When the
A’s were on the road, the tubes in our Crosley radio glowed
with the play-by-play. We slept with our neatsfoot-softened
gloves.
We must have been pretty loopy kids to spend our time and money
to see the long-suffering home nine play. Just how bad were
the Athletics? April 22, 1959: The Chicago White Sox are down
6-1 after two innings. Athletics relief pitcher George Brunet
gives up five bases-loaded walks and a bases-loaded hit batter,
as the White Sox manage just one hit in the inning. Jim Landis
makes two outs in the same inning, both grounders to the pitcher.
Nellie Fox drives in two runs, both times by bases on balls.
Chicago scored 11 runs in that horrible seventh inning, and
Kansas City goes on to lose 20-6. The scorecard for that game
must have looked like the plans for the Grandview Triangle.
Pathetic.
We were happy bleacher bums though, and we were always hanging
out on the third base foul line at the ramp where the players
entered the field. Part of the ritual was to hound the players
on the visiting team for autographs. We didn’t bother
the hapless Kansas City Athletics for anything because they
were, well, hapless, and we were embarrassed to be seen in the
same city. In one three-game series with the Yankees in 1960,
my running buddies and I snagged close to 20 autographs among
us, including Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Whitey Ford, Jim Coates,
Tony Kubek, Elston Howard, Clete Boyer and Yogi Berra. Every
team had its stars, and we hounded them all. If I still had
any of those signed programs and rookie baseball cards, I’d
be writing this from Fiji instead of from Kansas City.
No matter who was playing, we were in love with the game and
with the stadium itself – a huge pale-green classic ballpark
with posts that blocked your view, slatted wooden seats and
a certain aroma. Much of the time, the aroma was cigar smoke.
Men went to ball games to relax and conduct business, and an
afternoon game saw the stands filled with cigar-chomping men
sitting in the sun, all wearing white shirts and black ties.
They wore hats with brims. The press boxes hung precariously
on the front lip of the upper deck, and giant steel light standards
lit the night. It was beautiful.
The A’s played in Municipal from the time they arrived
from Philadelphia in 1955. The roster of former A’s players
who went on to become baseball legends reads like a hall of
fame program. Roger Maris, Bert Campaneris, Rick Monday, Blue
Moon Odom, Don Larsen, Jim “Catfish” Hunter, Reggie
Jackson – all wore the interlocked “KC” or
the balancing, baseball bat-wielding elephant A’s logo
at one time or another. In spite of the amazing talent on hand,
the A’s best finish in Kansas City was seventh place in
1965 with a 74-86 W-L record. There was never much joy in Mudville.
After A’s owner Charles O. Finley moved the team to Oakland
in 1968, the stadium’s only purpose was football, and
the Kansas City Chiefs played to two Super Bowl games, including
the inaugural event and a world championship a few years later
before picking up and heading for the east ‘burbs in 1972.
The last time I visited Municipal Stadium was the summer of
1974. I loped my Mustang down Brooklyn Avenue and pulled into
the old Sam’s Parking Lot next to the centerfield wall.
The main gate had been long since dismantled, probably by vandals,
and I could see into the field through a chain-link gate. The
stadium’s seats had all been removed, the field was overgrown
with volunteer trees and tall weeds. The left-field foul pole
was still there, marking the limits of nothing. I squeezed off
a couple of pictures from where I stood and thought that if
I could just see the stadium from where the pitcher’s
mound once was, if I could just get THAT picture, that would
be magic indeed.
My Nikon and my left arm went through the gate first, and I
began to try to squirm my way through the gap in the gate. I
had barely gotten my shoulder and part of my head through when
a bolt of lightning hit the light standard to the first base
side of the scoreboard. The concussion and thunder made my vision
blur and my ears ring, and before I knew what had happened,
I was in the Ford, in third gear, screaming full-bore back up
Brooklyn toward Twelfth.
I never went back to the old stadium. I wanted to try again,
but something always came up that seemed more important at the
time. Probably just as well. I’ve learned you really can’t
force magic.
Eventually, old Municipal was razed and a well-tended community
garden sprouted in its place. I can never quite get used to
seeing nothing where the stadium used to jut from the urban
skyline, just as I never really get used to seeing wealthy baseball
players frolicking in front of fountains way out in the suburbs.
Bud
Simpson is a member of the infamous Northeast High School Class
of 1968 and a professional photographer. Learn more at www.budzilla.com.
