Kauffman Stadium

Just got back from tonight's Twins/Royals game at Kauffman Stadium. For those that don't know, the wife and I are on a mini-stadium tour. Prior to the beginning of this trip, we had taken in games at 16 MLB ballparks. This trip started in Boston on Monday, today was Kansas City, tomorrow, well later today, is the finale in St. Louis, and then it's back to Buffalo. The trip is done by car and it's pretty fun. I suggest that if you have the time to take a trip like this to do it. It's a baseball fan's dream.
We left for the stadium at about noon today, with a planned stop along the way at a scrapbook store called "Archiver's." The wife is into that stuff, I'm not. Our hotel is about a 2 hour drive to KC so we figured we had time. As we're driving along, my wife realizes that were going to pass through Independence, Missouri. She gets all excited and starts getting giddy. I ask her why all the excitement and she says that Independence is where the Oregon trail started. Imagine my excitement. Snore. Anyway, she's a third grade teacher and she covers the subject so we had to stop and try and find part of "the trail." We had a little time to kill, so we stopped. Now, the last thing I wanted on this trip was to have some educational value interjected into it. But, whatever causes me less headaches in the long run, I'm down with. Any married men out there will understand. So, we stopped. It was slightly interesting, but not really. We just looked at a grass field where the trail used to be. She enjoyed it and I guess that's what matters. After that little pit stop, it was on to the scrapbook store. Imagine my delight!
The good news is that next to the scrapbook store was a Borders Books And Music. I went in there to look around while she puttered around buying stamps and other scrapbook type stuff. While in Borders, I came across some DVDs of World Series films. I ended up getting a Yankee box set that covers the last 17 or so World Series they were in, or something like that. So, I couldn't really complain about the second pit stop, as I got something unexpected out of it. After that was done, it was on to Kauffman.
We got to Kauffman about 30 minutes or so before the gates opened. When the gates opened, we walked in. Now in most stadiums there is always a rush to get up to the front for BP. That was missing in KC. Perhaps it was the lack of people. Once inside the stadium, I wasn't really sure where the best place to go and try to get autographs was, so I went down the 3rd base line past the dugouts. Wrong choice. Anyone that did sign ended up doing it in the corner of the dugout where only about 3 people could fit in. When Joe Mauer started signing I made my way over to that corner and wiggled my way in so that I could stick my arm through and the ball would be easy to grab. I was there in plenty of time, but Joe stopped signing about 3 items before mine. I wasn't too bummed because I already have his auto on a ball. I was hoping to get him to sign my 2006 All-Star ball. Maybe another time. He was really the only who signed. i was hoping to get Liriano or Santana, but no such luck.
Our seats were pretty good. We were down the first base line past the dugout, about 3 rows back from the field. If anyone is familiar with Kauffman, it was section 126 row D. They weren't bad seats. You could see all the action and there really wasn't anyone in your way. Unfortunately, we were watching the Royals, and they were pretty bad, which I expected. The Twins were all over them from the start. They jumped out to an early lead and skated to an easy victory. Man the Royals are bad.
There was just over 12000 people in attendance and many of them were Twins fans. I don't know if it was the small crowd, or the stadium itself, but it felt very "minor league." The fountains were nice and all, but the stadium itself seemed very out-dated. It wasn't very fan friendly in my opinion. Maybe I've been spoiled by the likes of Pittsburgh and Milwaukee, but Kauffman didn't do it for me. We took a lot of pictures and I'll post those along with the rest of the trip's pictures when we return on Saturday/Sunday.
Tomorrow night, I mean tonight, we'll be at the new Busch Stadium for the Brewers/Cardinals. Expectations are high and I'm looking forward to "Albert Pujols T-shirt" night. I'll definitely be one of the first however many fans I need to be. The only sort-of bad part about tomorrow is we're going to another scrapbook store, another "Archiver's." Well, at least it's in a mall.
J-Boogie