Condiments and Condemnation: The Kansas City Blues
Part One
by Stephen Himes
As the Kansas City Royals embark on what's sure to be their fourth 100-loss season in five years, baseball fans of non-embarrassing teams might ask: Why even go to the ballpark? No contest: The most popular aspect of the Kauffman Stadium experience is the Jumbotron Hot Dog Derby. Drunken fans will try to prove that they can still drive home by correctly guessing the baseball-cap three card monte game, and Kiss-Cam is the ladies' favorite — especially when adorable senior citizens smooch on the Jumbotron. But the Hot Dog Derby really puts a charge in the stadium, no matter how many baserunning brainfarts and routine errors Angel Berroa commits, no matter how many strike threes he flails at in the dirt.
Here's the drill: Three hot dogs dressed with ketchup, mustard, and relish stand vertical on homeplate (apparently with gravity-defying condiments), a starter's pistol sounds, and to wacky Benny Hill music, the dogs bend themselves in the middle to an arch, then snap themselves upright to propel forward — approximately the same motion as flicking a bug off your shirt. The hot dogs bend and bound around the bases as the crowd's dull roar grows to full crescendo. Most races have a familiar pattern: The dog quickest out of the gate fades rounding second; the second place dog kicks it into gear on the way to third; the last place dog rounding third makes a token stretch run. Despite the lack of variety, the Hot Dog Derby is not without drama: In the most thrilling hot dog condiment races, the second place dog will overtake the lead dog halfway past third. Whatever the case, the winning dog has the honor of sliding into homeplate and dancing phallically on top of the plate as fireworks explode around him.
As in the minor leagues, when you're a Royals fan, the promotions are the big draw. This is not lost on the Royals marketing department: They claim the "best promotion in Major League Baseball" is "Dozen for a Dozen," which allows fans to redeem a ticket stub for a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts if the Royals get a dozen hits in one game. Indeed, opposing pitchers are deluged with chants of "We Want Donuts" when the Royals reach the 11th hit — even if the Royals strand 10 runners and lose by a run. Perhaps the loudest boos at Kauffman Stadium so far this season were not for the 11-run ninth inning the Royals surrendered, but when Doug Mientkiewicz struck out in the bottom of the eighth on April 22, leaving the Royals with only eleven hits. (Fans were appreciative, however, that the Royals won 11-5 to snap their first of two 11-game losing streaks of the season.)
Your Team, Your Town
Ultimately, the question that the Royals marketing department must answer is: How do we promote a team that could be the worst of all time? The stadium (affectionately known as "The K") is one of baseball's most beautiful ballparks, but you can see that from I-70 without having to watch any Royals baseball. One way is to promote the team as a vital part of the community, as in the Royals' "This Is Kansas City" promotion. The city is in the midst of an urban renaissance, with a bustling downtown that has capitalized on Kansas City's cultural legacy in the arts, jazz, film and great barbecue. Smartly, the Royals market themselves as an extricable feature of the city. They filmed commercials with Royals players at Kansas City landmarks, and the Jumbotron's player at-bat graphics feature a swooping shot over downtown, ending with the player's face emerging from the Kansas City skyline at the newly refurbished Hotel President. The message: It's your community duty to come support us, no matter how bad we are. "Your Team. Your Town."
A related strategy is bringing beloved community icons into the mix. Naturally, the Royals work closely with Buck O'Neil, the chairman of Kansas City's Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. This partnership has run for several years, with the Royals wearing throwback Monarchs jerseys during games and visiting teams touring the museum. This season, with the goodwill generated by the response to O'Neil's shameful snubbing from the Baseball Hall of Fame, the Royals have two Negro League Promotions: Replica Monarchs caps on June 25 and Buck O'Neil Monarchs jersey T-shirts on July 25.
The Buck O'Neil T-shirt is a part of a new Royals promotion this summer, "T-Shirt Tuesdays." One Tuesday a month, the Royals will give away free T-shirts to the "first" 20,000 fans in attendance. One game will feature a powder-blue Royals shirt, another the Buck O'Neil shirt; two others will feature young Royals talents Jeremy Affeldt and David DeJesus. Affeldt has yet to become a consistent major league pitcher, but Peter Gammons maintains that he has some of the best "stuff" in the American League. This is good enough to qualify for an appearance on a freebie Royals T-shirt. David DeJesus is the one legitimate everyday major league player in this generation of Royals, a worthy successor to the Royals centerfield tradition of Amos Otis, Willie Wilson, Brian McRae, Johnny Damon and Carlos Betran. DeJesus was April's T-shirt Tuesday, which proved successful: His shirt was quite a draw, even for a rainy night, and you can see several of them around the city on a given day.
But the baseball season is six months long, and the Royals started the season with only four shirt ideas. The team couldn't commit to shirts of veterans like off-season acquisitions Reggie Sanders and Mark Grudzielanek because of the likelihood they would be traded. As for the youth movement, DeJesus and Affeldt are the only young Royals not likely to be demoted to the minor leagues, a la Mark Teahan, Angel Berroa and Runelvys Hernandez.
Off to the Races
So, in the absence of actual major league talent to promote, the Royals Marketing Department looked to the fans for answers. In a courageous and possibly brilliant maneuver, the Royals marketing department employed a simple idea: They combined the two most popular fan promotions into one special night. Thus was begat Royals Hot Dog Derby T Night.
The first 20,000 fans (a rather hopeful number for a weekday Royals-Indians game) received a free T-shirt with the name of their favorite condiment printed in red, yellow or green lettering next to the KC logo. To their credit, the Royals understand that, typically, fans are loyal to a particular condiment (Full Disclosure: I'm a relish guy). So, they encouraged fans to "trade each other for the Derby Racer of their choice!"
The idea was to make this promotion a fully fan friendly, fan interactive promotion. Generally, on giveaway nights fans are simply rewarded for showing up: Thank you for your ticket, here's your T-shirt/bobblehead/foam finger. The brilliance of the Hot Dog Derby T is that Royals fans were guaranteed something the 8-22 team on the field couldn't offer: hope. For instance, when Johan Santana started against Mark Redman in a getaway day game at The K, the 11,000 sun-drenched Royals faithful were assured of the outcome before they handed over the $9 parking fee. But the Hot Dog Derby gives you a one in three chance of going home a winner. The Royals only give you a 25 percent chance of winning. Plus, your particular condiment is on a level playing field with the other condiments. If ketchup is neck-and-neck with relish rounding third, either one might slide to victory. But if the game is on the line, and Mariano Rivera is staring down Shane Costa, how much doubt can there be? On Hot Dog Derby T night, the competition mattered — because ketchup fans are front-running sellouts and mustard fans are stupid and smell like sour milk.
Like a Runelvys Hernandez five-run first inning, Hot Dog Derby T Night got off to a shaky start. Though fans were encouraged to trade with others for our favorite condiments, certain sizes of certain shirts were kept at different gates, rather than having some of each condiment and size at every gate. For instance, if you wanted a large relish shirt, right field's gate three was your place. But if someone in your crew was a mustard man and needed an extra large, you had to walk clear around to left field's gate one. But you could get a medium mustard at gate two. The volunteer group handing out the shirts struggled to keep up with demand ("Large ketchup? Gate three!"), so the K took longer to fill to its usual 36 percent capacity.
Normally, the Hot Dog Derby entertains between the fifth and sixth innings, but on its special night, the Royals held off on the Derby until eighth. Tension built because fans had something at stake: Every T-shirt was accompanied by a coupon for a free hot dog — if your condiment won. The energy of the 14,784 Kauffman Stadium faithful was buoyed by a resurgent Royals team who battled from behind three times to hold a 10-6 lead by Derby time. The crowd, shocked by an offensive explosion from John Buck and Aaron Guiel, reached deep and found its second wind. When the Benny Hill theme hit, the K came alive like it was 1985. Ketchup broke out to an early lead, with relish in second and mustard bringing up the rear. As they rounded first, mustard made an outside move to pass relish and pull nearly even with ketchup. Between second and third, ketchup held off mustard while relish lagged far behind. In fact, ketchup held the lead from wire to wire, and during the final slide, ketchup-clad fans screamed like it was Jim Sundberg diving past Darrell Porter in Game 6.
For Royals fans, suffering through an 8-22 start and the paralysis wrought by owner David Glass' declaration that "significant changes" were coming, the free hot dog was a tangible victory — something they could actually hold on to, not like the hope that Emil Brown will develop into a adequate left fielder. Even though the Royals were battling for a rare win, ketchup fans immediately headed toward the concession stand to cash in on their tomato and vinegar-stained glory.
Like leaving a runner stranded on third, the Royals failed to deliver again. This wasn't Royals fans booing team captain Mike Sweeney on opening day, but Royals fans were frustrated yet again by their hometown team. They didn't read the fine print. Ketchup fans had to come to another Royals game to get their hot dog, resulting in an angry line outside guest services. Even though the Royals will sell hot dogs for a dollar on Dodge Buck Night, they were too stingy to hand out free hot dogs on a night devoted solely to hot dogs. (In contrast, the Red Sox recently gave out 8,000 free hot dogs to fans who sat through a long rain delay.) The Royals didn't realize that if fans have a one in three chance of winning, two-thirds of the fans are going to leave disappointed. But when you don't even come through for the other third, everyone leaves unhappy.
This, combined with the post-Derby letdown, created a vacuum in the K. There was no energy in the stadium, even though the team was trying to cap a season-high three-game winning streak. Pouting mustard and relish fans sulked for a half inning, but some eventually mustered some enthusiasm for journeyman Elmer Dessens to close out the ninth. Still, even though the Royals exploded for 10 runs, came from behind three times, launched two home runs, and showed a lot of heart, The K was nearly dead.
Pennyfoolish, Poundfoolish
The problem is not that Kansas City doesn't care about the Royals; the problem is that Kansas City thinks it's being insulted and getting jerked around by a cheapskate owner — David Glass, who ran Wal-Mart when it became the largest company in America. The angry line at guest services might as well have led straight to Glass's Kauffman Stadium suite. Royals fans don't expect Glass to invest all his Wal-Mart money in an all-star power-hitting corner outfielder, but by skimping on scouting, development and signing bonuses for top draft picks, the Royals couldn't even give out a T-shirt for a player fans might care about. Not only that, they even got screwed out of a lousy hot dog.
This miserly attitude is the essence of Royals fans' complaints about the team's ownership and management: even when a talented young pitcher like Zach Greinke comes along, incompetent management finds a way to screw him up. Unlike other downtrodden franchises, the Royals have no Carl Crawford, no Jason Bay, no Dontrelle Willis in the majors. The Royals traded literally an All-Star outfield of Johnny Damon, Carlos Beltran and Jermaine Dye for zero productive everyday major league players. After DeJesus, there's no young talent on this team worth printing a free T-shirt over — at least one that will animate fans more than a hot dog condiment.
In baseball, hope springs eternal. But whither the Kansas City Royals, who ask fans to support their team and then send them home with T-shirts that say, "Relish KC." The only thing KC will relish about these Royals is heads rolling: firing General Manager Allard Baird, trading C-list free agents, demoting disappointing young players who "need more seasoning" in the minors. The only positive for Royals fans is that the worse the team gets, the funnier Royals blogs get.
As a business problem, the Royals Promotions Department has sunk to Charlie Finley-type gimmicks to lure fans to the ballpark. While Hot Dog Derby T Night might be simply a joke to outsiders, it's a symbol of what's wrong with a franchise that's rotted from the inside out. Rather than letting apathy set in, Royals fans this season have become increasingly angry over the team's losses. Though attendance is among the worst in the league, Kansas City fans care; one only needs to look across the parking lot at the Chiefs' Arrowhead Stadium to see that. But this season has struck a nerve.
In part, this is because Jackson County voted $425 million in taxpayer money to renovate Truman Sports Complex to keep the Royals and Chiefs in Kansas City (though they voted down additional money to add a "rolling roof" that would have brought a Super Bowl and a Final Four to KC). Word was that the Chiefs were never in danger of leaving Kansas City, but the Royals were probably on their way out if the measure failed. So, the question for Jackson County voters was: Should we give nearly a half of a billion dollars in taxpayer money to the former CEO of Wal-Mart to keep possibly the worst team in the history of baseball, which promotes hot dog condiments over actual players? The answer was yes, a response that probes deeply into the Kansas City psyche and what Major League Baseball, even spectacularly bad Major League Baseball, has meant to Kansas City.
A Crossroads for KC
Major League Baseball first came to Kansas City in 1955, when Chicago businessman Arnold Johnson bought the A's in the wake of a Mack family feud that saw the A's record and attendance stagnate in Philadelphia. Johnson moved the A's to Municipal Stadium, which hosted the Kansas City Blues, the Yankees' American Association affiliate. At the time, Kansas City was still widely known as "Cow Town," dominated by stockyards and a frontier sensibility. Until then, Kansas City's stockyards dominated the local economy, and the Pendergast Machine ran the city with Tweed-like strong-arm tactics that eventually got a minor Jackson County judge to the presidency. But by the middle of the 1950s, the decline of the Pendergast family left the city directionless and the stockyards began losing their might. Kansas City was at a crossroads: Would it run down into a Western relic, or would it transform into a major American city?
The A's coming to Kansas City answered that question. At the time, Major League Baseball was the American professional sports league, and having MLB in Kansas City meant that KC was a major league city. The A's changed how Kansas City thought of itself. Even though they were a truly terrible team, they were a terrible major league team, and that made all the difference. Around this same time, Kansas City annexed land far beyond the downtown itself (today, it's the second-largest city in America by total area), and laid the foundation for becoming a post-agricultural industry hub. The A's helped make this possible: They gave Kansas City a national identity that helped encourage industry to move here and gave the city confidence to develop its own. Kansas City didn't die; it thrived, and the A's helped put it on the map.
But to say that the Kansas City/A's marriage was rocky is an understatement. In 1960, notorious baseball icon (and inventor of the designated hitter) Charlie O. Finley bought the A's in the wake of Arnold Johnson's death, beginning an eight-year war between the owner and the city. Finley was from Alabama and had no interest in living in Kansas City, nor any real interest in his ball club's relationship to the city — as long as it made him a steady profit. To that end, Finley tried gimmick after gimmick to make a buck in the smallest market in Major League Baseball.
Finley is often referred to as an "innovator," or derogatorily as the "P.T. Barnum of Baseball." While in Kansas City, Finley drummed up stunts like a petting zoo behind the left field bleachers, where dyed-wool sheep grazed and fans could view the A's mascot, Charlie O the Mule. He also commissioned a mechanical rabbit named Harvey, who would pop up from the ground to deliver baseballs to the umpire. The Municipal Stadium grounds crew once wore space suits. He changed the uniforms to a dazzling green and gold when most uniforms were white and gray. He gave his players colorful nicknames, like Jim "Catfish" Hunter and John "Blue Moon" Odom. In response to the right field of Yankees Stadium, Finley built the "KC Pennant Porch," a makeshift fence and bleachers only 296 feet from homeplate. Finley hired a 60-year-old Satchel Paige to pitch a game for the A's. He wanted to play with orange baseballs. Finley treated specialized clientele to their own nights at the ballpark: Greased pig races on "Farmer's Night," "Hot Pants Night" for short-shorts clad ladies. In 1968, Finley had star shortstop Bert Campaneris play all nine positions in one game. Campy only gave up one run when he pitched the eighth, but his ninth inning at catcher was cut short when he was crashed into at the plate and had to be carried off the field with a concussion.
Finley's gimmicks required a certain amount of doublethink on the part of fans: I want to go to the ballpark to watch baseball, but I also want to be distracted so I don't have to watch the baseball. Essentially, Finley bamboozled Kansas City with gimmicks because his team was so terrible. In fact, no team played worse over a 13-year stretch than the Kansas City A's. They lost 100 games four times and never really approached .500 baseball. Attendance dwindled because of the losses, but also in part because fans were tired of Finley's antics, which many thought were condescending to the city. The mere mention of Charlie Finley's name still elicits a reaction in older Kansas Citians. When Finley succeeded in moving the A's, Missouri State Sen. Stuart Symington called Oakland, "The luckiest city since Hiroshima."
But when news came down that Kansas City had lost its team, the city was despondent. It hated the A's, but it loved being the home of Major League Baseball. Through the efforts of Kansas City Star sportswriter Joe McGuff and others, Major League Baseball promised an expansion franchise for Kansas City. Gone were Charlie O and Harvey, lifting the melancholy that hovered over Kansas City in the 1960s. Soon KC would be home to several major companies, including H & R Block, Sprint, Hallmark, the NCAA and many others — and hope for a winning baseball team.
In 1969, Kansas City entrepreneur and Marion Laboratories founder Ewing Marion Kauffman brought an expansion franchise to the city. He stood at Municipal Stadium and told the people of his city that he would bring them a World Series. And by God, he did.
[CLICK HERE FOR PART TWO]
E-mail Stephen Himes at stephenhimes@hotmail.com.
