A Day (or Days) at the Ballpark

Every game I attended in 2024.

This view is about as good as it gets.

“A hot dog at the ballpark is better than a steak at the Ritz.”

-Humphrey Bogart

I’ve always been jealous of people who “grew up at the ballpark.” For example, my Uncle Tim talks about living down the street from Memorial Stadium in Baltimore and spending most of his childhood summers watching the Orioles. Definitely a benefit of growing up in the ‘50s when tickets were cheaper, because my uncle was/is too much of a straight arrow to ever sneak into anything.

Even if cost hadn’t been a factor, this was never an option for me. I grew up in a small town an hour away from Kauffman Stadium, and going to a game was a major event. My parents were good about making sure we made it to at least one game a summer— frequently, said trip doubled as a birthday gift— but that was usually it.

Occasionally, I was lucky to squeeze in a second game, often with my cousins or sometimes a friend, but these bonus games were few and far between. And unfortunately, this rate has held steady for most of my adult life. This is a shame, since the ballpark (any ballpark) is one of my true happy places. Nothing beats kicking back on a warm summer evening and taking in a game. I love it.

Then, in late fall of 2022, we moved to the KC metro area. I went from being an hour away to a fifteen-minute drive from the K. Not only that, but my family was also finally in a stable financial position with some disposable income. Don’t get me wrong, we don’t have a ton of extra cash lying around, and MLB isn’t making it easy on fans’ bank accounts these days, but I was optimistic I would have the chance to fit in more games.

It didn’t happen in 2023. Part of that may have been due to the fact the Royals were historically dreadful that season. They matched the franchise record for losses, and despite having a budding superstar in Bobby Witt Jr. and the always entertaining Salvador Perez, the ’23 Royals managed to not only be bad, but boring as well. I took my family to a game, and hit another one with my cousin, but that was it. The whole season was a massive letdown, in more ways than one.

But 2024 was a different story altogether. Buoyed by free agent pitching reinforcements, and an MVP-caliber season from Witt, who was backed up by Salvy and Vinnie Pasquantino in the lineup, the Royals improved by thirty wins and clinched their first postseason appearance (and postseason series win) since 2015. And I was there to see a lot of it. Relatively speaking, of course. I’m still not in a position to buy season tickets, but I made it to the ballpark a personal record seven times last season, including my first playoff game. More on that later.

The 2024 Royals season ranks as one of the most exciting in my lifetime. I won’t say it topped the World Series runs of 2014-15, or even my championship introduction in 1985, though I certainly remember it a lot more clearly than that last one. The Royals came out of nowhere to reignite the passion within an apathetic fanbase and make Kansas City a baseball town again. A season that began with Jackson County voting down a new stadium proposal ended with sellout crowds watching an improbable playoff showdown with a historic rival.

I was a part of it, and I thought it would be fun to look back at each of the games I attended. I won’t go into graphic detail on any of them, but they provide an interesting microcosm of the season as a whole. So sit back and reminisce with me for a minute, and pretend it’s warm outside and you’re back at the ballpark again. Because Bogart was onto something, there’s no better place in the world.

May 5: TEX 3 KC 2 F/10

I won’t spend a whole lot of time on this one, since I wrote an entire post on it back in May. I took the whole family with me, and we had to sit through my first rain delay in years. The Royals bullpen, which was shaky for most of the year before turning into a surprising strength during September, blew a lead when James McArthur gave up a game-tying home run in the ninth. The Rangers took the lead for good in the tenth.

Here's an interesting piece of trivia. This was the first time I’d seen the Royals lose to the Rangers in person, and it also marked the end of their streak of reaching the World Series in seasons when I go to a Rangers-Royals game at the K (1985, 2014). However, the Royals have reached the playoffs all three seasons I’ve seen them play the Rangers, so I guess I better circle that series on my 2025 calendar.

May 17: KC 6 OAK 2

This might have been my favorite experience of the 2024 season.* A delayed Christmas present for my dad, we attended the game together with my three sons. The stadium was only about half-full— attendance takes a while to catch up, especially when you’ve been as bad as the Royals have been— but everyone there was treated to something special. The game was good. Ragans shoved, fanning seven in seven innings, and the boys in blue broke it open with a five-run sixth, featuring doubles by Witt and Salvy, and homers by Garcia and Massey, but the real show bookended the game.

*Regular season category. A playoff game is its own thing.

Kansas City celebrated the 2014 team and its surprise run to an AL pennant that weekend. In addition to getting a Kelvin Herrera bobblehead at the gate,* a slew of local legends were on the field for the pregame ceremony. Hosmer, Moose, Cain, Gordo, etc., were introduced with all the spectacle of WWE wrestlers making their way to the ring. Then, after the win, the Friday Night Fireworks blew the roof off the place. It was damn near a perfect evening.

*If anyone has the interlocking Wade Davis and Greg Holland bobbleheads for sale at a reasonable price, hit me up in the comments.

June 2: KC 3 SDP 2

The comeback win against the Padres was probably the best game I saw in person this season. My cousin and I splurged for good tickets on the third base line, and though the Sunday afternoon sun was unrelenting and the Padres fans in front of us were mildly annoying, I’ve experienced far worse in both departments. And I have to hand it to the San Diego fans. They were rightfully nervous when the Padres called in Yuki Matsui to close out a 2-0 lead.

Pasquantino led off the bottom of the ninth with a single, Salvy walked, and Nelson Velazquez brought the stadium to its feet with a drive to center that narrowly missed being a walk-off dinger. It caromed off the top of the wall instead, and Velazquez slid into third ahead of the throw in one of the most exciting plays I’ve witnessed live in a long time. Before the crowd could catch its breath, Nick Loftin lifted a sacrifice fly to right, and the Royals walked off the field with the type of win that had people believing they weren’t just a fluky, early-season feelgood story. This team was for real.

July 20: SDP 7 CLE 0

In recent years, I’ve been fortunate to expand my MLB experience beyond my home stadium in KC. These out-of-town visits usually take place on vacation, and I have to give credit to my lovely wife that she’s willing to indulge my baseball obsession. Eventually, I’d like to visit every MLB stadium, and this year it was Cleveland’s turn.

We took a road trip to visit family in Maine this summer. Our original plan was to drive for basically two days straight, spend a day in Boston, then go to Maine for a few days. However, after one day in the car together, the five of us were about to kill each other, so I called an audible and changed our route to go through Cleveland instead. We needed to break up the trip, so we went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame during the afternoon and a Guardians game that night.

Our last-minute tickets weren’t great. We were in the upper deck with a railing in our eyeline, and the teenage girls in front of us poked at my last nerve with their disbelief concerning San Diego’s team name. “Oh my God! Who named them the San Diego Daddies?” I know we were in downtown Cleveland, but I swear they had Valley Girl accents.

The game was unremarkable, but the fireworks display afterwards was impressive. With the stadium located downtown, unlike in KC, the buildings really trapped in the sound, creating an assault on our eardrums. I’m pretty sure I know what it was like to live through the Blitz now. My only real complaint was they didn’t have any mini-helmet ice cream sundaes. I’ve been collecting them, but now I don’t have one from Cleveland.

Seriously, with all due respect to the aforementioned fireworks display at the K, this show in Cleveland was intense. The picture doesn’t do it justice.

Sept. 4: KC 4 CLE 1

Back home at the K, my second Cleveland game was a bit more memorable. In late August, the Royals took the first three games of a series in Cleveland, tying the Guardians for first place in the AL Central. Then they blew the fourth game and went on a seven-game losing streak. They were still in great shape to make the postseason, but after losing Pasquantino to a broken thumb during the losing streak, their hopes of winning the division were fading fast.

The offense sputtered without Vinnie, and the Guardians took the first two games of the series. I went on social media and declared that I was going out to the K for Game 3 and I would get it straightened out. After Cleveland jumped out to a 1-0 lead, I was on the verge of looking like a fool when the slumping bats finally came to life, highlighted by a three-run Tommy Pham home run. Seth Lugo, the eventual runner-up for the AL Cy Young award, was brilliant, and new closer Lucas Erceg slammed the door shut, and the Royals temporarily righted the ship.

Sept 18: DET 4 KC 2

Unfortunately, the ship didn’t stay righted for long. The Royals’ reeling offense led them to another seven-game losing streak, which included a sweep at the hands of the red-hot Tigers. Once again, I declared I would take care of things on social media, only this time the Royals did make me look stupid. Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal shut them down, and a disappointed crowd left the stadium that night wondering if the Royals were going to blow what had felt like a sure playoff berth only a few weeks earlier.

My only consolation for this downer of a game was that I went with my friend Jesse. I’ve known him since the fourth grade, and he’s still a good friend. We both have families now, in addition to jobs and lots of other stuff going on, so we don’t get to hang out very often. He’s not much of a baseball fan, but he suggested catching a game, which, in turn, allowed us to catch up.

So, you see, I’m finally in a position where going to the ballpark is no big deal. It doesn’t require a bunch of planning and scheduling. I don’t have to save up for tickets. If I want to go to a game, it’s easily doable. The game doesn’t even have to be the main attraction. It can be background noise, if that’s what I want.

I’ll be honest though. As good as it was to see Jesse, it was hard not to get wrapped up in the game. The Royals’ dream season was hanging by a thread. Of course, the Royals did get the job done. They earned a Wild Card berth for a best-of-three series in Baltimore, which set the stage for my first playoff game at the age of forty-five.

But I’ve already gone on longer than I intended, so I think it’s best that I stop here for now, having put a bow on the regular season. My first playoff game deserves a post of its own, after all. So that’s where Powder Blue Nostalgia will be next week. I hope you’ll join me.

---

Thank you for reading Powder Blue Nostalgia. Whether you only made it out once or had season tickets, I’d love to hear about the games you attended in 2024. Share your stories and favorite highlights in the comments below. And if you haven’t already subscribed, why not do it now?