Stadium Preview #1

Stadium: Kauffman Stadium
Date Opened: April 10, 1973
Date of Visit: June 12th
Game: Texas Rangers @ Kansas City Royals

Kauffman Stadium, aka the K, is half of the Truman Sports Complex in Kansas City, with the other half being Arrowhead Stadium, where the Kansas City Chiefs play. As you can see by the picture, Kauffman is a unique looking stadium. With its curvy exterior and personalized scoreboard (which is receiving a makeover this offseason), this stadium is instantly recognizable. It's age might show in some points, but the city of Kansas City is looking to fix that. Starting this offseason, Kauffman is undergoing major renovations. Upgrades include a HD scoreboard, a kids' area, a right field restaurant, wider concourses, left field hall of fame, and better vertical circulation of the stadium for all levels. Some of these renovations may be completed when we arrive on June 12th, but I'm betting most will not be finished. We might have to see Kauffman in a state of construction, which is disappointing.

Still, Kauffman will be a fun stadium to visit not only because we will be able to sit a little bit closer to the field, (cheaper seats) but also because it is quite picturesque. In center field, there is the iconic scoreboard, which hopefully will still look the same with the new HD scoreboard. On either side of the scoreboard are fountains, because Kansas City is known as the City of Fountains.

Since there are no outfield seats, Kauffman has a bit of a minor league feel to it, but I'm sure that this stadium will be a good place to spend 3 to 4 hours of our wonderful trip!

-Kyle

Update

We've bought our first tickets (SD@NYY, 6/19), but we've also had our first cancellation. Unfortunately, because we're going during interleague play, a lot of these games are in demand. And the Phillies decided that, rather than selling tickets to their Red Sox series first come, first serve, they're raffling off the chance to buy them in a drawing in a few weeks. It's not even a weekend series, but they've deemed it important enough to do this whole raffle thing. So, unless we find some good deal on eBay, or we get something out of this raffle, or we get some substantial funding, we're not going to the Red Sox @ Phillies game on the 18th. But, I suppose it'll be good to have a break, and we can spend some extra time in Baltimore or NYC. Also, we'll divert those funds earmarked for the Phillies game towards buying tickets for Fenway, which are also going to be more difficult to get than originally hoped.

Look for more updates from my brothers regarding previews of the stadiums we'll be visiting.