Where's The Municipal Stadium Marker?

This picture was taken on April 10, 2010 at the corner of 22nd & Brooklyn in Kansas City.

On April 7, 2000, a historical marker was placed here commemorating the site of Municipal Stadium, the heart of Kansas City baseball from 1923 to 1972. Buck O'Neil lead the crowd in a rendition of "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" at the unveiling that day. He said, "This was some corner. On opening day, they would start from 18th and Vine and parade up Brooklyn right on up here. The band played and came into the back of the ballpark. And we'd fill it up." Bob Lewellen, a member of the group that spearheaded the creation of the marker, said, "The marker will be here forever." (Quotes from April 6th and 7th, 2000 Kansas City Star.)

So, umm...where's the marker? I made a trip to the corner to check out the sign and the spot of so much great baseball history in this town, but was surprised to see it is gone. I have no idea why. This sign is down the block along 22nd Street, and indicates a company called DK Homes is developing the area. Perhaps they removed it?


Here's what the marker looked like when it was there:

Royals wOBA, wOBA, wOBA

Just to satisfy my own curiosity, I made the below chart to compare current Royals' career weighted on-base average (wOBA) through May 2nd. The third column is the player's age. We're obviously dealing with vastly different sample sizes for some guys, and guys who are at different parts of their career arc. Jason Kendall is nowhere near a .336 anymore: his last three seasons have been .272, .293 and .290.


You might notice from the chart that the Royals are old and terrible at baseball.

If you're not familiar with wOBA--I consider it the ultimate measure of a hitter. Here's my brief, somewhat simplified understanding of it: First, batting average and slugging are both flawed, for one because they completely exclude walks. Pure on base percentage (or average) is much more useful than AVG or SLG, but is still flawed because different events, such as a walk or home run, are valued the same. OPS (OBP+SLG) is maybe a little better yet, but still retains the flaws of OBP and SLG and probably overvalues SLG in relation to OBP.

WOBA solves all of these problems by adding "weights" to the different outcomes of a plate appearance based on how many runs the average walk, single, double, triple, and home run create. Tom Tango, wOBA mastermind, came up with these values for the different outcomes:

HR 1.70, 3B 1.37, 2B 1.08, 1B 0.77, non-intentional BB 0.62


Then to come up with a number that would be familiar, wOBA is scaled to look like OBP numbers that baseball nerds are familiar with. In Tango's words, "an average hitter is around 0.340 or so, a great hitter is 0.400 or higher, and a poor hitter would be under 0.300." You really don't have to fully understand all the specifics behind the number; just know that it is awesome. You can find wOBA stats at FanGraphs.

Digital Ballparks Tour Of Municipal Stadium

Digital Ballparks bills itself as an "online baseball stadium museum." So far, 513 stadiums are featured on the site. April saw three Kansas City stadium additions: Municipal, Kauffman, and Community America Ballpark where the T-Bones play. The "tour" of Municipal is a real gem, with 35 pictures, many of which I'd never seen before, that give you a real feel for the place.

"Jackie With The Monarchs, 1945" Has Moved

In case anyone is actually following my "Jackie With The Monarchs" series, I've moved all the previous posts to a new site dedicated solely to the series where future posts will be as well. You can find it here: Jackie With The Monarchs, 1945.

Clip from The Royal Years

Came across this YouTube gem that I believe is a clip from a documentary called The Royal Years produced by Kansas City public television in 1996. Has some great footage of early Royals action.

Mantle Homers Twice at Municipal Stadium, June 21, 1961

Via Uni Watch comes this aerial shot of Kansas City's Municipal Stadium from 1961. The wire photo service added the supposed paths of two home runs Mickey Mantle hit in a game against the A's on June 21. Roger Maris of course ended up on top of the home run race in 1961, but on this day the Mick hit two and Roger none. Mantle's homers both came off A's starter Bob Shaw. Roger had to settle for a walk, single, triple and two runs scored. The Yanks prevailed 5-3. Mantle drove in all five runs.

Eleven Yankees played in the game on June 21; No fewer than seven had called Municipal their home stadium previous to 1961:

Elston Howard: Monarchs 1948-50, Blues 1953
Mickey Mantle: Blues 1951
Bill Skowron: Blues 1952-53
Jack Reed: Blues 1953
Clete Boyer: Athletics 1955-57
Roger Maris: Athletics 1958-59
Bud Daley: Athletics 1958-61 (Daley had just been sent to the Yankees a week earlier)

Royals In Monarchs Duds: July 30, 1995

For 1995, the Royals spread out the Salute to the Negro Leagues over a three day weekend. Friday, July 28 was Buck O'Neil night. The Royals presented Buck with a portrait of himself, and attendees received a copy of the portrait. The next night, former Negro Leaguers signed autographs and were honored before the game. And on Sunday the 30th, the Royals and Tigers broke out the throwback uniforms, the Royals sporting 1924 Monarchs uniforms as they had the previous year, and the Tigers wearing a 1920 Detroit Stars style. (Attendees on Sunday received a Monarchs cap, as has been the case for most of the Salute to the Negro Leagues games.) Unfortunately I have no pictures from the game. The Monarchs jerseys and lids assumedly looked something like this:



Here's a shot of the actual 1920 Detroit Stars:

And here is Ebbets Fields modern remake of the uniforms:

The Tigers likely wore a dark jersey that day as the road team, so exactly what they looked like, I don't know.

On the field, the Royals eked out a 3-2 win behind a 2 run homer by Vince Coleman and 5.2 innings from starter Scott Anderson in which he allowed one run. Anderson spent ten years in the minors, getting cups of coffee in the bigs in '87, '90 and 6 games with the Royals in '95. The only win of his major league career came this night, wearing the uniform of the Kansas City Monarchs. The Royals swept the Tigers during the three day tribute to the Negro Leagues. Vince Coleman hit 10-15 in the series.