Ballpark Sites in Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City Ball Park Tour: 18 miles

Start at SW Blvd. & Summit (Athletic Field), go northeast on SW Blvd., past Broadway (Pastime Park) to Main, north on Main to Truman Road, east on Tuman Road to McGee, north on McGee, Past 14th (Exercise Field) to 6th Street, east on 6th, past Oak (freeway is the site of old Shelly Park) to Charlotte, north on Charlotte, under freeway, one block to Independence Ave., east on Independence, past Lydia (League Park, aka the Hole) to the Paseo, south on The Paseo to 12th, east on 12th, past 12th street and Vine Memorial to Prospect, south on Prospect to Truman Road, east on Truman Road to Montgall, south one block on Montgall to Benton Plaza (Exposition Park – still in use), east on Benton Plaza back to Truman Road, east on Truman Road to Indiana Ave., past Sears Warehouse (Sportsman’s Park) to 18th, west on 18th to Olive, south on Olive to 19th (Association Park), was on 19th to Brooklyn, south on Brooklyn, past Muehlebach Stadium site (aka Blue Stadium, Monarchs Stadium, Ruppert Stadium, and Municipal Stadium), to Linwood Blvd., west on Linwood Blvd. to the Paseo, south on The Paseo to 47th, west on 47th to Tracy, turn around in the New York Deli parking lot (Gordon & Koppel Stadium) east on 47th to Swope Parkway turn off, south on Swope Parkway to 50th (Satchel Paige Stadium), west on 50th to College, north on College back to Swope Parkway, east on Swope Parkway, turn into Blue Parkway, to LC’s Bar-B-Que on Sni-a-bar Road, east northeast on Sni-a-bar to Ozark Road, northeast on Ozark to Raytown Road, southeast on Raytwon Road to Gate Four or Royal Way, north on Royal Way to Kauffman Stadium.

Exercise Field – 14th and McGee

D.S. Twitchell formed Kansas City’s first baseball team, the Antelopes, in August 1866. The club played weekly exercise matches. The Antelopes journeyed by train to Leavenworth for a match game with the Frontier Base Ball Club. After nine innings of play, the teams celebrated with toasts and a banquet, then adjourned to the opera.

After suffering umpiring problems in a contest against the Pomeroys of Atchison, Kansas, the Antelopes secured the services of James “Wild Bill” Hickok as umpire. The Antelopes won 48-28 and Hickok left amid cheering crowds.

Athletic Park – Southwest Boulevard and Summit

When the 1884 Union Association Altoonas folded, some local influential businessmen. led by A.V. McKim and Alexander Crawford, pledged the necessary $15,000 security for a new team. Several players were drafted from the city’s top semipro club, the Reds. The Kansas City Unions played their first game, the first major league game in Kansas City history, on June 7, 1884.

About 1,500 fans watched the first game versus the Chicago Unions. Though considered a goodly number, the crowd was dwarfed by the 4,000 capacity amphitheater-style stadium. Despite strong support, the team, under the leadership of noted manager T.P. “Red” Sullivan, was not very good. The Kansas City Unions – sometimes derogatorily called the Onions by the press – ended the season with a 16-63-3 record for 12th place in a 13-team league. Nonetheless, President McKim and Manager Sullivan hosted a banquet at the end of the season.

The management reported a $7,000 profit from the season, a figure that is doubtful, but was convincing enough to entice the Kansas City Unions to send delegates to the Union Association winter meeting. Because Milwaukee was the only other club to send delegates, the major league died a quiet death, but professional baseball lived on in Kansas City.

Pastime Park – Southwest Boulevard and Broadway

In 1885, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Omaha, and Toledo team owners organized the Western League and elected A. V. McKim as its president. Kansas City manager T.P. Sullivan antagonized league umpires by whipping crowds of 5,000 at Pastime Park into maniacal frenzies against the arbitrators. The league was dominated by the team from Keokuk, Iowa, led by John “Bud” Fowler, one of the earliest black professional baseball players. Local police shut down Sunday games with threats of arrests in early May. Without Sunday ball the teams could not survive, and the Western League folded on June 15, 1885.

League Park – The Hole – Independence Avenue and Lydia

Major-league baseball returned to Kansas City when the National League arrived in 1886. The team, called the Cowboys, were attired in white uniforms with blue stockings. Citified apparel not-withstanding, the team was rowdy. Almost every umpire who called a game in Kansas City threatened to quit. Manager David Rowe was said to carry a gun, and allegedly shot catcher Charles Briody in mid-season. The conservative NL expelled the Cowboys at the end of the season, partly for “hooliganism” but mostly because of poor attendance at their games. Though poor by Eastern standards, attendance figures show that Kansas City supported the Cowboys as they had previous teams, with large crowds on Saturday and small but steady gatherings during the week.

The ball park was another matter. Located just south of Independence Avenue at Lydia, League Park was built where a pond used to be. The playing field was 10 to 12 feet below street level. The grounds looked like an excavation site or a cellar for a large building. Outfielders had to scale heights to chase fly balls; fans bought places atop wagons that were parked around the wooden-fenced lot.

While the grandstand was advertised as one of the coolest placed to beat the Kansas City heat, the playing field was one of the hottest. Without a blade of grass, the ball diamond was so hot that players poured water on their shoes between innings and wore cabbage leaves under their ball caps. Concession stands featured Hokey-Pokeys (small, flat cakes of ice cream which sold for $0.05) and pink lemonade.

Exposition Park – 15th and Montgall

On the site of the Kansas City exposition of the 1870s, a grandstand was built in 1888 to accommodate the Western Association Blues while the Cowboys of the American Association played at League Park. The Blue folded and the 1889 Cowboys of the American Association moved into the new grandstand and ticket office. The following year the Cowboys moved out of the AA into the Western Association.

No matter what was the name, fans supported the 1891 WA pennant-winning Kansas City club. The league grew under the skillful guidance of Ban Johnson and became first the Western League, then the American League fo today. The last organized ball bunting to hang at Expo park was during the 1902 season.

A ball diamond still exists on the site and the city has renamed the park, East Grove, but the 1888 flavor remains.

Sportsman’s Park (aka Recreation) – 17th and Indiana

The Blue Stockings (not to be confused with the Blues) of the Western League in 1902 and 1903 were managed by Kansas City resident Charles “Kid” Nichols. The Kid, at age 32, pitched the Blue Stockings to the pennant in 1902, with 27 victories. He followed with 21 more in 1903, then returned to the Big Leagues in 1904 and left the franchise to flounder and die.

Shelly Park – Independence and Oak

Shelly Park was home to the Royals Giants, a black team founded by Topeka Jack Johnson in 1910. The ball park was located in the heart of downtown Kansas City, a white area, and the team drew white crowds. The Giants played at Shelly Park through the 1915 season. Some of the better players were Derby Day, the catcher, and Jack Marshall who later played for the Chicago American Giants. Black touring teams such as the Buckston Black Wonders and Minneapolis Keystones provided opposition for the Royal Giants, who were one of three black or mixed teams operating in the Kansas City area.

Another club which used the ball park was J.L. Wilkinson’s All Nations Team. The Kansas City Monarchs also used the field for Negro National League games during the 1920s.

Association Park – 19th and Olive

When the new American League dropped Kansas City in 1901, the franchise was bought by George “White Wings” Tebeau, who placed it in the reorganized Western League. Tebeau then organized the American Association as a minor league. His American Association Blues played in the crumbling Expo Park before he was able to build Association Park in 1903.

Great game and great stars plied their trade at the old park. Bunny Brief and Dutch Zwilling led the American Association Blues into a 1922 post-season championship series with the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro National League. The outcome – the Monarchs won five games to one – influenced baseball commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis to prohibit exhibition games between white and black teams.

When George Muehlebach purchased the Blues from Tebeau in 1918, he did not buy the ball park. Imagine Muehlebach’s surprise when the ball park owner sold it to the railroad, which built tracks through the outfield in 1923.

Muehlebach Field – 22nd and Brooklyn

Also known as Blues Stadium, Monarchs Stadium, Ruppert Stadium, and Municipal Stadium. the field at Brooklyn Avenue hosted the Kansas City Blues in the American Association, the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro National and Negro American Leagues, the Kansas City Athletics of the American League, and the Kansas City Royals, an expansion team in the American League.

Muehlebach with its assorted names was the park of fond memories for Kansas Citians. Royals’ second baseman Frank White was raised two blocks from the park and remembers watching the Athletics from the top of Lincoln High School bleachers that overlooked the park. The barbecue business grew up around the site. World-famous Arthur Bryant’s and Gates’ barbecue are just a home-run shot from the old stadium.

Major league baseball in 1955 brought changes to the pard and a scoreboard from old Braves Field. A second deck was added to accommodate the 1, 800,000 fans who attended the games in 1955.

When Charles Finley bought the team from Arnold Johnson’s estate in 1960, he put half a million dollars into making the stadium the “sexiest-looking ball park in the country.” The field seats were citrus yellow, the reserved and bleacher seats desert turquoise, the beams yellow-orange, and vertical foul-line poles fluorescent pink. Finley put picnic grounds and a small zoo beyond the left field fence. Charlie the Mule and two sheep were dressed in green-and-gold blankets while they nibbled grass in right field. Harvey the electronic rabbit popped up to the right of home plate to supply the umpire with new baseballs. In 1964, Finley built the “Pennant Porch” in right field to ridicule the Yankees’ 296-foot right field fence. After he was forced by the American League to remove the porch, announcers, on long fly balls to right, were instructed by Finely to broadcast, “The last fly out would have been a home run in Yankee Stadium.”

The longest professional football game ever played took place at Municipal Stadium on Christmas Day, 1971. The Miami Dolphins defeated the Kansas City Chiefs in double overtime. The Chiefs moved to Arrowhead Stadium the next season.

Kauffman Stadium – Harry S. Truman Complex

The current home of the Royals – known as Royals Stadium until 1994 – is one of baseball’s most attractive stadiums. The facility is enhanced by the poles in left-center that fly the Kansas City division and pennant-winning flags and the waterfalls beyond the right-center field fence.

The beyond-left-field area is used as a picnic area by the Royal Lancers, an innovative, season ticket-selling group. The Royals were the first to form a volunteer group to sell its season tickets. Now many clubs have followed the Royals’ example.

In 1955 grass returned to Kansas City baseball after 22 years, as groundskeeper George Toma laid the new sod to make Kauffman one of the most beautiful stadiums on all of baseball.