Columnist Ron Kantowski: A sad sight for anyone who appreciates baseball history

Monday, Nov. 28, 2005 | 9:06 a.m.

Ron Kantowski's column appears on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4088.

If there's one thing that I enjoy more than old cities, it's old cities that have old ballparks or used to have old ballparks. That explains what I was doing at 22nd Street and Brooklyn Avenue in downtown Kansas City on Saturday afternoon, just a few blocks from the historic 18th & Vine jazz club district, staring at a mostly vacant field in a neighborhood of mostly boarded up warehouses and clapboard shanties.

"This is it -- or was it," said my brother-in-law, Joe.

A yellowing piece of trash that had been a Kansas City Star in its previous life blew across the unkept grass. So I tried to muster an original thought to describe a melancholy scene that would have been even more melancholy, had it not been such a glorious day that made it seem more like early April than late November.

But how can you possibly top Frank Sinatra?

"Wow. There used to be a ballpark here," I muttered under my breath, so the other in-laws wouldn't hear me waxing nostalgic.

The ballpark that used to be there was Kansas City Municipal Stadium, which opened in 1923 as home of the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues and the Kansas City Blues, the New York Yankees' top farm club in the American Association.

In 1954 the Philadelphia A's moved to Kansas City, and the next year Municipal Stadium was enlarged to seat 30,611 spectators for major league baseball. Charlie O. Finley assumed ownership of the team in 1960 and the Kansas City A's called Municipal Stadium home until moving to Oakland in 1967 -- despite voters passing a bond issue for a new stadium.

So when baseball expanded in 1969, it awarded Kansas City another team. The Royals played at Municipal Stadium through the 1972 season, when they moved into a spiffy new stadium out on the interstate.

Spiffy new stadiums out on the interstate don't do much for fans of baseball nostalgia. But it had dancing waters and a modern electric scorebard beyond the outfield fence. All Muncipal Stadium had was a few rows of bleachers and an old scoreboard that was moved from Braves Field in Boston.

So the wrecking ball came in 1976 and put Municipal Stadium out of its creaky but colorful (right down the A's not-so-mellow yellow uniforms) misery.

My sister-in-law Terry said they should have at least erected a sign to recognize that a lot of cutoff men had been missed at the place we were standing.

Actually, there is, although we couldn't find it. Supposedly, there's a photo of Municipal Stadium and a couple of park benches near where "Harvey," the mechanical rabbit, rose from underground to present the home plate umpire with a batch of new baseballs.

But all we saw was a few modest homes with brightly colored siding on them, scattered, with no apparent rhyme or reason, around what had been the infield and outfield.

There was no sign of human life, although I spotted a stray dog in the distance. I wondered if he knew he was treading on hallowed ground where the great Satchel Paige had refused to look back, for fear that something might be gaining on him. Where the 1960 All-Star Game was contested. Where Campy Campaneris became the first man to play every position in a big league game.

But then the dog stopped and sniffed at the ground.

Who knows? Maybe that was the spot where "Charlie O," Finley's pet mule, had fertilized the infield in his own special way.