Joe McGuff: Kansas City has a long baseball history. We had
been in an early day major league. The Kansas City Unions had
been in that, and then there had been several other teams. We
were in the Federal League very, very briefly. So there's been
a long, long history of baseball. And then, of course, we had
the Kansas City Monarchs. So baseball is a great part of Kansas
City's heritage.
Narrator: Joe McGuff is a past president of the Baseball Writers
Association. He was inducted into the writer's wing of the
Baseball Hall of Fame in 1985. Looking back across forty years
with the Kansas City Star, he recalls how the baseball team
known as the Athletics arrived in town....
McGuff (KC Star): Well, it was a rather interesting story. The
Braves had moved from Boston to Milwaukee in 1952. And
Milwaukee and Kansas City were the two best draws in the old
American Association. And so Ernie Mell, who was then sports
editor of the Star, figured, and correctly so, that if Milwaukee
could support a major league team, why not Kansas City? The big
problem was trying to raise money for it. And we did not
succeed, locally. We could have had the old St. Louis Browns
before they moved to Baltimore, and couldn't raise the money for
that. And the Athletics became available, and we couldn't raise
the money for that. Finally, a Chicagoan -- Arnold Johnson --
bought the team and moved it from Philadelphia to Kansas City.
Garrett Smalley: The attendance was really real good for a
couple years. They were over a million. But it went down real
quick, cause they were poor and they lost continually. They
never had a winning record. They never played .500 ball the
whole time the Athletics were here.
Narrator: The publisher of The Daily Record, Garrett Smalley has also
covered the story of professional baseball in Kansas City. He
remembers what happened with the A's ballclub after Arnold
Johnson brought it to Kansas City....
Smalley: When Arnold bought it from Connie Mack, I don't know what
his idea was, but he seemed to just come here and just kind of
play along. He wasn't too interested in it, and they traded off
some of the best players they had. It looked like he was
sacking the team -- selling it off; not even trying to make a go
of it. And of course during the first two or three years it
drew over a million ... with a poor team. But that soon tired.
The fans of Kansas City soon got to the point where they
expected a little more than that. And the attendance started
falling off real bad. And then when Arnold Johnson died,
Charlie Finley picked up the pieces.
McGuff: Arnold Johnson died when the club was in spring training in
1960. And once again, we tried to put a local group together to
buy the team and it was very, very slow going. And they finally
got a bid together, but it was a very weak bid. And the team
was in Johnson's estate and had to go through probate court in
Chicago. Charlie Finley simply went into probate court and bid
more than Kansas City did, and that's how he got the team.
Smalley: Finley was an innovator. Calvin Griffith called him "the
P.T. Barnum of baseball." He was such a way-out man. Some of
his innovations were the rabbit that popped up with the ball at
home plate; the shepherd on the hill with the goats or the
sheep. ... He got that mule -- Charlie O. the mule. That was
another big deal. A lot of people thought that was crazy --
just plain crazy.
As things were going along, Mr. Finley wanted a better
ballpark. They took the old ballpark at 22nd and Brooklyn,
which was fine for an American Association team -- they fixed it
up; they did a very, very good job on it ... a nice job on it.
But it was totally inadequate. And it was really a barebones
stadium. Here he's bringing a major league baseball operation
to Kansas City, and he wanted the city or the county or the two
together -- he wanted them to build a decent stadium for the
team to play.
McGuff: In August of the first season here, he was exploring ways
to move the team to Dallas. He went to Dallas with the umpire
supervisor of the American League to see if they could fit a
baseball playing field in the Cotton Bowl. And that's when we
first found out that he was actually trying to move, and he
tried to move every year thereafter.
Smalley: Charlie had to go before the American League owners to see
if he could move the franchise from Kansas City to Oakland. And
by golly, when that meeting broke up, Charlie came out of that
room -- he handed me a paper ... of all the reporters there in
that room, he handed it to me. I broke the story back here to
Kansas on the radio, live from Chicago. That was the first
inkling that Kansas had that we'd lost our ballclub. And it was
a real downer. It was a real downer for this town, I'll tell
you.
McGuff: They came in 1955. And they were here through the 1967
season. And then Finley was allowed to move the team to
Oakland, and we got the Royals as an expansion team starting in
1969. When Ewing Kauffman came along with the Royals,
there was a huge contrast simply because Finley wanted to leave
Kansas City. And Ewing was of course dedicated to maintaining
major league baseball in Kansas City. ... And also about that
time, the movement started that led to the construction of the
Truman Sports Complex. And the feeling was that if we build a
new stadium, then it would be much more difficult for major
league baseball to leave us without a team.
Smalley: It really made a big league town out of a cow town. Kansas
City's not a cowtown any more, but that's the way the rest of
the baseball world perceived us at that time. But you can see
what Ewing Kauffman's operation here has done for Kansas City --
it's put Kansas City on the map!
McGuff: We had had two absentee ownerships -- neither one of
which had worked out very well. And I think the idea of having
the team owned by somebody who lived in Kansas City and who was
absolutely committed to keeping the team here gave a great
feeling of public participation.
Narrator: In recognition of his many contributions to the ballclub
and to the community, the Kansas City Royals inducted Ewing
Kauffman into the Royals Hall of Fame a few weeks before his
death in the summer of 1993. Joe McGuff was called upon to pay
tribute to Mr. K.....
McGuff: We are honoring a man whose accomplishments transcend base hits, home runs, shutouts, and perfect games. He has given us much more in the years that he
has been in our community. Without Ewing Kauffman, there would be no Kansas City Royals; there would be no Royals Stadium; and I feel quite certain we would not have major league baseball. It is my great privilege to introduce the newest member of the
Royals Hall of Fame -- Mr. Ewing Kauffman.
Dean Vogelaar: Mr. Kauffman's biggest motivation-- perhaps his
only motivation in owning a baseball team -- has been to provide
a baseball team for Kansas City.
Narrator: As the Royals' vice president for public relations, Dean
Vogelaar points out that the team's support base reaches beyond
Kansas City...
Vogelaar: We consider ourselves to be a regional franchise, because
Kansas City is the smallest, or one of the two smallest markets
in major league baseball. So in order for us to achieve the
attendance figures we have in certain years, we know that
particularly during the months of June, July, and August -- the
vacation months, if you will -- that 30 or 35 percent of our
attendance comes from outside the Kansas City area.
Smalley: Business-wise, it means millions and millions of dollars to
this trade area here. All because a man like Mr. K had the
vision and the financial power to see it through. Mr.
Kauffman told me some years ago that there's only been one or
two years in all the years he's been involved in baseball here,
which is twenty-five ... there's only been one or two years that
he's ever made money on this team. Every other year was a
loser.
Vogelaar: I would say that really Mr. K in the last two seasons --
you're looking at over $20 million in cash losses. This
would be an extremely valuable franchise in a much larger
market. It would do very, very well. The market's too fragile
to handle this ballclub. Mr. K's personal wealth has kept this
ballclub in operation.
Ewing Kauffman (At ceremony): I ask you two questions: Will
you write to your congressmen and to your senator to keep major
league baseball in Kansas City? Second question: How do you
like your fighting Kansas City Royals?
McGuff: Sports franchises are quasi-public institutions. You're
saying to a community "Come out and support our team." It's
"our" team; not "my team. So I think that's ... it's very
important that you have ownership that people have confidence
in. There's no divine right that says Kansas City's always
going to have major league baseball. That's always something
you have to work for.
Smalley: There will never be another Ewing Kauffman!
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(Copyright 1994 KTWU/Channel 11, Topeka, KS.)