Joey's World Tour: Missouri Madness (Part II - Royal Rumbin' in Kansas City)

Kauffman Stadium is middle-aged, but it still looks young to me.  (Photo by Ed Leyro/Studious Metsimus)

Hello again!  This is Studious Metsimus' one and only roving reporter and culinary expert, Joey Beartran, and this is the second part of my two-part Missouri Madness tour.  After slogging my way through St. Louis (and two Mets losses), I hopped on a bus going west to the BBQ capital of the world, Kansas City.

I thought the best part of this trip would be that the Mets weren't joining me in KC, meaning that I couldn't see them lose any games in person.  Then I thought the best part would be the sampling some Kansas City style barbecue.  I was wrong on both counts.  The best part of Kansas City was Kansas City as a whole.  Let's go on a virtual tour of a city that's the true crown jewel of Missouri.

Of course, the main reason the Studious Metsimus staff went to Kansas City was to attend a ballgame at Kauffman Stadium, home of the Royals.  Originally, we were going to go in 2016 when the Mets were scheduled to open the season there.  Then the 2015 World Series happened.  And we decided to go to cities that didn't open up fresh wounds instead.

Three years after that Fall Not-So-Classic, the Mets opened the season with one of the best records in the league and the Royals were at the bottom of their division.  So if you ask me, now seemed like a pretty good time to check out "The K".  And boy, did we ever check it out.  I mean, look at this view!

Sunset in KC is truly the place to be!  (EL/SM)

The Royals continued to disappoint as a team, losing to the equally inept White Sox, 7-4 in 11 innings, but nothing about my time at the game was disappointing to me.  For one thing, the food choices at Kauffman Stadium blew the door off anything served at Busch Stadium.

There was several food stands devoted to BBQ such as "The Pit", which served items such as brisket or pulled pork BBQ sandwiches, BBQ extreme fries (in a souvenir helmet, to boot!) and the cheesy corn brisket-achos that made their way to the recent MLB Food Fest.  But my favorite stand was "Sweet Baby Ray's" barbecue in center field.  I could have ordered a cheesesteak with burnt edges, but instead, I went with the mac and cheese with baked beans.  The woman behind the register accused me of being a vegetarian because I didn't order steak or brisket, but I was really just looking forward to chowing down on their famous BBQ Baked Beans.  And they did not disappoint.

Ooey gooey mac n' cheese and two bowls of BBQ baked beans.  And they were inexpensive, too!  (EL/SM)

This is most definitely a food stand I'm racing to the next time I attend a game at "The K".  The baked beans were even better than advertised and the mac and cheese was chewy, gooey and gone faster than you can say, "Why couldn't Lucas Duda have made a better throw to home plate to nail Eric Hosmer in Game Five?"

Oh, and speaking of Lucas Duda, he's a member of the Royals now.  And he even has own banner outside the ballpark.  I mean, Royals fans loved him since Game Five so they might as well shower him with gifts at Kauffman Stadium just like he gave them a gift as a member of the Mets in the World Series.

But I digress.

Eric Hosmer may be gone, but Lucas Duda still lives on.  (EL/SM)

Back to the topic of hand, namely, the tasty things I can put in my mouth at Kauffman Stadium.  In addition to all the barbecue stands in the ballpark, you can also have gourmet hot dogs with unique toppings at "Dogfather".  There are also berrie-kabobs for dessert.  This succulent snack has berries covered in chocolate and icing, which are then pierced by a long stick.  And for all you non-kids out there, you can have alcohol in a way you don't normally see at ballparks back east.

Kauffman Stadium has a pour-your-own-beer stand, where you choose your beer from either a tap wall or behind a bodega-style refrigerated display.  And if you like your alcohol just a little bit colder, you can order a vodka-infused sno cone (in cherry or blue raspberry flavors) or vodka lemonade.  It almost makes me wish I was already 21 so I could try one!

Imagine if they had these at Citi Field on hot days.  The lines would be longer than Shake Shack.  (EL/SM)

Another aspect of the park that put Citi Field to shame was the Royals Hall of Fame and Museum.  The Mets have seven more years of history than the Royals do, yet the studio apartment-sized Hall of Fame and Museum at Citi Field pales in comparison to the multi-room exhibit at Kauffman Stadium.

Located in the left field corner on the field level, the Royals Hall of Fame and Museum celebrates the team's best players, with a section for retired numbers and a wing devoted to the Royals' one Cooperstown honoree, George Brett.  It also has Dan Quisenberry's Rolaids Relief Man Award, team trophies, a history of the World Series (and not just the Royals' appearances in the Fall Classic), player lockers and bobbleheads.  In the area where the Royals Hall of Fame members are honored, a beautifully done painting of each honoree is displayed, along with a short history of the player depicted on the canvas.  It sure beats the traditional Hall of Fame plaque.  (And I was surprised to see so many former Mets who were honored for their playing and/or coaching careers in Kansas City.)

But my favorite display in the museum had to be the huge No. 5 made with 3,154 baseballs, or one for each hit collected by George Brett during his 21-year career in Kansas City.  In the middle of the display is Brett's 3,000th hit ball and the bat used to reach that milestone.  Incredibly, the bat is still loaded with pine tar as a reminder of just how much Brett applied to his lumber during his career.  And in case you were wondering, the Pine Tar Game is also discussed in the museum.

Of course, as a Mets fan, I was upset that the jersey worn by Eric Hosmer in Game Five of the 2015 World Series (complete with Citi Field dirt still on it) was prominently displayed, as well as the third base bag he was standing on before he made his mad dash to the plate,  But that was offset somewhat by the unexpected Gil Hodges Mets jersey from 1969 that was there to commemorate the team that won the championship during the Royals' inaugural season.

This trophy would have been ours if World Series games ended after seven innings.  (EL/SM)

Kauffman Stadium is a great place to watch a game, but if you have young kids who can't stay still in a seat for three hours, there are many activities to keep them occupied.  Whereas Citi Field only has a dunk tank, pitch speed machine and a mini field, Kauffman Stadium has so much more.

There's a baseball-themed carousel.  There's a much larger "mini" field where you can play actual baseball games.  There are pitching cages.  There are batting cages.  There's even a miniature golf course with baseball obstacles.  And of course, there are the beautiful fountains in center field that shoot water high up in the air between innings and when the Royals score.

All those things were great for a Mets fan like me.  Why is that, you ask?  Because they distracted me from the 2015 World Series flag flying in the wind and the large 2015 World Champions sign in center field.

I think I liked this sign better when it just said 1985 World Champions.  (EL/SM)

So that covers the ballpark in Kansas City.  But watching a game is far from the only thing you can do in this beautiful burgh and the nearby surrounding areas.

There are numerous great restaurants and venues to watch live music in the Power and Light District.  There's also the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum in nearby Independence, MO.  For music lovers, nothing beats the American Jazz Museum in the 18th and Vine District.  And housed in the same building is the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, which I made sure to visit during my stay in the city.

Ordinarily, photos are not allowed in the NLBM.  This is done to protect the artifacts within the 10,000 square-foot space.  But my colleagues and I were given a green light to take all the photos we wanted to document our visit on the Studious Metsimus site.  My photographer took hundreds of photos, of which I will share a few here.

This was my field of dreams, which I shared with some of the greatest players of all-time.  (EL/SM)

So there you have it, my fellow Mets fans.  The baseball teams from Kansas City and St. Louis may have given the Mets lots of heartache in recent years, but the cities those teams call home made up for all the grief.  Well, at least Kansas City did.  And for all the things St. Louis didn't have, Kansas City picked up the slack and then some.

Busch Stadium and Kauffman Stadium are both beautiful ballparks.  Although the immediate area around Busch has more baseball-related activities to entertain fans when there are no games being played, Kauffman is the superior stadium.  The food is tastier and there is more variety.  And there's far more to do inside "The K" when the game isn't the only thing you're interested in.

I can't wait to rumble in the Royals' home town again.  Maybe next time I'll just fly over St. Louis and wave at Busch Stadium from the air while I count down the minutes until I touch down in Kansas City.  And by then, maybe losing the World Series to the Royals in 2015 won't sting as much as it still does and I'll just want BBQ because it's delicious rather than to wash away the memories of that Fall Classic.

Thanks for joining me on the latest legs of my baseball world tour.  Now excuse me while I try on my Negro Leagues apparel.  They may have allowed me to take photos in the museum but they still have to work on making clothes in my size.

Hope my colleagues kept the receipt for this.  (EL/SM)

For previous installments of Joey's World Tour, please click on the links below, where you will be entertained by Joey's wit, photos and love of ballpark cuisine:

World Tour Stop #1: Baltimore
World Tour Stop #2: Washington, DC
World Tour Stop #3: Pittsburgh
World Tour Stop #4: Texas
World Tour Stop #5: Los Angeles
World Tour Stop #6: San Diego
World Tour Stop #7: Toronto
World Tour Stop #8: Chicago (NL)
World Tour Stop #9: Milwaukee
World Tour Stop #10: Seattle
World Tour Stop #11: Cleveland
World Tour Stop #12: Brooklyn (Ebbets Field site) and Manhattan (Polo Grounds site)
World Tour Stop #13: Baltimore (again) and Pittsburgh (part deux)
World Tour Stop #14: Cincinnati
World Tour Stop #15: Colorado
World Tour Stop #16: Cooperstown (Baseball Hall of Fame)
World Tour Stop #17: Detroit
World Tour Stop #18: Atlanta
World Tour Stop #19: Miami
World Tour Stop #20: St. Louis

 

Studious Metsimus Presents The Happy/Crappy Recap For 2015

Another year has come and gone, Mets fans.  And for the first time since 2008, we're not saying goodbye to a year in which our favorite team had more losses than wins.  Does that mean this recap will be more happy than crappy?  Not exactly, especially if you've been following the goings-on in the National League East over the last few days.

The 2015 season began with Mets fans hoping the team would play their first-ever meaningful game in September at Citi Field and ended with the team playing their first-ever game in November in any of its three home stadiums.  In between, we saw new arrivals (Noah Syndergaard, Steven Matz, Michael Conforto), some departures (Kirk Nieuwenhuis left, came back and then left again) and some arrivals who departed with dignity and class (we hardly knew ye, Michael Cuddyer).

It was also the year Yoenis Cespedes gave us two memorable months and no one had any memory of Dillon Gee pitching for the team.  What else happened?  Let's see.  Daniel Murphy deep-sixed the Dodgers and Cubs.  Jeurys Familia became a lights-out closer who got lit up to close out the season.  Matt Harvey came back and then became the Pedro Martinez to Terry Collins's Grady Little in the World Series.  The Mets got no-hit by a player who had five career wins at the time and by another player who had two eye colors.  And oh yeah, there were three National League teams that had to supply with Mets with champagne and the extended use of the road clubhouse for party purposes.

Is that all?  Not exactly.  Here's more of what made us all happy in 2015 and what made us feel crappy.  As usual, let's all get happy first.

         
The Mets ripped off 11 consecutive victories in April, tying a franchise record.  When the streak began, New York was three games out of first place.  Eleven victories later, they led the N.L. East by 4½ games.  All 11 wins came at the expense of the Braves, Phillies and Marlins - teams that combined to go 201-285 during the 2015 campaign.  A non-believer in the Mets (let's call them Nationals fans) might say that anyone could have won that many games in a row against those three teams.  A believer (let's call them intelligent baseball fans) would say that one of the reasons Atlanta, Philadelphia and Miami had such poor records was because the Mets pounded them into oblivion early on, giving them no hope to be competitive for the remainder of the season.

Eric Campbell started more games at third base than David Wright.  Kevin Plawecki was behind the plate more times than Travis d'Arnaud.  The team's closer at the beginning of the season (Jenrry Mejia) was suspended not once, but twice, for the same drug.  Juan Lagares replaced his Gold Glove with one made of stone.  Michael Cuddyer reminded us of Jason Bay minus the concussion excuse.  Campbell, John Mayberry, Darrell Ceciliani, Danny Muno and Johnny Monell combined to have nearly 500 plate appearances.  And the Mets still won 90 games.  Just imagine what they could have done had they been healthy, made better decisions on which prescriptions to pick up at Walgreen's, and not been so dependent on Quadruple-A players.

Generation KO delivered a knockout blow every time one of its members took the mound.  Defending rookie of the year Jacob deGrom was better as a sophomore than he was as a Mets freshman.  Matt Harvey showed no ill effects from sitting out a year to recover from Tommy John surgery.  Noah Syndergaard was in character as Thor for the entire season, dropping the hammer on opposing hitters.  And Steven Matz made it back home, bringing his exuberant Grandpa Bert along for the ride to cheer him on after every victory.

The Mets entered uncharted waters in late July when Sandy Alderson decided to be a buyer at the trade deadline for the first time in his five-year tenure as the team's general manager.  First, he brought in Kelly Johnson and Juan Uribe to be super subs.  Then he was hip to be square, deciding to keep the emotional Wilmer Flores, while balking at Carlos Gomez and his medical records.  Finally, as the clock approached midnight in Moscow (that's 4:00pm in the Eastern Time Zone) on July 31, the cold war being staged between Alderson and rival general managers reached a truce when Tigers G.M. Dave Dombrowski agreed to trade Yoenis Cespedes to the Mets for top pitching prospect Michael Fulmer and Luis Cessa.  The stage had been set for a magical summer at Citi Field.

Once the Mets swept the Nationals at a raucous Citi Field, then repeated the feat at Nationals Park a month later, it was a foregone conclusion that the Mets were going to win the N.L. East crown for only the sixth time in franchise history.  And when Daniel Murphy put the team on his shoulders in the division series and league championship series, the Mets played their way to an improbable pennant.

And that's when things got crappy...

The Kansas City Royals remembered all too well how close they came to winning it all in 2014.  This time, they would make sure no Mets lead was safe.  And in fact, the Mets led in all five World Series games and had the lead going to the eighth inning in four of the five contests.  But through poor fielding, a lack of hitting in the late innings and Jeurys Familia doing something completely un-Familia-r (blowing late leads), the Mets couldn't ride their October momentum to a World Series championship.

And once they lost Game Five on November 1, the dominoes started to fall.  Jon Niese was traded to Pittsburgh for Neil Walker.  Wilmer Flores lost his starting job to Asdrubal Cabrera, who had a Wilmer Flores-type season at the plate in 2015 but is six years older and is costing the Mets an extra eight million dollars-plus in 2016.  But hey, at least Bartolo Colon is back to provide comic relief at the plate.

Speaking of walking up to the plate, who will replace Murphy and Cespedes's production in 2016?  With Murphy gone to the Nationals and Cespedes gone fishing for a new team, the Mets have lost the man who tied for the team lead in RBI in 2015 (Murphy) and the neon-sleeved savior who made everyone forget about Eric Campbell and his clueless cohorts.  Will Walker and Cabrera be able to replace them in the hearts of Mets fans, and more importantly, in the stat sheets of those same fans?

Finally, the Mets acquired Alejandro De Aza to platoon with Lagares in center field.  Maybe Sandy Alderson goofed and thought De Aza's last name began with a lower case D and wanted to corner the market on similarly named players (he already has d'Arnaud and deGrom on the team).  But other than the fact that De Aza was probably cheaper than Denard Span, Gerardo Parra or Max Venable and was more likely to sign a one-year deal, why the fudge was he the guy targeted to be Lagares's platoon partner?  De Aza's dWAR hasn't been above zero since 2011 and he's started a total of 13 games in center field since the end of the 2013 season, or eight more games than Darrell Ceciliani started in center for the Mets last year alone and a baker's dozen more than you and I started.

I hope Sandy Alderson knows something we don't.  Then again, in 2015, he had all the right answers to all the question marks surrounding the team, even if he had to cough and clear his throat ten times before uttering each answer.

And there you have it, Mets fans.  You now know what was happy about 2015 and what was crappy about it.  Then again, if you've been following the Mets as carefully as the Studious Metsimus staff has over the past few years, you probably didn't need a 2,000-word blog post to tell you something you already knew.

One thing you may not have known is that our staff is heavily inspired by other Mets blogs.  And as we do every year, we'd like to give a shout-out to those sites in appreciation of their hard work and to thank them for not using a teddy bear as a roving reporter/culinary expert.  We'd like to think we've cornered the market with that.  So give a hand and show your support to each of the following Mets sites: A Gal For All Seasons, Faith and Fear in Flushing, Mets Merized Online, MetsMinors.Net, Amazin' Avenue, Metstradamus, Remembering Shea, The Daily Stache, Mets360, Rising Apple, Kranepool Society, Mets Police, MetSilverman, Converted Mets Fan and Mets Daddy.

On that note, we'd like to wish you the happiest of holiday seasons.  And by "we", we're talking about Ed Leyro (that's the guy pushing the word count of this post up near Bartolo Colon's cholesterol level), Joey Beartran (the aforementioned roving reporter/culinary expert), Iggy Beartran (your source for all things related to Cole Hamels) and Taryn "The Coop" Cooper (she's just here so she won't get fined).

And remember, Mets fans, if you see a team celebrating on an opposing team's field after recording the final out of the game, it doesn't always have to be Chris Heston or Max Scherzer celebrating a no-hitter.  Nor does it have to be the Kansas City Royals whooping it up as a World Series winner for the first time in 30 years.  Sometimes it might be a team decked in blue and orange celebrating a division title, division series victory or perhaps even a pennant.

Thanks so much for your support!  See you next year!

See, players celebrating on the field sometimes ARE the Mets.

Joey's Soapbox: My 2015 Obviously Biased World Series Pick

I don't think Pete Rose believes I should be sharing my picks on this platform.

Hi, everyone!  This is Joey Beartran and it's time to share my World Series pick.  I'm picking the Mets.  That was simple, wasn't it?

Well, if you came to this page, that means you probably want to see more than just an obvious pick from a roving reporter/culinary expert.  So I guess I should give you a reason why it would be a wise decision to pick the Mets to win their first World Series in 29 years instead of the team that was the defending world champion when the Mets last lifted the trophy.

The reason is because I've correctly picked 87.5% of this postseason's winners.  I chose the Astros and Cubs to win their respective wild card games.  I was two-for-two with those picks.  Then I batted .750 in the four division series, banging out hits when I picked the Blue Jays, Royals and Mets to advance to the league championship series.  However, I whiffed by picking the Cardinals to advance.  Hey, even Daniel Murphy doesn't hit one out of the park every once in a while.

Once the ALCS and NLCS were both set, I picked the Royals and Mets to face each other in the World Series.  And sure enough, my picks were as automatic as Jeurys Familia has been in the ninth inning (and sometimes the eighth as well).

What?  Picking seven out of eight winners isn't a good enough reason for you to place a bet on the Mets in the Fall Classic?  Did Pete Rose coerce you into thinking that?  Fine.  Here's why I think the Mets will defeat the Royals in the World Series.


World Series


New York Mets vs. Kansas City Royals

The Mets have already taken out the 92-win Dodgers and the 97-win Cubs en route to their fifth National League pennant.  They've gone 7-2 in doing so, with only one of the losses being legitimate.  (The Dodgers didn't earn the Chase Utley game, but Chase Utley sure earned his suspension and his tee time on the golf course.)  Meanwhile, the Royals needed to go the distance against the upstart Astros in the division series, needing a furious comeback in Game Four just to force a fifth and deciding game.  Then they lost two more games to the Blue Jays in the ALCS and could have lost a third, but they had help from a fan in the outfield on a "home run" by Kansas City's Mike Moustakas and also benefited from home plate umpire Jeff Nelson's strike zone, which became wider than Bartolo Colon's waistline when Ben Revere was at the plate in the ninth inning with the tying and go-ahead runs in scoring position.

Kansas City has an excellent bullpen.  But the Royals need to have the lead to use their top relievers.  And their starting pitchers aren't exactly turning heads.

Their four starters (Edinson Volquez, Yordano Ventura, Johnny Cueto and former Met Chris Young) were quite ordinary in the regular season and continued to be so in the postseason.  The not-so-fearsome foursome combined to post a 3.77 ERA and 1.22 WHIP during the regular season - numbers that would have been worse had it not been for Young's contributions (3.06 ERA, 1.09 WHIP).  And as good as Young was during the regular season, it was mostly due to what he did in the first two and a half months.  Through June 16, Young had a stellar 1.98 ERA and 0.92 WHIP.  In his final 20 appearances (10 starts, 10 relief outings), those numbers shot up to 4.06 and 1.24, respectively.

When Chris Young has a lower ERA and WHIP than these guys, it shows they don't have a true ace. (USA TODAY Sports)

Once Volquez, Ventura, Cueto and Young got to the postseason, they fell apart, combining to post a 5.33 ERA and 1.39 WHIP.  They also became more erratic with their control, walking 31 batters in 59 innings.

Of course, the team's hitters bailed them out on numerous occasions, as Kansas City scored five or more runs in six of their seven victories against the Astros and Blue Jays.  But both Houston and Toronto shared so-so starting rotations and bullpens, and it showed in the playoffs.  Neither team had a deep starting rotation and neither club had a Jeurys Familia-type closer.

The Mets have all of that, and then some.

Kansas City went 5-44 in the regular season when they scored fewer than three runs.  That continued in the postseason, as they lost all three games in which they failed to cross the plate three times.  It should be noted that in the 171 games the Mets have played this year, they've allowed three or fewer runs in 90 of those contests.  For all you kids out there, that's 52.6% of the time.  That bodes well for the Mets as they go up against a starting rotation that combined to post an ERA north of 5.00 in their 11 postseason starts.

The Royals also have a starting rotation that's entirely right-handed, with only Franklin Morales and Danny Duffy pitching from the left side out of the pen.  That means more at-bats for Michael Conforto and more comfortable plate appearances for Lucas Duda and Curtis Granderson.

The key to defeating the Royals is to get into the late innings with a lead, as Kansas City boasts a three-headed monster in the bullpen with set-up men Ryan Madson (2.13 ERA, 0.96 WHIP), Kelvin Herrera (2.71 ERA, 1.12 WHIP) and closer Wade Davis (0.94 ERA, 0.79 WHIP).  That's where the Mets' starting rotation of Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Matt Harvey and Steven Matz will come into play, and they're more than up to the task.

The four pitchers combined to post a 2.92 ERA and 1.08 WHIP during the regular season and continued to shine in the postseason against potent Dodgers and Cubs lineups (2.60 ERA, 1.10 WHIP).  Kansas City finished tenth in the majors in ERA and 13th in WHIP.  And for all of you saber-dudes out there, the Royals' 4.04 FIP was below the 3.96 league average.  When the Royals faced a team that was better than them in all three categories, their won-loss record was 17-20.  They were 78-47 against all other teams.  For the record, the Mets were fourth in the majors in ERA, second in WHIP and sixth in FIP (3.53 - more than half a run better than the Royals).

Last year, the Royals hit well against the Giants in the Fall Classic, scoring 26 runs in the 40 innings not pitched by Madison Bumgarner.  Of course, they crossed the plate just once in the 21 innings tossed by the Bumgarner Buzzsaw and that was enough to give San Francisco the crown.  The Royals are now about to encounter a staff full of Bumgarners when they face the likes of Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard and Matt Harvey in this year's World Series.

Kansas City might be Royal, but it's the Mets who will be celebrating a coronation.

Prediction: Mets in 5.

See you at the World Series!!