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Take a seat at the K By J. BRADY McCOLLOUGH When you walk into Kauffman Stadium for the first time, you could focus on the fountains that sparkle across the outfield, the giant Jumbotron in center field or the mounted Dodge Ram truck floating in the air in left field. What you might miss are the seats, innocuous enough to blend in perfectly, but maybe more important than any other feature of the stadium. See, the 40,000 seats at Kauffman have been there all along. They’ve seen Bobby Bonds’ two-run home run in the fifth inning of the 1973 All-Star Game. They’ve seen three no-hitters, nine playoff series and one World Series game seven. And now they’ve witnessed a flurry of six consecutive losses that left the Royals with a franchise record 13-game losing streak. They say there’s not a bad seat at Kauffman. Thank the architects who spent hour upon hour calculating sightlines. For five straight games, we sought the perspective of Section 126, Row CC, Seats 11-12 on the first-base side. The view, like the seat owners, was unique to say the least. A rally cap for the doughnuts The Royals lead 4-1 through five innings, and they have eight hits with 12 outs remaining. Not a normal baseball stat combo, is it? Hits and outs remaining? It is if you’re Bill Johnson, George Searle and family, nine native New Yorkers who are more interested in eating doughnuts than cheering on the hometown team. As part of a promotion, when the Royals get 12 hits in a game, every ticket to the game can be turned in for a dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts. So, four hits in the final four innings and the metropolitan area gets a little bit fatter. “That’s nine dozen doughnuts from Krispy Kreme,” says Searle, who moved to Overland Park three years ago. “We are going to have a doughnut-eating contest.” Johnson, seat 11, and Searle, seat 12, grew up in Brooklyn and have been friends since 1974. Johnson is a lifelong Yankees fan; Searle loves the Mets. This is Johnson’s first visit to Kauffman. He wears a Royals hat, undoubtedly fresh off the shelf. He’s one of those baseball fans who revel in things like the smell of the grass. He’s taking in Kauffman, in between keeping score after each at-bat just like his father did. “This is more like a minor-league game in some ways,” says Johnson, 52. Now, before you get mad and think “stuck-up New Yorker,” you should know that Johnson lives in New Jersey. You should also know that Johnson has lived a full baseball life. He’s seen game after game at Yankee Stadium and walked through Monument Park, touched the Green Monster at Fenway and snuck into game one of the 1972 World Series in Cincinnati. But in the eighth inning on Friday night, he cheers along with his kids for what’s really important. “WE WANT DOUGHNUTS!” the kids chant. As the bottom of the ninth begins, the Royals are losing 5-4, still stuck on eight hits. Johnson, a jokester, turns his hat inside-out into a rally cap. The kids roll their eyes. “We need extra innings!” he says. Welcome to Kansas City, Mr. Johnson. There is no Mantle, Mattingly or Jeter. There are no extra innings, only the bare minimum, and on this night, there will be no doughnuts. Much to say about the family Emery Hochstein is so glad you sat down with him this evening. He’s grabbing-your-arm, holding-your-hand glad. You don’t even have to ask Hochstein questions. Your arrival is a blessing to him, because now, he gets to talk about his family. The first thing he mentions — Emery doesn’t dance around what’s important — is that one of his 27 grandchildren is a two-time Super Bowl winner with the New England Patriots. Russ Hochstein started at left guard in the 2003 AFC championship game and in Super Bowl XXXVIII. The Patriots’ line allowed no sacks in those two games. Emery’s favorite moment from Russ’s career came in the Patriots’ latest Super Bowl run. Russ, who grew up in Hartington, Neb., and played at Nebraska, started at third tight end in the AFC championship game and then lined up at fullback for Corey Dillon’s 2-yard touchdown plunge in the Super Bowl. That’s Hartington for you: team-oriented, tough, resourceful. When Russ came home and saw Emery earlier this year, Emery had one question for him: “Did Corey Dillon thank you for your big block?” “All the time,” Russ said. This made Emery happy. You should always acknowledge a Hochstein’s effort. However, Emery is sad about one thing in regard to Russ’s success: His loving wife, Lorraine, wasn’t around to see either of Russ’ Super Bowl triumphs. “I would say, because I loved her dearly, that she was perfect,” says Emery, 83. “She was perfect to me.” Lorraine was not a complainer. She could always accept what life brought her. Emery says he fell in love with her the first time he danced with her at age 17. He was just a shy farm boy then. As the Royals embark on what will become a 16-1 shellacking by the A’s, Emery is sitting next to his son-in-law, Jerry Arkeld, who drove Emery from Omaha to Kansas City to see his daughter, who lives in Parkville. The family has become even closer since Lorraine’s death. “When she died,” Emery says, “we stuck together.” Emery has one final thing to say. “In 2008,” says Emery, a Democrat, “I’m running for president of the United States.” In Emery’s mind, he’s a Hochstein, so crazier things have happened. Free tickets and some chili fries It's the top of the second inning, the Royals are already losing 4-0, and it appears the consummate Royals fans are finally sitting in seats 11-12. Well, that’s because the seats are empty. That is, until two buffed-up teenagers plop down in them. Within five minutes of their arrival, the Royals are down 7-0. Tyler Danner and Gabe Bickel drove 25 minutes from Oak Grove for this? Danner, an incoming sophomore at Oak Grove High School, and Bickel, a graduated senior, are celebrities in their hometown. They’re studs on the football team, but in Oak Grove, it’s their wrestling prowess that draws the most attention. Oak Grove has won 12 state championships in recent years. “They pack the gym on our side,” Bickel says. “We’re big role models for kids.” Like their four predecessors, this is Danner and Bickel’s first Royals game this season. They came only because the tickets were free. Bickel says he used to come all the time in 2003, when the Royals were respectable. “I can’t wait for football,” Bickel says. Danner and Bickel were both one match away from making it to the wrestling state tournament in their respective weight classes this year. Bickel wishes he could have made state his senior year in the 152-pound weight class. Staying under 152 was a Royal pain. “I had to cut weight dramatically when I started,” Bickel says. “In the morning, I’d eat an energy bar. For lunch, two hardboiled eggs and an orange or apple.” Danner groans at the smell of hardboiled eggs. “If I had to lose weight that day,” Bickel continues, “I wouldn’t eat or drink anything. It’s like being anorexic. It’s tiring. It makes you miserable. That’s why I can’t keep a girlfriend.” Danner and Bickel say it’s not out of the ordinary for a wrestler to throw up his food. All for the chance to put on those black and orange tights. “It’s well worth it, though,” Danner says. Maybe so, but you can’t help but notice Danner’s satisfied look as he’s downing a basket of chili fries on Sunday. Shhhhh! This visit is top secret "What are your names?” is usually the easiest question for the owners of seats 11-12 to answer. Not tonight. A middle-aged man and woman decline. They work for the Internal Revenue Service. The man — we’ll call him Agent X — is checking up on some employees in Kansas City. The woman — we’ll call her Agent Y — is living in Kansas City temporarily. Agent X and Agent Y swear they are not here to audit the Royals, but they are startled by the $9 price to park in a lot that is less than half full. They wish they could tell you their names, but it just wouldn’t be smart. “Our employer is not the most popular organization in the world,” Agent X says. “If people find out our names, they’ll subscribe us to pornographic material, or we’ll get unusual phone calls. It would be open season. Some people don’t realize that.” Agent X has been working for the IRS for 25 years. He lives in Minnesota near the Twin Cities, where he’s the area director for the IRS employees of 10 states. Agent X travels a lot, so he’s been to about 20 baseball stadiums. This is his first stop in Kauffman. So, Agent X, what kind of a person decides to work in your organization? “People that are naturally inquisitive,” Agent X says. “We’re natural investigators. People that are more fact-oriented than the average individual. Within the organization, most of us are introverts, and it might be because of the nature of our employment.” IRS agents are not bar hoppers who like to meet random people. They stick together, because who else could possibly understand what they do? Agent X has two sons. “They know they have to be careful,” he says. Agent X and Agent Y have worked together in two different cities. Agent Y is born and raised in Oklahoma City and still lives there. She went to Oklahoma State to learn accounting. “I’m a Cowgirl,” she says. Agent Y is not a huge baseball fan, but she remembers that she once went to Minute Maid Park in Houston. “Formerly Enron Field,” Agent X says, laughing with a little too much pleasure. Could it be? Some real fans? It’s game five, and the search for diehard Royals fans continues for one more night. The eight inhabitants of seats 11-12 during the first four games were all first-time Kauffman visitors this season, hailing from seven states. They came to watch baseball, not the Royals. The patrons of our seats tonight don’t look like Royals fans, either. There are no George Brett Royal blue T-shirts, no caps, just a grandma and her daughter from Minnesota. They like the Twins. They’re nice people, but can it really be? Five games and not one true-blue Royal? “I think these are our seats,” a man says from behind. The Minnesota crew gets up casually and moves one row back. Seats 11-12 on Row CC in Section 126 are Kelly Shane and Mary Simpson’s. We don’t know what this means yet, but at least hope has been restored for a moment, if nothing else. Shane, a KC lifer who lives in Blue Springs, wears a brace around her neck as she sits next to her mother, another lifer who lives in Grain Valley. The brace is a symbol of the toughest two years of Shane’s life. She has spinal stenosis, a condition that affected every nerve in Shane’s body. At its worst, she couldn’t walk stairs. Shane didn’t want the surgery for the longest time — her parents always told her she was “little but loud” — but finally gave in earlier this summer. The Simpsons moved back to KC from Arkansas, where they’d moved to play golf every day. Shane went in for surgery July 1-2. The doctor removed her right hip and inserted slices of the hip bone into five spots in Shane’s neck. The surgery appears to be a success, and Shane was able to drive for the first time five days ago. This is their second Royals game since then. They sat near here Friday night, probably within earshot of the New Yorkers and their chants for doughnuts. They’ve been Royals fans from the beginning, and they’re not going anywhere. The Royals are on their way to losing the first five games of their home stand by a combined 51-13. This will be their 12th straight defeat. But even down 4-0 after an Indians grand slam, Mary, 70, is cheering on her boys. “GO DAVID! GO DAVID!” she yells as David DeJesus steps to the plate. Shane is enjoying being outside in the fresh air again. There was a time when she wondered whether she’d ever feel this good again. But, she says, “I’m no wimp when it comes to pain.” And finally, it all makes sense. The only diehard Royals fans in seats 11-12 have a high tolerance for pain. Go figure. “It’s a little disappointing this year,” Shane
says, “but everybody needs a little pat on the back. You
get yourself out of the dugout and you go on.”
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J. Brady McCollough - jbrady@coveringsports.com (email) - 816-868-2621 (cell) |
