Trip out to Kauffman Stadium......

I went out to the Royals game last night. Not a really great game from a fan's perspective. Got to see two homeruns land in the fountains, so that's always cool to see the big splash. Unfortunately, they were off the bats of the Royals' opponent. Royals lost 8-4 and Chicago hit a couple of bombs, one by former Royal Jermaine Dye.

My friend Rudy invited me to the game. He's a HS choir director and his choir was performing the national anthem last night. I showed up just a couple of minutes before they performed. It was around 95 degrees at gametime, so it was a pretty hot night. As I was walking in, I saw Rudy down on the field in a polo shirt, khaki shorts and Birkenstock sandals. Birkenstocks? Good lord. I was sitting next to Rudy's mom and asked her if she was responsible for Rudy wearing sandals to his big performance. She said she wasn't responsible for any of his fashion mix-ups since he's married. She said Mrs. Rudy is attempting to correct the situation with mixed results.

After the national anthem, I started a conversation with Rudy's mom regarding on of her other sons. Evidently, Rudy's brother is now a teacher in South Korea. South Korea?!?!?! Rudy's father quickly pointed out that his son in South Korea is now a millionaire (he's paid 1.35 million in South Korean currency annually). Evidently, he's teaching English to Korean kids as a second language. Note that he's teaching kids that are 5 years old! Also, he knew no Korean when he first went over in February. Evidently, he's learning the Korean language as he goes along and is running into the same situations as the kids who are attempting to learn English. Room and board are provided along with a flight to and from South Korea at the beginning and end of each school term. Sounds like a pretty good experience for a guy just out of college and single.

Around the second inning, they have a promotion where a kid tries to hit a ball out of a field just outside the stadium. The pitcher is Slugger, who just celebrated his 10th year as the Royals' mascot. It's shown on the videoboard and if the kid hits it out, the fireworks are shot off just like when a Royals player hits a homerun. So, the second inning came along and on the second pitch, the kid hit the ball out of the park. He circled the bases and the fireworks went off in the outfield. Everyone claps and then the third inning gets started.

After a half-inning, I look off beyond the outfield fence where the fireworks are located and notice a fire engine. I looked to the left and notice that there is smoke coming from the area where the fireworks mortars are launched. Evidently, something went wrong because the firemen are out with the hoses putting out a fire. Given the dry conditions in the Midwest right now, I wouldn't be surprised if the grass had caught on fire as well. Eventually, the fire was extinguished. I'm simply amazed at how the simple act of a boy hitting a ball out of a ballpark can trigger such a chain reaction. They should make that boy pay for the damage.

Another amusing form of entertainment between innings is the kiss cam. This seems to be used in most all of the ballparks at this point. For those that don't know the premise, the cameras focus on a couple and that couple is supposed to kiss while being shown on the videoboard. There's always a wide range of scenarios that seem to occur.

First is the young kids in love or somewhat recently married. Generally they lay a pretty good kiss on each other and follow the kiss with a smiling waive at the camera. The crowd generally doesn't respond with much of a reaction, because they fully expect exactly what they see. One younger couple did get a rise out of the crowd when the guy went in for a kiss with tongue fully extended.

Next is the older people (70+). There's something about older people kissing that seems to just drive women to say 'awwwwww!' quite loudly. I think it's the ideal that they want to be married to the same guy when they're that age and still be in love with them. It's that 'princess' ideal that women seem to have about relationships. They had 3 or 4 older people kissing that went off without a hitch. There was one couple that when they saw themselves on the screen the lady kind of gave this forced smile to the man sitting next to her and he gave the same forced smile back, so they evidently knew that neither one would be kissing the other. Worse yet, I got the feeling that they actually were a couple. Too bad.

Finally, there's the mistake pairings. These are two people that the camera operator evidently thought were a couple but it becomes quickly obvious that they are not from the reaction. There's often laughter followed by the universal sign for 'No way would I kiss that guy/girl!'. Last night, they had a mistake couple up on the board both waiving their arms. Fortunately, the guy in the couple had a buddy (male) who leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, making sure that the kiss cam wasn't a complete failure in regards to this specific couple.

If you go to the ballpark in the near future and any of your 'kiss cam' couples do not meet the criteria of one of the three groups I listed, you let me know. I simply don't believe it's possible.