Flak Magazine: Condiments and Condemnation: The Kansas City Blues, 06.21.06

Professional baseball requires a lot of community resources: Stadiums must be filled 81 times a year. Six-team farm systems must be maintained. And owners cannot rely on a national TV contract, as National Football League franchises can. Large local businesses must supply season ticket holders, and large populations are required to put 2 million butts in seats every season. The smaller the city, the smaller the TV and radio contracts and the smaller the attendance pool. In a town like Kansas City, just now transforming from a cow town to a cosmopolitan city, these handicaps are exacerbated. Kansas City is the smallest market in professional baseball, as it was in 1969. It's a risky venture, and whoever takes it on stands to lose a lot of money, but Kauffman's franchise won more games between 1975 and 1990 than anyone other than the Yankees and Red Sox.

Ewing Kauffman was more than a gimmicky "innovator." He treated the Royals as an entrepreneurial venture. In other words, he treated the Royals like he treated his successful pharmaceutical laboratory. Unlike Alabama native Finley, Kauffman was a Kansas City man. He built a billion-dollar pharmaceutical laboratory on a $5,000 investment. He understood that being a small market offers certain advantages (smaller operating costs, high-profile community recognition to draw the best talent, the intimate small-community feel), but it also has severe disadvantages (limited wealth and population pool to draw from). Kauffman had a long-term plan to adapt these advantages into a model for a winning baseball team, while employing new, creative ideas to turn small-market weaknesses into strengths. That's what successful Kansas City companies thrive upon, and why so many big companies still make their home in the area.

Kauffman created the Royals Baseball Academy, which incorporated new technology and new methods of instruction into an entirely new type of baseball school. The RBA recruited players with specific "tools," and was one of the first baseball schools to employ weight training. More importantly, RBA taught them to play the speed-based type of baseball that became the Royals philosophy — otherwise known as Whiteyball, referring to the style of baseball employed by former Royals and St. Louis Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog. In other words, the Royals manufactured players to play the specific brand of Royals Baseball. The Royals Baseball Academy got an amazing 14 of 77 players to the majors, including eight-time Gold Glove winner and Kansas City native Frank White, whose number is one of three retired by the Royals. A statue of White sits outside the right field gate at Kauffman Stadium, with a testament to the role the Royals Baseball Academy played in his career.

Kauffman also invested heavily in scouting and development, especially when free agency exploded baseball salaries after 1973. Kauffman knew that power is expensive, but speed is cheap, and that young players are cheaper than veterans. So, rather than buy expensive free agents, for nearly two decades the Royals brought a steady stream of talent to the majors on a modest budget because they had one of the deepest farm systems in all of baseball. The Royals developed players who played Royals Baseball — lots of speed, great defense, run manufacturers. More importantly, the Royals routinely brought Major League-quality pitching to the team.

In fact, the Royals philosophy was to build a team around the stadium Kauffman helped build: The outfield is one of the most spacious in baseball, where long fly balls by other team's sluggers would die into the gloves of speedy centerfielders like Amos Otis and Willie Wilson. Royals Stadium's artificial turf turned routine ground balls into singles — except when Gold Glovers like Frank White chased down five-hoppers in short right field.

Mr. K's Telescopic Vision

On the business side, Kauffman envisioned the Royals as not just Kansas City's franchise, but as a regional franchise. Despite being the smallest market in Major League Baseball, Kansas City is the largest metropolitan area in its six-state region, which makes it a weekend destination for millions of Midwesterners every summer. With some of the most affordable family ticket packages in baseball, Mr. K ensured that the Royals became a part of thousands of families' weekend plans. Because Kansas City itself isn't large enough sustain adequate attendance, about 35 percent of the Royals' attendance comes from out-of-towners. On a Saturday trip to the ballpark you'll see license plates from Arkansas to Wyoming, from South Dakota to Oklahoma. This brings millions of dollars to the city, and because Kansas City is the only truly major league city between St. Louis and Denver, the Royals inspired loyalty across the Midwest. Fans who never had Major League Baseball before suddenly had Denny Matthews in their cars and living rooms, talking about the young Royals confronting goliaths like the Baltimore Orioles and New York Yankees. Kauffman's teams never wore the city's name on their jerseys — they were the "Royals," a testament to their status as a regional franchise. To this day, the Royals still maintain radio affiliates in Yankton, S.D., Russellville, Ark., and Sundance, Wyo.

Also, at a time when Cincinnati, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and others were building multi-purpose, "toilet bowl" stadiums, Kansas City built the Truman Sports Complex. The Truman Sports Complex is two stadiums and a giant parking lot, one for football and other large-scale events, and the baseball-only Kauffman Stadium. Busch Stadium, last of the toilet bowl stadiums, was imploded at the end of last season. But because Kansas City's two stadiums suffered only half the wear of other stadiums built in the '70s, they're still two of the best stadiums in MLB and the NFL. In fact, though it's more than 30 years old, Arrowhead Stadium was named by Sports Illustrated as the "toughest place to play" in the NFL, and boasts one the best gameday atmospheres. Kauffman Stadium is one of the oldest in league, but is routinely called one of the best and most beautiful stadiums. Its landmark features are the largest privately funded fountains in the world, built by Kauffman himself for Kansas City, the city of fountains. (Mr. K had a special control panel in his suite to control the fountains, which he would sometimes shoot off in the middle of innings.) Only now has the city, with its limited resources, decided to invest in major renovations.

Mr. K lost nearly $20 million on the Royals, but he was happy to absorb the cost. He built a billion dollar business in Kansas City, and he gave more than a billion back to the community. Mr. K's foundation is still one of the largest charitable trusts in the world, investing in educational opportunities for future American entrepreneurs. His investment in the Royals made Kansas City a major league city. A statue of Ewing and Muriel Kauffman, holding hands as if walking across the concourse of the stadium that bears their name, stands in testament to the gifts they left to the city.

The Royals have never recovered from Mr. K's death in 1993. Kauffman put the team in a trust containing a provision that the next owner of the Royals would have to donate any profit from the sale of the team to Kansas City charities. Mr. K wanted to keep the future owner from moving the team from Kansas City, but in a city this size, there are few who could afford to buy the Royals. A painful six-year search for ownership resulted, finally, in former Wal-Mart CEO and Mr. K's personal friend David Glass purchasing the team.

However, during this time, the team's internal affairs deteriorated: The farm system dried up from a lack of resources and mismanagement, the stadium became run down and Kansas City itself was mired in an economic slump that saw major companies leave the area. Mr. K wanted to leave the Royals as a gift to Kansas City, but his trust left the Royals in a vacuum, in which the fragile infrastructure that bred the Royals' success fell into disrepair. Still, the Royals are here in Kansas City when, if not for Mr. K's trust, they would probably be the Las Vegas or Portland Royals.

If Charlie Finley was Kansas City baseball's "innovator," and Ewing Kauffman its "entrepreneur," David Glass is Kansas City baseball's CEO. While the Royals searched for ownership, Glass served as the Chairman of the Board of the Royals from Mr. K's death in 1993 until 2000, when he bought the team outright. His tenure of ownership has included three 100-loss seasons. However, in true CEO form, Glass has worked miracles for the Royals' bottom line. Glass has more than doubled the value of the Royals since his purchase, increasing increasing it from $96 million to $239 million — which does not include the windfall from the $425 million in publicly funded stadium upgrades (Glass kicked in $25 million of a $575 total package, a very low sum compared to other stadium deals).

While Glass increases the value of his investment, Royals fans are stuck with baseball that's embarrassing and demoralizing. Kansas City suffers jokes by Letterman and Leno; Jimmy Fallon punked the Royals in Fever Pitch. It's difficult to imagine Kauffman ever allowing his investment to slip so low. But that's the difference between Kauffman and Glass, as businessmen, owners of the Royals and as community leaders.

Simply put, as long as the Royals continue to lose, there will be no statues of Glass anywhere around the stadium that bears his friend's name. Unlike Mr. K, Glass is not an entrepreneur: He has no long-term plan for building a successful franchise that will produce winners. Rather, Glass is modern CEO: He has worked tirelessly in the corporate boardrooms of baseball to ensure a healthy bottom line for his investment at the expense of the community that bears it. Glass was instrumental in establishing a revenue-sharing system in which the rich franchises compensate poor franchises. Essentially, Glass has led the fight to create a baseball welfare system that ensures that his investment makes money whether the team wins or not. Glass has shown that he is not interested in building a winning franchise that will bring sustained growth to his investment through gate revenues, merchandising, and other success-related revenues. Rather, he has taken care of his bottom line by aligning the industry structure to his interests. This, from the CEO of Wal-Mart, whose employees are reportedly encouraged to apply for welfare and public health benefits in small towns where the company won't pay a living wage.

Glass pays his baseball operations people far below the industry standard, he refuses to pay top prospects the signing bonuses of their peers, and he has squandered the Royals' best players by dumping salary and demanding too little in return. Baseball insiders have talked for years about the Glass family meddling in baseball decisions, leading to the disaster on the field today. For instance, Former Mets GM and ESPN analyst Steve Phillips told Kansas City sports talk radio that he knows "for a fact" that Allard Baird was not allowed to listen to deals involving Royals captain and perennial trade candidate Mike Sweeney. This year, Sweeney was booed after a check-swing grounder on opening day, and now has a bulging disk in his back that leaves him with almost no trade value.

At least Charlie Finley cared if Kansas Citians came to watch his ballclub. But David Glass doesn't need to care if they come to The K. When Glass' marketing department has to rely on Finleyian gimmicks like Hot Dog Derby T night, he sends the message that he, in fact, doesn't care. Because David Glass the CEO has established a winning bottom line for the losingest franchise in sports, Royals fans are a negligible commodity. Just as Charlie Finley is still hated in Kansas City for insulting it with gimmicks and losing baseball, David Glass is earning the city's wrath for forcing the team to give away T-shirts with hotdog condiments on them. Finley owned Kansas City's baseball team when just having a team was enough. But David Glass owns the team when the city needs its success, and he's being stingy on the hotdogs.

A city like Kansas City needs its professional baseball team to be successful. As the recently deceased Hall of Fame sportswriter and Kansas City community leader Joe McGuff noted, "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."

McGuff was instrumental in bringing the expansion Royals to Kansas City in 1969; 16 years later he threw out the first pitch of Game 7 of the World Series, in which the Royals brought Kansas City a world championship. More than anyone, Joe McGuff understood how professional baseball changed how Kansas City looked at itself, how the Royals brought pride to a city that lost much of its industry and stockyards, and now how professional sports helps give Kansas City an identity to fuel its urban renaissance.

On his deathbed, Joe McGuff told his award-winning colleague Joe Posnanski that "we have to keep the Royals." Joe knew that the Royals are tied to Kansas City's future. The city knows it too: More out of civic pride than a desire to watch Doug Mientkewicz bat third for a hundred-loss baseball team, Jackson County, Missouri voted nearly $500,000 in taxes to keep the Royals and Chiefs in Kansas City. With the passage of this tax, which hurts many of the area's poorest citizens, Jackson County truly owns a part of this franchise. David Glass may own the Royals, but they're more than a quasi-public institution to Kansas City.

David Glass still lives in the bubble of Bentonville, but $425 million says that he owes the community a return on its investment. In other words, he needs to understand what the Royals mean to Kansas City and act like a community leader. If Major League Baseball fails in KC, it tells the rest of the country that Kansas City isn't a viable American city. If the Royals lose in historically bad proportions, and is propped up by a corporate welfare system, it tells the rest of the country that Kansas City isn't a place you want move your company or your family. Simply put, the Royals being a national joke affects how others see the city.

KC Digs In

Kansas City knows it needs the Royals to be successful, and it stepped up to the plate. This is not to say that more Ambiorix Burgos two-homer ninths are going to cause the H&R Block building to crumble into the Missouri River, but a successful baseball team is more than just a good draw for young professionals and for big companies who give perks to employees and entertain clients. It's the city's public face to the rest of the country. Against all odds, Kansas City still loves the Royals. But can KC really expect newcomers to embrace these guys? Or should new Kansas Citians just throw their loyalty behind their favorite condiment? Should the Royals introduce another condiment for newcomers? Say, onions?

Beyond allegiance to ketchup and relish, Royals fans are not like Red Sox fans or Cubs fans. Fans in those cities turn the pain of losing into a pseudo-spiritual search for meaning. But Boston and Chicago are major cities that are viable whether the World Series comes back or not. In fact, part of their charm is the losing despite their natural advantages over the rest of the league.

The Royals are different. To Kansas City, having Major League Baseball in itself is a message to the rest of the country. A successful Royals team says to America: If you're small and scrappy, you can beat the Yankees with a homegrown MVP like Frank White and a farm system that produced a Hall of Famer like George Brett. David Glass is not exactly known for realizing the impact his business has on the communities or the people who live there. When he bought the Royals in 2000, David Glass promised that he would move to Kansas City. Six years later, he still lives in Bentonville, occasionally flying to KC to watch his baseball team. Because Glass has not moved to KC, he is disconnected from the impact of losing on the demoralized fan base, he is not accountable to the Kansas City media, and shows the Kansas City community that he just doesn't realize or care about the impact his embarrassing team has on the city. This is a man who walked away from an interview with 60 Minutes when the questions about Wal-Mart became too tough. That's understandable, but David Glass is so thin-skinned that he can't seem to handle mid-market sports reporters. He leaves Royals fans twisting in the wind.

Not only that, he doesn't treat his own front office with respect, forcing them to jump in front of bullets for him in Kansas City. He fired General Manager Allard Baird after embarrassing and humiliating him for a month, leaving Baird to answer questions about whether those "significant changes" that were promised meant his job. Baird, who gave his entire adult life to the Royals, deserved to be fired after The Plan never came to fruition. But Glass let Baird twist in the wind, working 20-hour days on a draft he would not conduct. This is why Kansas City Royals fans lay the blame on Glass and not Baird. Not only does Glass treat Kansas City with the same contempt as Charlie Finley, he treated his general manager worse than an assistant produce manager at the Supercenter. Not only did Baird not get to give his two weeks' notice, he was micromanaged by his CEO.

Somehow, in the first ray of hope for the Royals in many years, Glass has lured the top GM prospect in the league to the Royals. New GM Dayton Moore learned under John Schuerholz, architect of the Royals' glory years of the 1970s and '80s. The Braves win with scouting and development, just like the Royals did. Dayton Moore is a true-blue Royals fan from Kansas. During his first press conference with the Kansas City media, Moore told a moving story about how he and his friends drove from Garden City, Kansas to KC and parked just off I-70 to watch Game 7 of the 1985 World Series from the hill looking into Royals Stadium. Moore turned down the mighty Red Sox last year, partly because he didn't want to move his family to Boston. Instead, he opted for the "challenge" of Kansas City and to move his family here. Royals fans can hope that Glass gives the revenue-sharing check he received on June 1 to Dayton Moore and lets him build the city a winner.

This is Glass's last chance at Royals success, and it's his last chance to redeem himself to Kansas City. Charlie Finley would have given us T-shirts with hotdog condiments; Ewing Kauffman gave Kansas City players worthy of bobbleheaded glory. Royals fans used to get growth posters of George Brett slugging base hits; now Royals growth posters feature the team mascot. As long as Glass skimps on his investment in the Royals, he will remind Kansas Citians more of the losing and gimmicks of Finley than the success of Kauffman.

In fact, Finley may be one of the most hated figures in Kansas City history, but David Glass is worse: He doesn't have to care whether Kansas City supports his baseball team, and he certainly acts like he doesn't. Beyond condiment T-shirts, the Royals revoked the credentials of two local radio reporters who asked tough but fair questions about Glass's disgraceful treatment of Allard Baird at Dayton Moore's introductory press conference. These reporters did nothing more than ask for answers that the Glass family never gave Royals fans. What should have been a celebration turned ugly, and now the incident has yet again caused the Royals national embarrassment. The Royals' front office responded to the criticism by posting on, yes, their newly-created "official" blog. Kansas City deserves better, especially at a time when the city needs the Royals to be successful. Kansas City needs David Glass to let Dayton Moore develop players good enough for free T-shirts to show that it's more than a condiment-cheering city. That's something Kansas City can truly relish.

E-mail Stephen Himes at stephenhimes@hotmail.com.