Bradford Lee

This summer marked the 35 th anniversary of the release of the movie Field of Dreams. We moved to Iowa 35 years ago July and after my dad and I unloaded the U-Haul, I asked him if he wanted to go see this movie that was getting some buzz in the press. Field of Dreams was the last movie we went to together and will probably remain so, given my dad’s age and health. Fitting, as he was the person who taught me how to play baseball. He spent countless hours teaching me to hit, pitch and how to field grounders. He’d get home from a long day at work and still in his work clothes, we’d start playing. He taught me how to keep a scorebook and how to spot the intricacies of the game. He told me stories about long-retired players and took me to my first professional game. Every boy (and baseball-loving girls) should be so lucky.

Under the category of “you learn something new every day,” this summer I spent a few days in Milwaukee. Having never stayed in Milwaukee before, I spent some time walking around the downtown area, sampling the local cuisine and beverages and came across this sign.

One of the first books I ever read, The Boys of Summer, is a baseball classic written by Roger Kahn, published in 1972. The book was probably my father's, as he was a Dodger fan as a young man. Even now, at 83, my father can recite the Dodgers lineup, position by position, complete with colorful anecdotes about each player. I often wondered how a poor boy from western Kansas grew up to be a Dodger fan. Understand in those days, television was a rarity, and televised games rarer yet. A lot of poor families didn’t even own a television. They would often go to town on Saturday evenings, where crowds would gather in front of the appliance store to catch a glimpse of whatever program was on the screen. The World Series was televised for the first time in 1947. That was two years after World War II ended. Up to that point, radio was the king.

With everyone properly freaking out about the Royals recent seven game skid, and Vegas taking bets on the possibility of them missing the playoffs, let’s all take a deep breath and look at what other Kansas City playoff teams have done in the past.

When I was a child, we stopped in Kansas City and visited Municipal Stadium. We parked in a lot on 22 nd Street and my father and I walked across the street to the stadium. It was a late morning and surprisingly, we were able to gain access to the stadium. We walked up a ramp and through a tunnel that overlooked the field. As we emerged from the tunnel, my senses were blown away by the vivid colors or green, red, and yellow. I’d never seen anything so beautiful in my young life.

Over the past week, we’ve all read multiple accounts of the last Athletics game in Oakland. In a nutshell, it’s been a colossal mess, a mess that could have and should have been avoided. In World War II parlance, it’s FUBAR.

With the Royals and Yankees squaring off in the playoffs for the first time since 1980 (how is that possible??) I thought it might be fun to take a walk down memory lane. Depending on your age, it could be traumatic.

That was fun, wasn’t it? Isn’t that what we’re trying to convince ourselves? That the 2024 season was a blast? In a lot of ways, it was. I mean think about it, they went from 106 losses in 2023 to 86 wins and a playoff berth in 2024. What’s not to like about that?

You know it when it happens.

When I was a child we lived in Concordia, Kansas, and every November 11 the city would have a Veterans Day parade. In those days it was still called Armistice Day. This memory has always stuck with me for several reasons. There would be a football game that day which my father would take me to. Those were the first football games I ever attended and sparked my love for the sport.