May 11, 2024

By Fred Liggett
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The Kansas City Royals began a new home stand on Friday, May 3 going up against the reigning World Series Champions the Texas Rangers. The Royals enjoyed the month of April winning 18 games the most in franchise history for a first month of the season.

Was it the Royals winning ways, the nice weather or having the 2023 World Series Champions in town that drew such a large turnout for game one to Kaufman Stadium? David Holloway of Kansas City, Missouri says he “goes whenever he can.” For Holloway seeing the current Rangers team is another day at the ball park. Holloway states “seen baseball since I was little, then played American Legion ball.” Holloway who is a partial Royals season ticket holder admits he “once saw Japan baseball, the Hiroshima Carp” while being stationed in Japan. Regarding the three members of the Royals receiving World Series rings prior to the game Holloway thinks “always good when a player achieves that,” then adds “a lot of hard work to make it to this level of baseball.” Before the game the Texas Rangers presented World Series rings to current Royals Will Smith, Chris Stratton and Cole Ragans who all spent time with the Rangers in 2023.

Mike Arens is a long-time Royals fan who came to the game from out of state. Arens, an Ames, Iowa resident, on seeing the reigning Champions play, “I’m more a Royals fan.” Upon hearing about the World Series rings being presented to current Royals Arens says, “That’s exciting, more talent on the team the better.” Arens attends 10-12 games a season.

When the first home game of the new month ended it was the Royals who enjoyed a 7-1 victory in front 25,690 fans. The crowd was the largest at Kaufman Stadium since opening day. All the fun on Friday night was followed up with a 15-4 drubbing of the Royals as the Rangers evened the series. On Sunday the Royals came up short to Texas in 10 innings by a 3-2 score. The Royals would welcome the NL Central Division leading Milwaukee Brewers next starting on Monday, May 6. At that time the Royals were tied with the Minnesota Twins in second place in the division trailing the Cleveland Guardians by 2.5 games.