Kansas City Monarchs
Dad and I pulled into the parking lot at Legends Field in Kansas City, Kansas, ready for the whirlwind that is 20 ballparks in 21 days to commence. We pulled into a space right up front, and we didn’t even need Dad’s Disabled Parking Placard. In fact, aside from the group of employee cars parked a few rows back, ours was the only car in the lot.
The rain had lightened up a bit and was forecast to stop soon. We prayed that the Kansas City Monarchs grounds crew was skilled at wielding a tarp.
We soon learned through social media that the gates would open 30 minutes late, but the game would still start at the scheduled time of 1:05 pm. Dad and I filmed our introduction for the video series, then waited it out in the car — me fiddling with my backpack while I checked my weather app every minute or so.
A rainout in Game 1 of a massive ballpark road trip isn’t great. But I felt especially anxious about missing a game with the Monarchs, a legendary baseball brand.
The Kansas City Monarchs began in 1920 as a charter member of the Negro National League. The team claimed 10 pennants and two Negro World Series titles over 46 seasons of play in four different leagues — the longest-running Negro League franchise of them all.
One player most associated with the Monarchs is Satchell Paige, who pitched eight seasons for the club — never posting an ERA above 2.06. Another is Buck O’Neill, who managed the Monarchs in his ninth and final season as a first baseman for the team. O’Neil later became a key ambassador for the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and shared his joy for both baseball and life to his appearances in the Ken Burns documentary, Baseball.
Jackie Robinson and Ernie Banks, both household names for their Major League accomplishments, played for the Monarchs. “Cool Papa” Bell, a veteran of 20 seasons in the Negro Leagues, played stints with the team and managed the Monarchs minor league club from 1948-1950; Cuban star José Méndez pitched for seven years in Kansas City; Hurler Hilton Smith compiled a tidy 2.92 ERA in 12 seasons with the Monarchs; and Willard Smith led the league in hits in eight different seasons as a member of this storied franchise.
The current Monarchs franchise began as the Duluth-Superior Dukes, who started play in the independent Northern League in 1993 and moved to Kansas City as the T-Bones in 2003. The T-Bones won two titles in 17 seasons and, like most other teams in the Northern League, navigated to the American Association of Professional Baseball in 2011.
In 2021, the team partnered with the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum to rebrand as the Monarchs, celebrating this famous brand and reigniting the memories of its contributions to baseball and the community. The franchise promptly won its first American Association championship in 2021, then grabbed another title in 2023.
Legends Field was built in 2003 for the arrival of the T-Bones. The ballpark has a capacity of 6,537 for baseball, but it held as many as 10,385 in 2008, when it was home to the Kansas City Wizards (now Sporting Kansas City) of Major League Soccer. The Monarchs drew 2,026 fans per game in 2025, seventh-best in the 12-team American Association.
It’s just 300 feet down the left-field line to the foul pole, but the wall that extends from there is 18 feet high — dubbed The Little Green Monster as a tip of the cap to the original at Fenway Park in Boston. The wall angles out to 411 feet in left-center and 409 feet in right-center, giving plenty of room in the gaps for doubles.
As we admired the view from the concourse, Monarchs mascot Monty made his acquaintance.
We headed straight to the team store, always the first step in our ballpark process. Dad finds a good logo baseball, and I choose the one — and only one — team hat I allow myself to purchase at each ballpark. And yes, I really mean just one, now and forever. I have more than 100 of these caps hanging on my office wall today, and it looks like an invading army of colorful logos advancing upon the few family photos that remain.
The modern Monarchs employ many branding elements from the Negro Leagues franchise — the interlocking KC in a stark black-and-white; the red-and-navy color scheme; and the big font treatments on jerseys and hats, with a K on one side and a C on the other.
That was the hat I was looking for. I found just a few, and thankfully one fit me. Dad found his ball, and we were off to our wet seats.
Kansas City came into the game with a record of 10-4 after a hot couple of weeks to start the season. They led the West Division of the American Association, which features six teams teams that play in ballparks extending north from Kansas City, along the Missouri Rier, and up into Winnipeg, Canada. Most of the teams in the East Division of the league are clustered around Chicago and Milwaukee.
The Monarchs opponent was the Lake Country Dockhounds, located in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, just west of Milwaukee. They entered the day with an 8-5 record. Both teams would make the playoffs — the Dockhounds winning the East and the Monarchs finishing second in the West — but both would be knocked out in the first round.
Game 1 was soon underway. The Monarchs started Daniel Martinez, who reached Triple-A in the Atlanta Braves organization the previous year before pursuing independent baseball. The Dockhounds went with right-hander Luke Hansel, who was in his second year pitching for Lake County after a brief college career.
Jorge Bonafacio
Kansas City had four players with Major League experience on the 2025 roster. Best-known was outfielder Jorge Bonifacio, who had spent time with the Kansas City Royals, Detroit Tigers, and Philadelphia Phillies. After 13 seasons of mostly Minor League ball, Bonafacio played a year in the Mexican leagues before joining the Monarchs in 2025.
Bonafacio gounded out to second in his first plate appearance to end a scoreless first inning.
It was well past lunchtime when I hit the concessions looking for the Monarchs signature item: the Brisket-Topped Mac N Cheese. Having a lot of good ballpark food options on a slow Sunday is no guarantee, but I found it and ordered two. Fantastic.
The Monarchs opened the scoring in the third inning on a bases-loaded single by third baseman Alvaro Gonzalez. After six seasons in the minors, he had topped out in 2024 with the Triple-A Toledo Mud Hens before moving on to the American Association.
I checked my messages and found one from minor league and Iowa baseball superfan Lynn Smith. An owner of several dozen baseball jerseys and one of the nicest people you’ll meet, Lynn would hang out with us at our Quad Cities River Bandits game near the end of the trip. She was sitting behind the first-base dugout with Eric Proffitt, co-host of the Earned Fun Average podcast, part of the Curved Brim Media network of baseball- and sports-related podcasters — all of them well-versed in the minor leagues. Lynn, Eric, and Eric’s family were in town to see the Savannah Bananas and decided to spend some innings at Legends Field along the way.
The rain ended for a few innings, but it remained cold and dreary. It wasn’t the best day to book the “-196 Ice Box,” a group seating area where fans blast themselves with chilled air to cool off in hot weather. They seemed colder than everyone else, somehow.
Both starters had been sharp through five innings, with Kansas City still in the lead, 1-0.
That all changed in the top of the sixth when Dockhounds first baseman Luke Roskam and left fielder Brian Rey hit back-to-back homers off Martinez, capping a four-run rally. Lake County followed it with four more in the seventh when they sent 10 batters to the plate and hit a flurry of singles. The Dockhounds led it 8 to 1 going into the seventh inning stretch.
I started down the left-field line for a circuit of the 360-degree concourse for the final two frames.
The Monarchs scored one in the bottom of the seventh to make it 8-2.
Robbie Glendinning
Monarchs first baseman Robbie Glendinning hit a solo shot in the bottom of the eighth inning to close the gap slightly. A native of Australia, Glendinning was drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2017 and had since played in the minors, the Australian Baseball League, and Mexican League before joining Kansas City in 2025. He finished the season hitting .315 with 18 home runs in just 50 games.
As I walked past center field, I heard “Mapping the Path” and a mention of our big ballpark journey echoing over the speakers. I waved to the remaining throng of 30 or so fans.
The home team went down quietly in the ninth, and the first game of our ballpark journey was in the books. The Dockhounds had defeated the Monarchs 8-3.
A loss for the home team in a chilly, wet, lightly attended game. But we had avoided a rainout to start the trip and seen the Kansas City Monarchs in action. And did you see that hat? Time to celebrate.
J. Gilbert’s Steak & Seafood
We had experienced outstanding Kansas City barbecue for our first dinner in the city. For our last, it had to be a proper Kansas City steakhouse.
Joe Gilbert inherited a 12-seat diner from his father-in-law in 1927 and grew it into an “empire” of 48 restaurants, including six J. Gilbert’s Steak & Seafood locations. Known by locals as “The Dean,” Gilbert worked well into his 80s and is said to have had a “legendary love of hospitality.” We certainly felt that hospitality in the warm environs of his restaurant.
We started with French onion soup and a Caesar salad — both standouts in the Well-Worn Appetizer category.
We both had excellent Kansas City strip steaks; I paired paired with cauliflower au gratin. An Apple Blondie butter cake Apple Blondie with caramelized apples, vanilla ice cream, and toasted pecans finished the night (and us) off perfectly.