For the record, I’ve been bagging on the T-Bones since Day One…
And I’ve gotta tell you, the Kansas City Star is complicit in the team’s latest financial fiasco by pretending that the games the T-Bones played halfway matter.
Because they really don’t.
Other than, like movies, they can provide a light-hearted distraction from our daily grinds.
That said, there are good movies and bad movies, as Jack will tell you.
Movies of a certain calibre that are produced by folks who theoretically at least know what they’re doing, have big enough budgets to assemble reasonably talented actors and a quality storyline or script.
Absent the above, we’re left with what some refer to as a Grade B (or worse) movie, that’s usually a waste of both our time and money.
And that’s exactly what the lowly T-Bones represent, only worse.
Because most actual “sports fans” knew better from the get-go and didn’t waste their time or money going to T-Bones games or even following the team’s win-loss record…which calls to mind why the newspaper bothered pretending that somebody did.
Instead of the Star giving the T-Bones minor cred, they should have documented how lame they were in not paying their rent, etc – and how ridiculous the Unified Government was to continue to throw good money after bad.
And talk about locking the barn door after the cow’s already gone – now that their season is done and the T-Bones ownership and management could care less, they lock them out after giving them a one month notice.
Which, of course, makes zero sense.
T-BONES OWNER JOHN EHLERT
The time to put the Bones out of their misery was either before the season started or – worst case scenario – in June or early July when it would have ever-so-slightly mattered.
Journalistically speaking, I can see it coming…
Stand by for a Sunday front page story from maybe Mike Hendricks and/or Steve Vockrodt, with a hefty serving of 20/20 hindsight, accompanied by a finger wagging editorial from the Star’s resident know-it-alls on what should happen next.
Can’t wait!
But in point of fact, it’s not really the T-Bones who are mostly at fault.
Plenty of well-intentioned business people make really bad decisions and investments and go down in flames.It’s the law of the jungle – it’s not like the T-Bones loser owners were secretly getting rich and at the last minute decided to unload their bad karma on us locals.
Shoot, check out the T-Bones website; they’ve got photos of pretty much everybody on the staff EXCEPT team owner John Ehlert and his son Adam Ehlert, the team’s president.
Kinda like, no way do those dudes want anyone recognizing them on the street.
Oh sure, the T-Bones owners were plenty dumb to have invested in a sports team and league this lame – this low on the professional baseball food chain – and expecting a different outcome.
So as they went down in flames financially, they did what any business person would do and paid the people they had to pay – the players and staff, the concession and fireworks suppliers and maybe the utility bills (if KCK didn’t get stuck for those, too).
T-Bones prez Sdam Ehlert and former Royals star Frank White
Now KCK is left with a nice little baseball park that will mostly be remembered for the T-Bones financial folly and the years Sporting Kansas City got stuck playing in arguably the worst soccer venue in MLS history.
Nice job, everyone.
The bottom line, as explained to me by the former marketing head of the Royals a while back.
Independent League Baseball is the lowest of the low. Some people think of it as Minor League Baseball, but it’s not.
In the pecking order of “organized baseball” in this country Major League Baseball is at the top, followed by Minor League Baseball – divided into AAA, AA, High A, Low A, Short-Season A, Advanced Rookie and Rookie (all of which are affiliated with MLB).
And far below that are the Independent Leagues, one of which the T-Bones play in…or played in.
That’s the bad news…the good news:
By choosing the T-Bone steak for the team’s namesake, at least they didn’t thrown the hallowed Kansas City Strip under the bus
In other news: not one person walking the streets of KC today have a clue who is in the MLB baseball playoffs.
News Flash: Watching professional baseball is out (MLB included), looking at your cell phone is in.
Well said, Kev
No one in KC knows who is in the playoffs mostly because the KC Royals are historical losers, and posted yet another 100 loss season. Had they been a playoff team, the bandwagon jumping rubes in this town would be scoreboard & tv watching with baited breath. But the Royals suck and will suck again next year.
Really unbelievable that someone would come in and rescue the baseball space and there is no need for it. The new people interested must be getting some solid up front money.
When the Bones came in the WYCO leaders were punch drunk on Speedway, Legends… etc. Everything they touched was turning to gold. (They Thought) The Royals sucked and the Ehlert family from Minneapolis sucked up the desperate karma from WYCO. Playing trend bullshit interest on minor league baseball. But even before the Royals got good in 2013-15.. Bones were already not living up to many promises to WYCO outside of the property dissolution.
Now WYCO owns a scrub minor league grandstand that was a trend 20 years ago. The best three things out there.. Cerner office complex, Sporting, Speedway. Everything else else is fluid fluff. Except for the massive car dealership expansion. That seems to fit well there in WYCO.
WYCO has no business owning a ballpark… But they bought it and are about to get screwed again.
About to be screwed?
I think that game is fully afoot.
T-Bones ….. never heard of them.
C’mon, now!
Agree with Rainbow Man, Minor League Baseball was the hot trendy thing 20 years ago, kind of like craft breweries CBD and having the latest cell phone have been over the last few years. Baseball is definitely waning, and seems to have even less of a cultural impact than it did before the minor league craze started in the ’90’s. Also, center cities are hot and far flung areas of the suburbs are not. So, you are bucking two trends by putting a minor league team somewhere out in the sticks that has no access to public transport. Also, the Northern League sucks and produces boring baseball. The one game I went to I left in the bottom of the 3rd inning, when the game was already an hour and a half old. I couldn’t see sticking it out for 3 more hours to see the final result of a game that meant nothing to me.
Quick reminder, and this is what my Royals market=ing main man stressed to me:
T-Bones ARE NOT minor league baseball. They are SEVERAL levels down from that in terms of the skill sets and calibre of play.
Remember, they moved here from Duluth for gosh sakes!
But it wasn’t about the quality of baseball. The model for teams like the T-Bones is the Frontier League, an independent league that has operated in the Midwest since the mid-nineties. Over the years, several Frontier League teams have, like the T-Bones, operated in cities close to Major League teams. They offered a low-cost alternative to the mom and dad who want to take the kids to a baseball game, but don’t want to pay major league prices. These teams have between-innings stuff going on that the kids like, concession prices that the parents like, and baseball that nobody cares about.
Like other commentators noted, public desire for this alternative has diminished. St. Louis’ Frontier League team, the River City Rascals, which has been a model for years, recently ceased operations as well. Tastes change, I guess. Who knows what people will like in twenty years?
Oh, I get that…I’m more than familiar with the league’s schick.
Which doesn’t exactly explain the Star sports page coverage or the fact that when the Royals had those good season’s they blamed their falling fortunes on competition from MLB
Where can you find a KC strip anymore. Every place I go even in KC, they call it the New York strip.
Good question, actually…
Well, the Hereford House for starters, and the Capital Grille.
Next question…