A pair of riveting announcements, certain to thrill sports-mined types…
First, the Kansas City T-Bones “baseball team” will not be playing the 2020 season.
Shocker.
Frankly, it would have been a bigger surprise if they announced they would play.
Indeed, KC’s most inconsequential professional sports team has accomplished little over its 17 year lifespan other than ducking out on rent payments to KCK and praying for the Royals to return to their last place ways or a Major League Baseball strike.
All of that said, let’s give the Bones a moment of silence and move on to…
Vaunted KU basketball coach Bill Self, who after spending the past year or so on what amounts to death row – as in being booted out of coaching for a year or more – has decided that his best defense is to go on offense and threaten to sue the NCAA.
And hey, why not?
When you’re making upwards of $7 million a year, why not drop a few grand – while the immediate future of college sports is in question – and the NCAA has money woes of its own?
However, given some of the seedy details pertaining to KU’s basketball program that came out during the Adidas trial and in HBO’s college basketball documentary The Scheme, does anybody really believe Self’s proverbial petticoats are clean?
In any case, it makes for a few halfway decent headlines for today’s sports-less world.
And who knows? Maybe it will save Wyandotte County some dough, not having to keep the lights on at T-Bones park and legal fees trying to collect the rent..
The T-Bones always seemed more to me about the facade of baseball with no serious thought to the game. Personally I am a minor league baseball fanatic and travel to stadiums all over the US during the summer. Minor league baseball is fun and affordable family fun. The Royals fun but not so much affordable. It is a shame that Minor League Baseball is not available in the KC area…but I get the big league city label so continuing to travel next summer (I hope) when MiLB starts up again why not…
I’m with you…
I remember the PR guy for the Royals in the early 2000s when the Bones first came here, explaining to me in great detail that Bones baseball was incredibly far below the level of the lowest minor league baseball team / league.
That most casual fans assumed the Bones level was a form of minor league
The T-Bones were a collection of “never was” and “never will be”…what makes Minor Leagues fun is the guys are hungry for a shot at the pros in a small setting….best setting I have been is in Beer City – aka Asheville NC to watch the Tourist play in a stadium that was built a 100 years ago on “Thirsty Thursday”…can not beat those $1 craft beers and memories…
You are truly a knowledgeable baseball grrrl…
The T-Bones are a group of guys that can’t make a leap to the real world and still have a need to play baseball and live for free in host family homes. The Legends has some great aspects but in it’s early stages there was a land rush style of invasion. All kinds of ideas and developments were let in by the Unified Government, who before then, was the lonely kid in the corner. T-Bones and Schlitterbahn both were sketchy from the onset.
Well said, Rainbow…
To be candid, I was skeptical of the NASCAR deal at first. Still n to sure what the overall numbers are for it , but it does get its fair share oof hype.
Speaking of which, wonder if the Renaissance Fest will go down this year.
Rainbow Man I agree on Schlitterbahn…I remember when the plans first came out there was supposed to be a development similar to the riverwalk in San Antonio. A series of eating establishments, shops and bars inside the development to go along with the waterpark. When it opened it was so scaled back it looked like a small water park in a dirt field. I liked the idea behind the T-Bones but no thought went into the product, only how many games and gimmicks you could put in between innings. I am a big fan of the Legends, it still has great promise and some things are very nice…
Clearly the Legends has been a plus for KCK…
Your Schlitterbahn recollection reminds me of the plans for Brush Creek to replicate San Antonio’s River Walk.
The restaurant concepts never materialized and the boats…how long have they been gone? bThey are gone, right?