The National Ballpark Museum

Must see for fans

On a recent trip to Denver to see the Royals play, more on that later, my son and I had the opportunity to make a visit to the National Ballpark Museum. The Museum is located at 1940 Blake Street, just a long home run from Coors Field.

The museum is the brainchild of one Bruce “B” Hellerstein, who started putting this astounding collection together in the 1980s, securing the current location in 2010.

The main focus of the museum is what’s called the 14 Classic Ballparks: Crosley Field, Forbes Field, Sportsman Park, Shibe Park, Ebbets Field, League Park, Wrigley Field, Comiskey Park, Braves Field, Yankee Stadium, Tiger Stadium, Griffith Stadium, Fenway Park and the Polo Grounds.

For someone like me, a classic stadium geek from the get-go, it was almost too much to process. The museum is small, but jam-packed with all sorts of team and stadium memorabilia. The Museum has a Ballpark Wall of Fame, which displays seats, bricks and models of all 14 classic stadiums.

It’s been said that professional football looks forward and baseball looks back. There’s a lot of truth to that. Old stadiums evoke certain emotions, a simpler time when people rode the subway to the stadium, when men wore three-piece suits and fedoras to the game. What comes to your mind when you think of the Polo Grounds? Bobby Thompson’s famous home run? A young Willie Mays making “the catch”? How about Ebbets Field? Perhaps it’s Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier or crowds celebrating as “Da Bums” finally beat the Yankees in the World Series. Sportsman Park? Maybe it’s the sight of Stan Musial peaking around his shoulder at the pitcher or Enos Slaughter running through a stop sign on his mad dash. Each of these classic ballparks evokes memories, good and bad, for you can’t have joy without some heartbreak.

Each stadium has a section of the museum dedicated to it. Some of the gems you’ll find are turnstiles, jerseys, pennants, sections of the stadiums, signs, photos, autographs, banners, usher uniforms, gloves and much more. To see actual pieces of Ebbets Field or the Polo Grounds was just a mind-blower for me, including the Ebbets Field dugout seat of Babe Ruth.

Even though Kansas City’s Municipal Stadium was not one of the 14 classics, the museum has a generous display of items from the old stadium. The display includes both Royals and Athletics memorabilia, including a green stadium seat, a couple of older game programs, the lineup card for a May 25, 1970, game for the Royals (they won – 7-to-1 over the White Sox), a very nice display dedicated to Buck O’Neil and a sweet looking poster advertising the Negro League Museum.

One of the oddball Kansas City pieces that caught my eye was this calendar from 1957 which has a nice picture of the stadium. The calendar was put out by Byrne Business Furniture Company.

The museum has a large section dedicated to the Denver Bears, who were a mainstay in town before the Rockies arrived, including an impressive collection of Bears jerseys and this cool logo stadium sign.

The National Ballpark Museum is a place that every serious baseball and stadium fan needs to visit. If you’re in the Denver area, I highly recommend taking a tour. It’s one of the most impressive collections of baseball history that I’ve been honored to see. My son’s favorite exhibits were the seats and bricks from the old stadiums and the Ebbets Field section. For me, well, I was like a kid in a candy store. I liked everything.

The Museum has a first-class website: www.ballparkmuseum.com and a staff of super friendly and knowledgeable volunteers. The museum is open Monday through Saturday from 11 am to 5 pm.

Royals – Rockies

Coming into this series, Royal fans were hoping to take at least two if not all three games from the lowly Rockies. Colorado had other plans, taking the first two games of the series, before the Royals salvaged a little pride in game three.

We went to the Saturday night affair, which was attended by almost 34,000, including a large swath of Royal fans. It’s great to see so many fans come out, especially on the road. We were hopeful for a win, with Seth Lugo on the mound. Unfortunately, the Royals didn’t come to play. Maikel Garcia led off the game with a single, then things went flat. Royal Nation has been suffering lately from some existential angst. Coming into the year, most of us would have been happy with a 75-win season. We may still get that!

When the team got off to a hot start and the boys were on pace to win 90 games, and make the playoffs, we adjusted our expectations, as fans are wont to do. After beating Tampa on May 25, the Royals were 15 (15!) games over .500 at 34 and 19. As Butch Cassidy would say, “who are those guys?” Since that glorious day, they’ve fallen back to earth a bit to bring their record to a still respectable 52-45. With just over 60 games left, they’re going to have to fight for a playoff berth. Another long slump will probably bury them. Going .500 from here out gets them to 84 wins, a massive improvement over 2023, but leaves them with a razor-thin edge for the playoffs.

First a bit about Coors Field. For a stadium that is 29 years old, Coors still plays like a new park. It’s a beautiful venue with great sightlines and ample concourse room. You can ride the train and disembark close to the park (as we’ve done before) or drive in, which we did this time. Parking was relatively easy and getting out after the game was surprisingly quick for a downtown stadium.

Now about the game. Seth Lugo just didn’t have it this night. After Garcia made a bad throw on a Brendan Rogers grounder in the second, Brenton Doyle made him pay by crushing a two-run shot into the Rockies bullpen. After the Garcia leadoff hit, the Royals couldn’t get anything going. Rockies starter Austin Gomber, who came into the game at 1 and 5, retired eleven in a row, before Sal Perez singled. Hunter Renfroe, who had three hits on the night, torched a double down the left field line, putting Royals at second and third, but MJ Melendez went down swinging. That started a string of six more consecutive outs before Vinnie blasted a long ball into the Royals bullpen. This cut the Rockies lead to 3-1 and with Lugo battling, the Royals still had a chance.

Lugo gave them six innings, but it took him 100 pitches to get that. Sam Long worked around a Charlie Blackmon double and Chris Stratton worked a shaky eighth inning, but somehow escaped unscathed. The Royals tried to mount a ninth-inning rally around a Renfroe single and a Freddy Fermin walk but couldn’t pull it off.

This is a hard team to figure out. You could tell early that Lugo didn’t have his best stuff, but he battled every inning. Bobby Junior ran into a baserunning blunder in the eighth, getting caught between first and second, which short-circuited a potential rally. He knows that must be cleaned up.

Kyle Isbel made an outstanding catch in the sixth on a rip by Doyle. When it came off the bat, I told my son, that one’s over his head. Wrong. Isbel ran it down, making a full-speed running catch over his shoulder before doing a Bo Jacksonesque one step run up the center field wall. I wish there was a place that could rank catches on degree of difficulty, like they do with divers. Heck, maybe there already is? In my humble opinion, this was a difficult catch and Isbel pulled it off.

As Royal fans, we’ve been somewhat spoiled by having some great centerfielders, guys like Amos Otis, Willie Wilson, Bo Jackson, Carlos Beltran and Lorenzo Cain. But I’ll be the second person to tell you that Kyle Isbel’s glove is every bit as good as those stars. If the team can coach him up to be a .270-.280 hitter, he’d become a cult hero.

On the downside, the team must send Melendez to Omaha for a reset. I like the kid, but damn, he’s lost right now. The coach in me thinks his stance has too many moving parts. His feet, his butt, his upper body, it just looks awkward and major league pitchers are ruthless. Once they identify a weakness, they’ll exploit it until you adjust. It may be too late in his career to overhaul his batting approach. His glove is fine. He made an outstanding catch in this game, but the Royals cannot afford to have a .190 hitter playing every day. I’m hoping he can do an Alex Gordon-type overhaul and come back as a complete player. He’s got the athleticism to do it.

The bottom four in the order killed them in this game, going 1-for-14. My thought, and hope, is with the team over .500 and in contention, they’ve got to be buyers at the deadline. An outfielder and a couple of pitchers could make the difference between making or missing the playoffs.

We’ll see what kind of magic GMJJ can pull off.