Kauffman Stadium - Features

Features

Kauffman Stadium was the last baseball-only park built in the majors (not counting temporary facilities) from 1966 to 1991. It was one of the few baseball-only facilities built in the majors during the heyday of the cookie-cutter stadium era, and is one of two such facilities (Dodger Stadium is the other) that are still active and were never converted for use as multi-purpose stadiums.1

Although it is a baseball-only facility, its design took several stylistic cues from the multi-purpose stadiums of the day. The main stadium itself is primarily concrete, with a smooth, uncovered concrete facade. The stands wrap around the infield and end at the foul poles, with smaller bleacher sections (or "outfield plazas," as the Royals call them) in the outfield. In their book, The Ultimate Baseball Road Trip, Josh Pahigaian and Kevin O'Connell described it as one-third of a cookie-cutter stadium. The upper deck is quite steep, though not as high as other parks built during this time. Many minor-league stadiums built in the 1980s and early 1990s, as well as U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago, employ a similar design.

The sight lines are generally very good; the only seriously obstructed views are in the outfield plazas, where some seats are directly behind the foul poles. Many of the seats in the two view levels are almost as high as comparable seats in cookie-cutter stadiums, especially in the back rows. Most of the seats are on the first level, putting most of the fans very close to the action.

By 2000, all of the seats were replaced by blue seats, the lower section seating also getting cupholders.

The park's best-known feature is the fountain and waterfall display (known as the Water Spectacular) behind the right-field fence. At 322 feet, it is the largest privately-funded fountain in the world. The fountains are on display before and after the game and in-between innings, while the waterfalls are constantly flowing.

When the stadium was originally built, Kansas City was the westernmost major league city other than those along the Pacific Coast (1,600 miles away), which was a major reason why the Royals initially decided to use a faster-draining AstroTurf surface. The Royals' home territory included a large swath of the Great Plains and Rockies, and Kauffman didn't want fans who drove many hundreds of miles to go home without seeing the game completed. The Truman Sports Complex's legendary groundskeeper, George Toma, best known as the head groundskeeper for every Super Bowl, thus had the ironic job of maintaining two carpets for most of his career, along with the surface of Arrowhead Stadium, which had AstroTurf from 1972 through 1993.

The arrival of the Colorado Rockies, however, removed virtually all of the western portion of the Royals' once-vast home territory. Also in 1995, the stadium's turf was replaced by grass for the season. When the Royals ripped out the turf, 4 inch perforated tile was installed at 12.5-foot centers across the entire field. As a result, the current grass field drains very well. Many newer facilities (and some older facilities through retrofitting) have similar drainage systems to minimize downtime after rain delays.