The Kansas City Royals are in a post-season winning streak that has local baseball fans in a frenzy. And with the World Series just one win away, the Royals staff at Kauffman Stadium is keeping extra busy — but despite all the extra work, they’re enjoying this post-season just as much as the players and fans.
“I think everybody is kind of out of their mind with excitement,” says Toby Cook, who has worked in community relations for the Kansas City Royals for eight years. He says the winning streak has been a lot of fun, but it’s also been a lot of extra work for Kauffman Stadium staffers.
“There’s some stress involved too in planning, you know not only the American League Championship Series, but dare we hope something that could come after that,” he says.
But Cook — a true blue Royals fan — says all the added stress has been well worth it. Despite all the staff excitement, nobody is taking this experience for granted.
The grounds crew staff is led by Trevor Vance who has been working very hard to ensure that the field is in perfect conditions for the home games. Vance has been with the Kansas City Royals for 30 seasons, but some of the staff has never experienced the Royals in post-season in their lifetime.
So after a big win, when all the Royals players jump on each other celebrating their victory, do grounds crew staffers worry about damaging the field?
Toby Cook says he’s never heard of a celebration messing of the grass or dirt on the field. But even if a celebration of great magnitude were to cause a little damage, he says that the grounds crew staff are all big time Royals fans and they wouldn’t mind cleaning up and the extra work.
“I think they would love nothing better than to see a celebration, and then they’ll just deal with whatever after,” he says.
