Herrold’s Hearings: No Place Like Home

By Seth Herrold
@HerroldTimes
R-T Sports Editor
Watching the Kansas City Royals the past couple of nights has really got me craving a night at the ballpark. There is nothing, in my mind, like a summer night at Kauffman Stadium.
Sure, the Royals winning the past two nights has something to do with this, but the interns running the Royals’ social media platforms, particularly on Instagram and Twitter, have done an incredible job capturing Kauffman Stadium’s beauty during this week. I haven’t been to the stadium since Opening Day and it was freezing. I vowed that day not to come back until the weather started to play a more friendly tune. Well, the weather has warmed up and I still haven’t gotten back.
Part of that is my wife’s school year being extended by two weeks worth of missed days in the winter by sickness and weather. Today is the last day of school at South Harrison, though, so a couple of date nights at Kauffman Stadium are in our future. I once wrote a column on how great Kauffman is for a date night, by the way. You can read that right here.
For me, Kauffman Stadium has always been my favorite sporting venue. It’s home to me. Most fans tend to feel that way about their team’s home park. My brother and I often have the conversation about what our favorite “non-Kauffman” ballpark or “non-Faurot” football stadium is. We have to word it that way because no matter how much better a place might be, it’s not going to top your list.
With that, I’m getting back into the Herrold’s Hearings swing. I have some old questions that I’m going to get to here. I’ll be opening up for questions again this weekend, so stay tuned on Twitter. You can follow me on the Twitterverse @HerroldTimes. As always, thanks for reading.

I have been pretty fortunate to see some cool sports venues in person. Most of them center around baseball and college football.
My short list would have to include Wrigley Field in Chicago, IL, Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, NE and Darrell K. Royal Stadium in Austin, TX. Those three venues are very historic places and they all have their own different atmosphere that makes them unique.
My surprise pick would have to be Citi Field in New York, the home of the Mets. A lot of people aren’t big fans of new stadiums, but the Mets hit a home run with theirs. They stylized it after Ebbets Field, the old home of the Brooklyn Dodgers. It’s a modern take on a baseball classic and it’s just fantastic. You enter the stadium through the Jackie Robinson Rotunda, which is a very cool element to the stadium and the old Shea Bridge from the Mets’ previous stadium has been re-purposed as a pedestrian bridge to get from the right-field side of the outfield plaza to the left-field side. All the seats are painted green like the seats at the Polo Grounds – another famous New York ballpark. I’m a sucker for vintage baseball stadiums, so those elements really went over well with me. I have been to six major league ballparks and Citi Field ranks right at the top.
Speaking of major league parks, my bucket list has always been to see all 30 MLB teams at home – carefully worded that way to avoid having to go see a Braves game every 10 years when they build a new stadium. I would say of the ones left, I’m really looking forward to Fenway Park in Boston, PNC Park in Pittsburgh and, of course, Coors Field in Denver.
Outside of baseball I have been to some cool venues, just not during their marque events. I was at Indianapolis Motor Speedway once and they were actually testing Indy cars that day. It was pretty cool to see. Watching that on TV doesn’t justify what it’s like to be standing at the fence when one of those cars goes by at full speed. I was also at Churchill Downs in Louisville, KY and would love to get back to actually watch the Kentucky Derby live someday.

Not only does summer mean nights at the ballpark, it also means days on the course. Like Royals games, however, I haven’t gotten on the course as much as I would have liked to at this point. I’m still in the “knocking-the-rust-off-the-clubs” stage.
When it comes to the Riverside Country Club in Trenton, two holes really stand out to me – hole four and hole six.
Hole six is probably most people’s favorite because it is the postcard picture hole for the course. A beautiful par three over a pond with a fountain in it. You tee off high above the actual hole so it’s a great image from the tee box. Also, at a par 3, it’s scoring friendly… who doesn’t like that?
Hole four is a personal favorite of mine because I have collected more pars on that hole than any other on the course. I also have a handful of birdies there and anyone who has ever golfed with me probably raised their eyebrows reading that. For whatever reason, I just play that hole well and when you have a hole like that, it quickly becomes a favorite.
On the opposite end of the spectrum are holes one and nine. Anything with trees, houses or out-of-bounds zones on the right side of the fairway is no friend of mine.
Finally, going back to the first question, I got to play Whistling Straits in Wisconsin last summer. The 2020 Ryder Cup will be held there and that would be a fun one to attend.