Month: May 2017

T-Bones break it open late over the RailCats

The Kansas City T-Bones rode a solid pitching effort and timely key hits for a 5-1 win over the Gary SouthShore RailCats Thursday night at CommunityAmerica Ballpark in Kansas City, Kansas.

For the third night in a row, the pitching staff was solid, holding Gary to three hits and only one run—the second run allowed in 27 innings.

Unlike the last two nights where the offense scored in the first two innings, tonight it waited until the third inning to strike. The T-Bones were batting as the visiting team because of a pre-game arrangement between the two clubs in a spring training twist.

Leo Rojas led off the top of the third with a single off RailCats starter Drasen Johnson. Rojas moved to second on a wild pitch then to third on a ground out to second by Brett Wiley. Jordan Edgerton then lined a triple to center to score Rojas, and the score was 1-0.

Next, the T-Bones’ Omar Garcia drove in Edgerton with a sac fly to center, and the lead was now 2-0. The move to visiting team was made to allow for the proper number of pitchers to get work, and they did just that.

Darin Gorski got the starting nod, and he went two scoreless innings. He was followed by Jeff Walters who retired the first seven batters he faced with four strike outs. Combined, the duo would sit down nine straight RailCats batters at one point in the game.

Gary scratched out their only run of the series in the seventh off of Anthony Usui. The right hander from Hawaii found himself in a tight spot with runners at second and third and two outs, but he was able to deliver the big strike out of Ryan Fitzgerald, making the score 2-1.

The T-Bones’ Rich Mascheri and Cody Winiarski each worked a shut-out inning in the sixth and eighth inning.

Kansas City then broke it open in the top of the ninth, scoring four runs off SouthShore reliever Conrad Wozniak. Kevin Keyes hit a one-out double off the warning track in left center to set the inning up. Donald Lutz then reached base on a dropped third strike by catcher Jaime Del Valle, when he elected to throw to second to attempt to get Keyes out at second rather than throw Lutz out at first. Chase McDonald then singled to left field to drive in Keyes, but the ball got under left fielder Jackson Glines on the play, moving the runners to second and third.

The T-Bones then got back-to-back singles from Patrick Brady and Joe Jackson off Wozniak to extend the lead to 5-1 and to secure the win for Kansas City and take the second game of the two game series.

The T-Bones will travel to play the Lincoln Saltdogs in Waverly, Nebraska, on Friday and then come home to play host to Winnipeg in a pair of games. The two teams will play Sunday at 1:05 p.m. and Monday at 7:05 p.m. at CommunityAmercia Ballpark in Kansas City, Kansas. Tickets are available online or by calling 913- 328-5618 or by visiting in person the Providence Medical Center Box Office.

The T-Bones will open the 2017 regular season at home on May 19 against Lincoln.

– Story from T-Bones

Opinion column: RadioShack closing marks end of era

Store closing brings back decades of memories. (Photo from Murrel Bland)

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by Murrel Bland

The RadioShack store in the Wyandotte Plaza Shopping Center at 78th and State Avenue closed recently. A note on the door said the store is being remodeled and will reopen soon as just a Sprint store. It is an unfortunate end locally to a retailer that continues to struggle in a changing market.

I recall when RadioShack came to Wyandotte Plaza. It was the summer of 1969 when a young enthusiastic manager, Ken Jones, opened the store. He moved to Kansas City, Kansas, from San Diego where he was also with RadioShack.

A story in the Sept. 18, 1969, issue of The Wyandotte West told of all the items that the store offered—all types of radios—AM, FM, CBs and walkie-talkies—along with tape recorders, microphones and even electronic bug killers. Jones said the response to the store’s grand opening was very good. The store was located at the eastern end of the center in a space formerly occupied by the Woods-Balke appliance store.

RadioShack can trace its roots to 1921 when it owners, Theodore and Milton Deutschmann, founded the company in Boston. The brothers saw the need to provide equipment for the emerging field of amateur radio. The company published its first catalog in 1939 and moved into the direct mail business. RadioShack fell into hard times during the early 1960s. The Tandy Corporation, a leather goods company based in Ft. Worth, was looking for a related business that would complement its hobbyist products. In 1962, RadioShack sold for $14 million and the company became Tandy RadioShack and Leather.

Tandy closed RadioShack’s unprofitable mail-order business, ended its credit purchases, eliminated several top management positions and cut the number of items sold from 40,000 to 2,500. Such things as go-carts and musical instruments were eliminated from the product line. Charles Tandy, who had guided RadioShack through this change, died of a heart attack in 1978.

One of the successful RadioShack promotions was the “Battery of the Month Club” which offered a free battery each month. This, along with free tube-testing, generated considerable in-store foot traffic.

The 1982 breakup of the Bell Telephone system allowed subscribers to buy their own telephones. RadioShack offered some 20 models of home phones. RadioShack attempted to compete in the big-box electronic market with McDuff, Video Concepts and Edge in Electronics in the early and mid-1990s. That was not successful.

RadioShack was successful with its TRS-80 computer. However, it failed to keep up with the personal computer market.

In 1998, RadioShack claimed to be the largest seller of consumer telecommunication products in the world. On May 10, 2017, its stock was trading for 31 cents a share. So what happened?

Maybe the market forces have changed and RadioShack did not keep up. I read a column in the electronic edition of The Lawrence Journal-World that Chad Lawhon wrote about the closing of the last RadioShack in Lawrence. He said the stores were often helpful.

“I would get 10 minutes of advice, a $2 part, and with such knowledge and supplies, I could fix any audio/video device—as long as either of my children were around to help me operate the remote control,” Lawhon said.

I could identify with Lawhon’s comments. I recall shopping at the Wyandotte Plaza store. The advice was good—I learned how to hook up supplemental speakers to my TV. And a helpful clerk programmed the radios that my wife and I took to Kansas Speedway.

But the last time I was in the Wyandotte Plaza store, it did not have the cable I needed. (I was able to get it online, however.) The clerk was polite, but not nearly as knowledgeable as those who had waited on me in past years. I did buy some batteries however.

As part of the bankruptcy agreement, Sprint is taking over 1,750 RadioShack stores. Apparently that is what is happening in Wyandotte Plaza. Of course Sprint faces an uncertain future in the highly competitive telecommunications market.

A major influence in the retail market today is the impact of the internet. It is quite easy to order just about any product online and have it delivered within a couple of days—or sooner, if you are willing to pay for it. The giant 40-acre Amazon warehouse being built off the Turner Diagonal is a sign of the changing retail market.

Murrel Bland is the former editor of The Wyandotte West and The Piper Press. He is the executive director of Business West.

Driver hits semi after swerving to avoid debris on I-70

A 41-year-old Kansas City, Kansas, driver swerved to avoid debris on eastbound I-70 near the 78th Street exit on Wednesday and struck a semi, according to a Kansas Turnpike Authority trooper’s report.

The accident happened about 2:30 p.m. The Dodge Grand Caravan and the semi were both eastbound on I-70.

The driver of the semi, a 42-year-old Pleasant Hill, Mo., man was injured and taken to the hospital, according to the trooper’s report. The Dodge Caravan was reportedly insured by One Sure Insurance, and the driver of the Dodge Caravan was not injured, according to the report.