The Kansas City T-Bones used seven solid innings from starter Gabe Perez to help beat the Gary SouthShore RailCats 6-2 Wednesday night at U.S. Steel Yard. The win extended the T-Bones winning streak to four games and pulled the club out of the cellar in the central division of the American Association.
Gabe Perez (2-0) held Gary to one run on five hits, while working seven innings notching a quality start. The right-hander walked three and strike out four to record his second win in a row for Kansas City.
The T-Bones took an early 1-0 lead off Gary ace Charle Rosario. Omar Garcia singled to center to start off the game and raced home on a RBI double from Marcus Lemon. Rosario retired nine straight T-Bones until the fourth, when Kevin Keyes hit his third home run of the series to center to give Kansas City a 2-0 lead.
Omar Garcia added to the lead in the fifth with a two-out RBI double to make it a 3-0 T-Bones lead. Garcia stole third base and scored on a wild pitch from Rosario to up the lead to 4-0. In the bottom of the fifth, Gary picked up a sacrifice fly from Chase Harris to cut the lead to 4-1 and the only run allowed by Perez on the night.
The T-Bones scored two more runs in the seventh. Kevin Keyes drove in a run after being hit by a pitch with the bases loaded by Laeten Galbraith. Zach Walters followed with a sacrifice fly RBI to left for 6-1 lead.
Gary SouthShore loaded the bases off Luis Paula in the home half of the eighth but only managed to score one run on a Jamie Del Valle RBI fielder’s choice. With two outs Paula was relieved by Kamakani Usui, who put out the fire for Kansas City. Perez got the win (2-0) and Usui earned the save his first. Rosario was the loser for Gary, dropping to 0-2. Kansas City is 5-1 on the road trip.
The T-Bones return home Monday June 5, to play host to Wichita in the first game of a three-game series. Tickets are available online, by calling 913-328-5618 or by visiting in person the Providence Medical Center Box Office.
The Kansas City T-Bones ran their season-long winning streak to three games with a 11-0 shutout win over the Gary SouthShore RailCats on Tuesday night in Indiana. On the surface that would be the easy part of the story; toss in two rain delays and some bizarre plays, and it was one wild night on Lake Michigan.
Joe Jackson was ejected from the game after his first at bat in the top of the second. His defensive and offensive replacements in Patrick Brady and Marcus Lemon would play a big part in the outcome.
In the third inning both clubs were involved in a head-scratching double play. The T-Bones loaded the bases and looked like they would break through and take the lead.
Patrick Brady hit a hump back liner toward the bag at second that second baseman John Holland dropped or knocked down. The runners initially held their bases, thinking Holland would catch the ball, but they had to break from their tag after Holland let it bounce just two steps away from him. Holland easily tossed to second, and the RailCats turned the double play at first, just getting a head first-diving Brady.
In the bottom of the inning Gary had runners at first and second with no outs. With the corner infielders playing in, Randy Santiesteban slapped a ball through the five and six hole to left field. Patrick Brady, who moved to left field because of Jackson’s ejection, threw home as the RailCats tried to score, getting Ryan Fitzgerald at the plate. Christian Correa threw to third to get Holland, who tried to move to third on the throw home. The scoring was a rare seven to two to seven double play.
Kansas City would get all the runs it would need in the top of the fourth. Daniel Rockett drove in the first run of the game with a two-out RBI single.
Christian Correa followed by hitting a deep ball to center that RailCats center fielder Chase Harris could not flag down. Harris hit the wall hard and tumbled into the warning track and lay flat on the ground. Correa raced around the bases for a three run inside the park home run.
The script really gets crazy from here: The inside-the-park home run came on the same day, May 30th , that former T-Bone Geoff McCallum achieved the same feat by hitting the first pitch of the game for Kansas City in a 2008 contest at Schaumburg. That night left fielder Alfred Joseph slipped in the wet conditions, allowing the ball to roll to the wall. In an additional twist, it also happened to be against the same the club now owned by RailCats ownership and now a member of the Frontier League.
The game then had its first of two rain delays. With one out in the bottom of the fourth, the grounds crew covered the field. After 29 minutes the field was uncovered, and play resumed with Kansas City getting the final two outs of the home half of the fourth.
Then came another 33-minute rain delay, and the field was covered again as play was about to continue in the top of the fifth inning. Finally, after just over an hour delay total, play resumed uninterrupted.
Kansas City scored five more runs in the fifth once play resumed. Marcus Lemon, who had the night off originally but was forced into the game on the ejection of Joe Jackson, had a two-RBI single to make it 6-0 off Gary starter Jeff McKenzie. Daniel Rockett hit a three-run home run to make the score 9-0 T-Bones off reliever Braulio Torres-Perez.
Lemon later added another RBI single in the seventh, and Kevin Keyes added a ninth inning solo homer for Kansas City to make the score an 11-0 final. The T-Bones scored at least 10 runs for the fourth time on the current road trip.
Kansas City starter Calvin Drummond threw four scoreless innings but did not return after the second rain delay and the game 9-0 in favor of Kansas City. The T-Bones pen of Rich Mascheri, Aaron Brooks, Kamakani Usui, Cody Winiarski and Grant Sides tossed an inning each of scoreless relief to earn the club’s first shut out of the season. The win went to Mascheri (1-0) while the loss was charged to McKenzie (0-2).
The T-Bones 10-game road trip continues Wednesday night with game three of the four game series. Right-hander Gabe Perez goes for Kansas City against RailCats ace Charle Rosario. The game can be heard on the T-Bones Broadcast Network online at tbonesbaseball.com.
The T-Bones return home Monday, June 5, to play host to Wichita in the first game of a three-game series. Tickets are available online, by calling 913-328-5618 or by visiting in person the Providence Medical Center Box Office.
The Unified Government is trying to keep the lights on at the T-Bones stadium, but the Board of Public Utilities says it won’t waive the baseball club’s utility bill. (File photo) by Mary Rupert
An effort to waive utility payments that the T-Bones owe the Board of Public Utilities was rejected last week at a BPU board meeting.
David Alvey, a BPU member who is running for mayor, made the motion, which passed 5-0, at the BPU meeting to reject the bailout request.
According to Alvey, the Unified Government asked the BPU to forgive $172,700 of $314,000 that the T-Bones owes the BPU for electricity and water over the past few years, and the UG also asked the BPU to provide the T-Bones with a special rate of 6.5 cents per kilowatt hour in the future.
“If people really want the T-Bones to survive, they need to go out and buy tickets and buy beer,” Alvey said. “That’s how a business makes it. I do not believe the BPU should subsidize it. We would not have this relationship with anybody else in the city. I don’t know of anyone in the past who had this much past due forgiven and was given a special rate.”
David Alvey (File photo)
Alvey said he believes the proposal was not fair to the BPU’s ratepayers. The BPU will eventually shut off power to poor people who do not pay their bills, and if it has another policy for businesses, it’s not fair, he believes.
Alvey said it isn’t for the BPU to decide which businesses make it and which ones don’t. There are other businesses that can’t pay their utility bills, and the BPU doesn’t get to decide which ones are successful.
Alvey thinks the UG may next propose to pay the utility bill, or part of it, through its funds. He said if the UG decided to pay the T-Bones’ utility bill, he would protest that as a taxpayer. He said he doesn’t think it’s the UG’s job to subsidize businesses with his tax money. If he were elected mayor and the issue comes up in the future to the UG, he said he would not support subsidizing the baseball club.
Alvey said he met with the UG about three weeks ago, and he was told then by the UG that the T-Bones had not tried to find private financing. “If private money wasn’t solicited, why was it brought to BPU ratepayers?” he asked.
A spokesman for the Unified Government, Edwin Birch, sent out a statement and response: “The T-Bones Baseball organization is leasing a tax-exempt, government-owned facility. The UG seeks to ensure its facilities continue to be used for the benefit of our Wyandotte County – Kansas City, Kansas, community. The UG has explored various scenarios as it relates to utility payments, but ultimately no changes have been approved yet.”
David Mehlhaff, BPU spokesman, confirmed that the BPU vote last week to reject the request was unanimous, and he confirmed that the T-Bones, not the UG, owe the utility payments to the BPU.
UG Commissioner Mike Kane, when asked about the BPU’s vote on the T-Bones, said, “Can you blame them?”
Kane said that the UG has helped the T-Bones before. The UG bought the T-Bones stadium three years ago, but the agreement with the T-Bones states that the T-Bones will pay the utility bills.
“It’s extra difficult when we shut off other people’s electricity that have lived here years and years,” Kane said. He didn’t recall other businesses whose electric bills were waived.
He said he heard about the bailout effort earlier in some private “three-on-three” meetings that the UG held with three commissioners at a time. If it comes before the UG Commission for a vote on whether the UG will pay the T-Bones’ electric bill, they would have to show him something really compelling for him to vote for a waiver of the electric bills, he added.
This is not a sign that tourism at Village West is having problems, according to officials. While she did not have a specific comment about the issue of the BPU and the T-Bones’ utility bill, Bridgette Jobe, executive director of the Kansas City, Kansas, Convention and Visitors Bureau, said, “The T-Bones are a great attraction for Kansas City, Kansas.”
Tourism in the Village West area of Kansas City, Kansas, is “doing great,” Jobe said.
“We have one of the highest occupancy rates at our hotels in the metro area, and we are always in the top two or three in the metro area for our average daily rates,” Jobe said. “A lot of people are staying here and they’re willing to pay more money to stay here. Our hotels are full in the summer months, many times it’s hard to find a room. Our attractions are doing well. If you look at a Sporting game, or Schlitterbahn just opened up – it wasn’t the best weather weekend – but people are continuing to come here and they are continuing to come back.”
She added it’s very early in the season for the T-Bones, and the weather wasn’t the best for the first games, but in general, tourism is doing well in the Village West area.
There was no response from Kansas City, Kansas, Mayor Mark Holland’s spokesman for this story.
Alvey’s motion at the BPU meeting:
“As the members of this Board are aware, the Unified Government has asked the BPU to forgive $172,700 of the $314,000 that the T-Bones owes the BPU for power and water over the past several years.
“Additionally, the Unified Government has asked the BPU to provide a special rate to the T-Bones going forward, of just 6.5c per kilowatt hour. That rate would not even cover the cost of producing or distributing the electricity, so the BPU would, in effect, be subsidizing the T-Bones on the backs of our other ratepayers.
“When this proposal was brought to our attention, I expressed my concerns, as I know other members of the Board did as well, that this proposal is not fair to our ratepayers.
“First, three years ago the Unified Government agreed to purchase the stadium from the T-Bones because the T-Bones was not making enough money to pay all of the expenses for upkeep. I asked Don Gray at that time, and Doug Bach, if the BPU would now have to provide free power and water to the stadium because it would now be owned by the UG; we all know that the BPU already provides over $7m in free utilities and services to the UG each year. I was assured that BPU would not be providing free utilities but yet, here we are, being asked to provide a subsidy to the T-Bones.
“In our meeting with UG just three weeks ago I asked if the T-Bones had tried to find private financing for their operations. I was told that they had not: one has to wonder why private pockets were not tapped by the T-Bones. And if private money wasn’t solicited, why was it brought to BPU ratepayers? What do the ratepayers get out of the deal?
“Third, as far as I know, if any other business or resident were to be this far in the hole to the BPU, we would shut off their utilities. We all know people, many of them poor or elderly or on fixed incomes, who have had their power shut off. It is clearly unfair to not enforce our policies on everyone in the same manner.
“Moreover, I can name at least three businesses that have gone out of business in the past couple of years, who could easily make the claim that if they had been given this same kind of deal from the BPU and the UG, that they might still be open. How can we claim to be fair and transparent when others do not get this kind of deal, or even know that such a deal was possible for them?
“I have been told that the UG has now changed their proposal, but not by much: the T-Bones would still get the special rate of 6.5 c/kwh, but that the Unified Government, that is, the taxpayers, would make up the difference between what the electricity actually costs and what the T-Bones can pay. So, the BPU ratepayers would not be subsidizing the T-Bones electricity, but the taxpayers will. If that is what the UG wants to do, that is their business, but as a taxpayer I protest.
“Moreover, the new proposal, as I understand it, is that the BPU would still forgive $172,700 of the amount the T-Bones owe from previous years. In my conversation with Don Gray, our GM, I expressed my opposition to agreeing to wipe out that debt. I understand that this decision may be at the discretion of the GM, and I respect that; however, I think the public needs to know what stand the members of this Board is taking on this proposal.
“So at this time I am asking for a sense of the Board. I move that it is the sense of the Board that we oppose providing the T-Bones a special rate for electricity that is not currently available through existing Board policies, and I further move that it is the sense of the Board that the T-Bones pay for their past due utility bills, and that all applicable policies and procedures be implemented in regards to their past due account.
“Finally, I think this is important so that our General Manager can clearly and consistently communicate to the UG the position of this Board. We are elected to this Board to represent the ratepayers and to provide reliable power and safe water, at the most affordable cost, to our ratepayers. I for one did not commit myself to subsidizing a failing business on the backs of the other ratepayers.
“Folks, if you like the T-Bones and want them to succeed, then go out to the stadium buy a ticket and beer and concessions. That is how this should work.”
