Kansas City Municipal Stadium
- David Hegler
- May 3
- 5 min read
Before Kansas City, Missouri became known as a big league city with massive and iconic stadiums, it held a moderately sized, multi-use stadium aptly named Municipal Stadium. Since its birth in 1923, it hosted numerous minor league teams before graduating to both the NFL and Major League Baseball. It witnessed some of the greatest games ever played and hosted some of that era's greatest players. This is its story.
The Conception
For years, the minor league Kansas City Blues and Negro League Kansas City Monarchs had played in Association Park, a single deck wooden structure that often failed to properly hold the massive crowds sure to attend the biggest games. Frustrated with the limited capacity, Blue owner George Muehlebach built a ballpark on the corner of 22nd Street and Brooklyn in 1923. It was merely a coincidence that it was built in the heart of a thriving Black neighborhood.
The Glory Years
A short while later, the Monarchs followed the Blues, having realized that they could no longer afford the rent at Association Park. The newly named Muehlebach Park was surrounded by barber and shoe shops as well as the offices of numerous doctors and lawyers. The smell of the city's finest barbeque was never far from one's nostrils as the ballpark was within walking distance of Arthur Bryant's and Gate's BBQ. The neighborhood was always pulsating with activity as several nightclubs such as the Cherry Blossom, the Chez Paree, Lucille's Paradise and Ol Kentuck' Bar-B-Q lit up the night's sky after ball games. Like the Big Apple, that little part of the city never slept.
Still, all of this activity belied the undergoing racial tension within the city. The ballpark was in an area where the rent was the highest percentage and the home ownership was the lowest percentage within the city. To make matters worse, the area's illiteracy rate was ten times higher than the national average.
While the ballpark would grow into an enduring legacy for Kansas City, it provided many impressionable young men with an early look into a life that they wanted to live. Future Monarchs second-baseman Newt Allen helped with the tarp as a child and often left the ballpark with extra baseballs in his hands and a desire in his young heart to return as a player. Frank Duncan first got his feet in the door as a bat boy, treasuring the unadulterated view that the position entails.
The Monarchs were one of the most storied franchises in the Negro League. During their stay in Muehlebach Field, they won 11 league championships and two Negro World Series, taking full advantage of their surroundings. It was a pitcher's paradise as the foul poles stood 350 away from home plate and center-field stretched all the way back to 450 feet. The 1924 title winners were reminiscent of the Dead Ball Era with no player hitting more than eight home runs. Still, Led by 16-game winner Wilbur "Bullet" Rogan, the team made it to the Negro World Series where they faced off against the Hilldale Club.
The Negro World Series was very different than the major league's as the series often hosted exhibition games in between and multiple cities hosted the event. That year, Philadelphia's Baker Bowl, the Maryland Baseball Park and Muehlbach Park all hosted Negro World Series games before the Monarchs clinched their first world championship 5-0 at Chicago's Schorling's Park in the series' tenth game.
In 1942, the Negro World Series was held at Washington's Griffith Stadium, Pittsburgh's Forbes Field and Yankee Stadium before moving on to Muehlebach Park. It was there where the Monarchs were met with a considerable amount of good fortune as their 4-1 loss was disallowed after they protested that the Homestead Grays had used ineligible players. So the series moved to Philadelphia's Shibe Park where the Monarchs completed their sweep 9-5.
But despite their good fortune, the Monarchs often found their experience in Kansas City to be less prosperous. While the Blues often drew 2,00 fans, the Monarchs found that they were better off hitting the road, despite their rabid following in Kansas City. It was a shame that this was the case as Muehlebach Park was one of the few Negro League structures to feature clubhouses for both teams and was generally seen as the best facility in the league.
One of their biggest draws occurred when they hosted the (Dizzy) Dean All-Stars on October 6, 1934. With 14,000 packing Muehlebach Park's aisles, the Monarchs won 7-0.
Meanwhile, the Blues enjoyed success on the diamond. In that era, the played in four Little World Series, beating Baltimore in 1923 and Rochester in 1929.
In 1930, Monarchs owner J.L. Wilkinson came up with the revolutionary idea that the game needed lights. He hired the Giant Manufacturing Company of Omaha, Nebraska to construct tall poles on top of the beds of trucks that were strong enough to hold four-foot wide lights 45-50 feet off the ground. Thus, night baseball was born. Although the Great Depression sunk ticket sales, Wilkinson's $50,000-$100,000 investment did just enough to keep his ball club afloat.
In 1955, Blues Stadium (the name had been changed in 1943) underwent drastic changes in preparation for the major leagues. Up until then, the city had only hosted exhibition games for major leaguers, with its most memorable moment being when Lou Gehrig made his final at-bat back on June 12, 1939 before he officially retired as a ballplayer. With 23,864 packing Ruppert Stadium's stands, (named after Yankees and Blues owner Jacob Ruppert in 1938), the city's leaders recognized the fact that they had the potential to be a big league city.
Now, a team was coming to call the city their home. As crews worked round the clock to construct an upper deck and completely revamp the city's ballpark, the townsfolk of Kansas City, Missouri anxiously awaited the arrival of Arnold Johnson's Athletics. With the move came another name change. From then on, the ballpark would be known as Municipal Stadium. The newly-named Municipal Stadium swelled to 30,000 and the aisles were overflowing with 32,147 bodies on April 12, 1955 while the A's beat the Tigers 6-2 in the largest gathering for a sporting event in the city's history.
The A's did no better than that day. although they drew more than one-million fans in each of their first two years, eventually, people started to realize that the team just wasn't any good. Still they relished the unique opportunity to watch some of the game's greatest stars just before they became famous such as Roger Maris, Reggie Jackson and Sal Bando.
The AFL's Chiefs moved into Municipal Stadium in 1963 and began their stay in style by beating the Houston Oilers 28-7. While they finished with a losing record that season, they enjoyed a lot of success for the rest of the decade and even reached the Super Bowl twice, winning it all in 1969. Once the Chiefs moved in, Municipal Stadium when through another change, reaching a final seating capacity of 49,000.
A Hollow End
All was going well for Municipal Stadium. The A's had left following the 1967 season and a new baseball team, the Royals, had taken their place while the Chiefs continued to win with a roster filled with future Hall of Famers such as Len Dawson and Buck Buchanan. But it was still a dual-purpose stadium. While its operators did their best Municipal Stadium couldn't compare to facilities that were dedicated to a single sport.
Once bonds were approved for two new stadiums that would individually house the Chiefs and Royals, Municipal Stadium's days were numbered. The Chiefs lost the final game ever played there on Christmas night, 1971, a 27-24 double-overtime loss to Don Shula's Miami Dolphins. The stadium was demolished five years later. A marker now stands where Municipal Stadium once stood on the corner of 22nd Street and Brooklyn Avenue.
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