7) Muehlebach Field (1923-1972)
Kansas City, MO
Home to: Monarchs, Athletics, Royals, Blues
A: Before Major League baseball came to Kansas City, the town was home to one of the heartland’s most successful teams: the Negro Leagues’ Kansas City Monarchs. The Monarchs shared a stadium with the minor league Kansas City Blues, which was variously named after Blues owner George Muehlebach, Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert (when the Blues became the Yankees’ top farm affiliate), and eventually simply after the Blues themselves.
When the Philadelphia Athletics moved to Kansas City in 1955, Blues Stadium was rebuilt from the ground up to add a second deck and renamed Municipal Stadium. The rebuilt stadium lasted until the 1970s, when it was torn down and replaced by Royals/Kauffman Stadium. Even with the Royals’ recent run of success, however, the city has yet to see another team assemble the level of talent the Monarchs regularly trotted out onto Muehlebach Field.
J: Muehlebach Field was home to several teams from a variety of leagues, but none were more successful than the Negro Leagues’ Kansas City Monarchs. The music of this movement attempts to depict as literally as possible the action of a baseball game. To do this, I took a scorecard I filled out for the Cardinals/Brewers game on 8/31/16 and converted it into music by creating a series of sounds and effects that would be triggered by specific events within the game. The vertical blocks of sound that begin each “inning” are derived from the opening 9-pitch motive and represent the nine defensive positions, while the individual pitches added after, depicting batters and baserunners, utilize the only three pitches not included in those clusters. Although the game was played in Miller Park, I opted to represent this idea with this stadium because I could think of no better team to travel back in time and watch than the Monarchs.