Typically, Opening Day series draw some of the biggest regular season crowds of the year for a lot of teams. Fans are eager to get back out to the ballpark -- especially after the last couple years -- and get their first glimpse of what the 2022 season has in store for their teams. With the return of Zack Greinke and the debut of Bobby Witt Jr., there were more than a couple reasons to expect a packed Kauffman Stadium this last weekend -- except it didn't quite turn out that way. Speaking to 610's Fescoe In The Morning this week, Royals Insider Josh Vernier gave his thoughts on why the stadium wasn't quite as full as some people may have expected.
"I can't act like I'm surprised," he said. "There's really only two cities in the country where, no matter if the team's good or bad, they're going to pack the house -- that's Fenway and over in St. Louis. Outside of that, baseball fans are understandably so, front-runners. Especially in 2022, with the entertainment options that we have. I had this conversation with my wife: we have 81 games to choose from, why would I go when it's 47 degrees at first pitch? Kansas City always does a great job of watching everything on television and listening to things on the radio, but if you want Kansas City to show up to your stadium, to your pitch, to your diamond, to wherever, you better put a winning product on the field. As we learned back in 2014, when Ned Yost begged people to come out and support a team that he thought was worthy of it, and then got crushed the next day in the Kansas City Star for asking people to support his team, I can't say I'm surprised that it was 28,000 in the Opener, 20,000 yesterday, and just 17,000 inside the ballpark back on Saturday."
You can listen to the entire interview in the embedded player below:
