‘SAY HELLO TO THE FOLKS IN MOBERLY’

A sense of place is powerful. It builds community across geography, beyond time. It is a hallmark and a siren song for baseball on the radio.

I pulled out of the parking lot at work to begin my drive home when Steve Stewart, in his 18th year calling Royals games, declared he would love to hear from listeners. He gave out an email address, royalsradiobooth@yahoo.com, and asked for messages with a word about where his listeners were as they took in the game being played in Goodyear, Arizona.

It was the sixth inning. The Royals were playing the Reds and the KFNZ broadcast was only streaming. I listen on the MLB At Bat app. Something about not being on the terrestrial radio meant there were no ads between innings, so there was only the nat sound, as my broadcasting friends say, of the ballpark — vendors, fans, stadium PA. At a stoplight I followed orders:

“Checking in as I listen to your broadcast from Tallahassee. I grew up in Springfield, went to Mizzou, and lived in KC in 1987. 

Great broadcast. Keep calling it like you see it. Thanks for spelling names!

Paul”

Stewart and Jake Eisenberg came back on with the Royals ahead 4-3 in the bottom of the sixth. Both the Royals and Reds fled Florida to join the Cactus League more than a decade ago. Kansas City bolted to Surprise in 2003. The Reds left Sarasota in 2010 after state and local efforts to upgrade the stadium failed to come up with the money.

The Royals Radio Network has a broad footprint through four states — Missouri and Kansas, of course, but also six stations in Nebraska, and a couple in Iowa.

Stewart began sharing the results of his email request in the seventh inning. He reported messages from Rolla, Sedalia, Overland Park, Smithville. He kept on reading between innings.

Eisenberg and Stewart have worked together since 2023. Stewart has joined the Royals radio broadcast in 2008. But both acknowledged their junior status to the legend who was not (yet) in Arizona. Denny Mathews was in the radio booth in 1969 when the expansion Royals began life at Municipal Stadium in downtown Kansas City, Missouri on April 8, 1969, beating the Minnesota Twins 4-3 in 12 innings. They moved to Kauffman Stadium on the banks of Interstate 70 in 1973 and Matthews has been there for all of it. He doesn’t travel with the team now and has not called spring training games since 2020. But Stewart said he’d be along in 10 days to join the fun in the Phoenix suburbs.

Stewart’s gambit reminded me of Cardinals broadcasts when Mike Shannon would recognize one of the scores of radio network stations carrying their games.

“Before we break for station identification, I want to give a special hello to our listeners in Moberly, Missouri, on KRES, 104.7. If you’re listening in Moberly, go on down to the V-Bar and have an ice-cold Busch beer.”

Shannon would call out a network station and town every game. Often, he would mention a listener in that town — West Plains, Paducah, Kirksville, Evansville, Harrison — and say how he knew the local tuned in every night and he and Jack Buck sure appreciated the most recent note the listener mailed in.

It gave the sense on a summer night of being in communion with others, sharing the game, pulling for the team with like-minded folks. Out there, across Missouri, into Arkansas, in far-off Indiana, and even outliers in Kentucky, people, folks like me and my dad, were also listening, also pulling for the Cardinals. Some, tuning in to the powerful signal of KMOX at night, might be listening in Canada or Colorado.

Now, anyone in the world can be listening.

Stewart recounted emails from Los Angeles and North Carolina and Athens, Georgia, and … Rotterdam in the Netherlands. While I was driving through Leon County listening, so was a woman in Athens, Georgia, and she reported she had gone to Gainesville, Florida, the weekend before and snagged a bobblehead of budding Royals superstar prospect Jac Caglianone, who played for the University of Florida Gators. Streaming makes radio broadcasts, even when they are not on the radio, accessible anywhere and any time. The broadcasts on MLB’s At Bat app are archived.

Stewart and Eisenberg kept reading emails between innings and during play. He said he’d heard from me and read my email. I was connected to Mary in Lee’s Summit. I joined Jeremy in North Carolina. Mike from California was there with me, listening and exhorting to “have a ridiculously fantastic day.”

Together, all of us listened as the Reds rallied in the ninth for a walkoff win. Whether the radio broadcast is a game in February that doesn’t count in the standings or a crucial game in September with a post-season berth on the line, the unwavering truth is we are listening together to a story unfold.