At The Star, Jaylon Thompson writes about pitching coach Brian Sweeney and the “three-fastball” trend:
Kansas City Royals pitching coach Brian Sweeney chuckled when approached about the latest trend sweeping Major League Baseball. Sweeney is generally on top of analytical changes. And even he couldn’t truly pinpoint when the league leaned toward the “three-fastball” strategy.
But Sweeney knew the Royals needed to hop on the train.
“We’re seeing the two-seamer be a really important pitch for guys that
need to build out in different ways,” Sweeney said. “It was four-seam dominant and now we are seeing the pendulum come back to two-seams. The cutters have always been around. So why not, if you are trying to be creative and building outs, have three different fastballs.”
It’s a long and interesting article. Definitely check it out! We’ll be here when you get back.
Also at The Star, Dylan Lysen wrote about the TIF commission and some of the, um, questionable math behind the stadium project:
A plan to pay for part of Kansas City’s $600 million contribution to a new Royals ballpark in Crown Center is moving forward. The Tax Increment Financing Commission on Wednesday approved a plan to redirect nearly $382 million in new economic activity tax revenue generated by the stadium toward paying off ff the city’s bond debt over 30 years…
The commission approved the plan over objections from Commissioner Sean Smith, a Jackson County legislator, who questioned whether the information provided to the commission was complete. Smith called an assertion in the TIF documents that Jackson County would not lose any tax revenue from the plan “materially false” because several of the buildings in the Crown Center area currently pay property taxes to the county.
“When we’re being presented with something that is supposed to be as accurate as possible, it calls into question other assumptions that are made and documented in the packet,” Smith said. TIF documents show the Royals ballpark plan expects the stadium, which the city would lease to the team, to generate “approximately $0” in property tax payments.
Per Addi Weakley at KSHB: “The Kansas City, Missouri, City Council voted Thursday to approve rezoning for a Royals ballpark at Crown Center.”
Anne Rogers writes about Salvy’s expectations for 2027:
“People know how much I love to catch,” Perez said. “[The elbow] is sore, and it needs time. … It happens to the greatest in this game. It’s hard at the moment, but I thank God for giving me a lot of great moments. Every time I run out on that field, I give everything I have. That makes me feel better.”
Perez wants to be able to catch next year, but he knows it could be a part-time role with more time at DH or first base. This is part of a career trajectory: The Royals’ captain is 36 years old now, wrapping up his 15th big league season. His offensive numbers have dipped, with a .228/.273/.383 slash line — all career lows right now — and 19 homers.
Perez plans on giving everything he has until he stops playing. When that will be remains to be seen. Next year is the final year of Perez’s two-year contract he signed last offseason, but he’s not ready to make a decision yet on whether it’s the final year of his career — and won’t feel ready until he sees how ‘27 plays out for him and for the Royals.
Blog Time!
At Royals Keep, Yirsandy Rodriguez writes about how the Royals could better use Craig Kimbrel:
What’s notable about his consistency is that he had not allowed a home run against the 89 batters he had faced; if we add Monday’s game to that stretch, Kimbrel’s homerless streak extended to 98 batters faced, although his ERA rose to 3.42. Often, a single bad relief appearance can change the look of a dominant reliever. In Kimbrel’s case, the reality is that for much of this season, his outings have felt as if he still has a little fuel left in the tank.
Now, between injuries and inconsistencies, the question is whether the Royals will take Kimbrel’s experience and improvements into account in their plans for 2027. So far, they have brought him into important situations—with the game tied or in a save opportunity—in seven of his first 10 relief appearances. We already know Kimbrel has struggled in his last two appearances, but throughout the season, he has been more consistent under pressure and with little rest.
Also at Royals Keep, Kevin O’Brien looks at prospect Austin Charles:
From April 7 to May 19, Charles slashed .306/.377/.491 with an .868 OPS and 124 wRC+ in 108 plate appearances. Not only did he hit three home runs, but he also scored 20 runs, collected 19 RBI, and stole eight bases on nine attempts. Charles also demonstrated strong contact skills at the plate, posting a 0.44 BB/K ratio in his 30-game sample.
Unfortunately, Charles suffered a core injury that required stomach and hip surgery during his game on May 19th. The injury not only placed him on the 60-Day IL but also required surgery that would keep him out for most of the season. It was a disappointing break for Charles, who only played 59 games in High-A in 2025 due to missed time on the IL from a similar injury.
Speaking of Charles, I have some late news that I just had to squeeze in here before I finish typing for the night:
The Quad City River Bandits are on their way to the Midwest League Championship Series*!
(*I think it’s called that)
Blog Roundup:
- Darin Watson at U.L.’s Toothpick: This Date In Royals History–1976 Edition: September 10 – Momentum from a walk-off win comes to a screeching halt in a Twins rout.
- Matthew Swigonski at KOK: Royals release former Silver Slugger fans had forgotten was even in the organization (true statement – I had to look at who it was)
- Also, Matthew Swigonski at KOK: Royals have a real chance to dramatically alter the playoff picture as a spoiler
For today’s Off-Topic, are you ready for another exciting installment of “Frank falls down an internet rabbit hole and takes you with him”?
Before we get too far: I want to remind everyone that I’m not a reporter. I have a degree from an engineering department, so we’re probably lucky if I can string together a coherent sentence. I don’t have any special resources to look at, connections to talk to and verify stories, or even the knowledge to rigorously follow the rules of journalism. In short, this is likely not the whole story. It’s what I could piece together from what I could find. And, being as it’s me, you’ll get copious links to my sources.
So now that we’re all on the same page, let’s dig in.
This topic came to me back during the NCAA Tournament. Prairie View A&M won its first tournament game ever in a 16-seed play-in against Lehigh. We’re going to set aside my feelings about play-in games and how they should be counted in NCAA tournament statistics, etc.
I got to thinking about Prairie View A&M and how I don’t know as much about them as I should. It’s an HBCU that’s about 50 miles from the center of Houston and has over 10K students. It was founded in 1876, in the waning days of Reconstruction, as “the first state supported institution of higher learning for African Americans in Texas” and is part of the Texas A&M system.
I went down to the notable alumni list. There’s a surprising number of Kansas City ties: Former mayor Emanuel Cleaver graduated from Prairie View as did famed BBQ chef Arthur Bryant. Chiefs legend Otis Taylor and fellow Super Bowl IV champion Jim Kerney did, as well. As with all of these lists, there are many politicians, business leaders, and entertainers. But the entry that jumped out at me was “Mr. T (real name Laurence Tureaud)” with “Attended” but no graduating year.
As a kid, I loved The A-Team! My parents (half-jokingly, I think) claim that I learned to read by trying to find it (and other shows) in the TV Guide. I’m not entirely sure what my parents were thinking, letting their 5-year-old watch a show that has an entire Wikipedia section entitled “On-screen violence”. But, hey, it was the 80s. I even had this piggy bank.
Of course, if you were alive in the 80s, you remember Mr. T. His big break was playing Clubber Lang in Rocky III. He went on to stardom in The A-Team and wrestling in the World Wrestling Federation. If you wondered what happened to him after that? In 1995, he was diagnosed with T-cell lymphoma and concentrated on his health. It went into remission, but from what I can tell, it has never fully gone away.
If you’ve ever wondered about his name (per wiki):
In 1970, he legally changed his last name to T. His new name, Mr. T, was based upon his childhood impressions regarding the lack of respect from white people for his family. T recalls:
I think about my father being called “boy”, my uncle being called “boy”, my brother, coming back from Vietnam and being called “boy”. So I questioned myself: “What does a black man have to do before he’s given respect as a man?” So when I was 18 years old, when I was old enough to fight and die for my country, old enough to drink, old enough to vote, I said I was old enough to be called a man. I self-ordained myself Mr. T, so the first word out of everybody’s mouth is “Mr.”
A paragraph later, I get to this line: “He won a football scholarship to Prairie View A&M University, where he majored in mathematics, but was expelled after his first year”. Hmm.
There’s no Wikipedia entry for this. The link is to his entry at biography.com and it also only has that one line.
After some web searching, I ran across this message board post at HBCU Sports.com: The Riot That Got Mr. T Expelled From PV. It links back to a blog post at “The Digital PV Panther Project”, which appears to be a student group at Prairie View A&M: “Our mission at the Digital PV Panther Project is to eliminate historical silences through digital storytelling and prevent the erasure of African American history through historic preservation at PVAMU.”
The blog post from 2023 is entitled “Silence is a very good weapon”. I’ll try to summarize it best I can without quoting the entire article, but the easiest thing to do is go read the link above. We’ll wait and be here when you get back.
This is probably a woefully incomplete reading of what was happening on the ground, but here’s what I’ve got. Honestly, I tried to ask AI, as well, but I just didn’t trust it. It claims to have scraped official sources for its story, but couldn’t link to them. So you’ve got what I’ve got. Again, the linked story above is better than I can do. Go read it. Anyway:
I think most people are familiar with the Civil Rights protests of the 1950s and 1960s, at least in passing. I want to highlight one in particular at another HBCU, Tuskegee Institute in Alabama:
In 1968, student activists seeking more say over their education engaged in a series of protests, sit-ins, walk-outs and other demonstrations at Tuskegee Institute in an effort to get the administration to hear and act upon their demands regarding the quality of life on campus, the quality of the education they received, mandatory Reserve Officer’s Training Corps (ROTC) participation, and other grievances. These protests culminated with around 300 students surrounding Dorothy Hall during a meeting of Tuskegee Institute’s board of trustees on April 6, 1968 and effectively holding them hostage inside. The governor sent the National Guard to respond to the incident. Immediately afterward, campus was closed down, and all students had to reapply for admission. While initially met with harsh repercussions from the administration, the student activists were ultimately successful in prompting the administration to meet their demands.
So, basically, the administration ignores a mix of Civil Rights and Vietnam War protest demands. Two days after MLK is assassinated in Memphis, the protests escalate. Who is governor of Alabama at the time? Lurleen Wallace. Wait, a female governor in 1968? In the Deep South? She was literally the third female governor ever. Oh, now I get it: “Facing a constitutional restriction that prevented him from serving consecutive terms, George Wallace orchestrated his wife’s candidacy in the 1966 gubernatorial election, openly admitting that she would serve as a figurehead while he retained control over administrative policies and decisions”.
That makes a lot more sense! You know, the George Wallace who has an entire section of his Wikipedia page entitled “Segregation” with his (in)famous quote “In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this Earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever”? The one who “bravely” tried to stop Vivian Jones and James Hood from the ever dangeous task of, checks notes, enrolling at the Univerity of Alabama. I’m sure that George Wallace was all too happy to send in the National Guard. And then they closed campus.
I point this out because, well… it’s going to sound really familiar in a few minutes.
Fast forward to 1971 and Prarie View A&M in Texas.
In February, tensions began rising between the administration and students:
PVAMU tightened its shoplifting policies at the Campus Exchange Store, a policy which led to more serious punishments for anyone caught stealing, and the university also expelled an estimated 200 students for failing to maintain a good grade point average. Several of the students were members of a group called People for Afro-American Life, an organization that published an underground newspaper and had previously been banned on campus
I don’t know about anyone else, but this sounds an awful lot like “we have a group of students that we don’t like so we’re going to target them directly while also causing some collateral damage so it doesn’t look like we’re targeting them”.
The flashpoint was the expulsion of Geneva Chapman. She was a writer for the Prairie View Panther, the student newspaper of the school, and was listed as lead editor in this January edition of the paper (FYI: reading these old student newspapers is an interesting time capsule). She went to Mardi Gras in New Orleans in late February and was expelled from school the next week for violating the women’s dorm curfew. The administration would later say “Miss Chapman was on probation for repeated incidents. She was out of the residence hall without leave for three days without authorization.”
This led to massive protests on February 24th-26th. The administration put out this chronology of events. The short version is that on the night of Wednesday, February 24th, students march to the house of PVAMU President A.I. Thomas and give him a list of demands and a deadline of Friday, February 26th. “After leaving his home on Wednesday evening, the students burned down the campus security building, the Dean of Men’s offices, and the Office of Freshman Studies. They overturned a security patrol car and set it on fire, and they broke into and looted the College Exchange Store. ”
On Thursday night:
The police arrested only two students involved in the uprising–20 year-old junior Leonard Baker and 28 year-old Air Force veteran Quincy Brooks were charged with acting to promote damage to school property. The judge set the two men’s bond at $100,000 each–an extremely large amount of money in 1971 that might be over a million dollars today. Waller County Sheriff Jimmy Whitworth told one Houston Chronicle reporter that he could not recall another misdemeanor charge with so high a bond. The attorney defending the two students claimed that the arrests were “based on that old logic of 20 years ago – you get the leaders and kill the protest.”
On Friday, Thomas responds to the list of demands as follows. Per the timeline posted above, the “answers are rejected”. To gain control of the situation, Thomas shut down the entire school, just like Tuskegee above:
President Thomas shut down the momentum of a potentially powerful movement by adopting the same tactics used by administrators at Tuskegee University in 1968. He closed PVAMU campus indefinitely in March and dismissed the entire student body. Despite his claims that “real professional agitators” were responsible for the student uprising, he attempted to weed out the student organizers by forcing every single student to re-apply for admission. The students, however, did not have to re-register for classes. They simply picked up cards that allowed them to come back onto campus and classes resumed where they had left off when the school was closed.
On March 23rd, there’s a new edition of the Panther and the top headline is “Academic Life Back to Normal Again”. It talks about how campus opened back up on March 8. The school was closed down for a couple of weeks and many students were not allowed back.
The Panther mentions that “according to unofficial sources the total number of students denied re-admission was approximately 129 instead of the 62 figure which received widespread publicity”. Old newspaper archives confirm the widely reported 62. The Digital PV Panther Project also doesn’t want anyone to forget the estimated 200 expelled earlier in February. Among those expelled in the March group was one Laurence Tureaud. And now we’ve come full circle.
It still seems odd there’s not a Wikipedia entry for this event, considering this note in the the Brenham Banner-Press at the time:
Prairie View A&M is the first school to be closed by student disturbances since the rash of incidents last spring that included shootings at Kent State and Jackson State. And the disturbances at the rural-oriented university are the first at any university this term.
Obviously, I’m grateful for the Digital PV Panther Project for sharing this story. Also, I’m really grateful to the Texas Digital Newspaper Program. It’s hard to find good news sources from this time and it’s nice to stumble across some newspaper archives.
I mean, is there anything else I could really use here?
I had fun with this little musical breakdown of the theme, too.
