Royals Rumblings - News for December 14, 2022

Kevin Hardy at the Kansas City Star reported on the first stop of John Sherman’s “listening tour” regarding plans for moving the Royals downtown:

Private capital will fund a “bulk” of the Kansas City Royals’ quest to move downtown, the team’s majority owner said Tuesday.

At a Midtown Kansas City forum, club officials, architects and consultants provided the most detailed explanation yet of the Royals’ desire to relocate from the Truman Sports Complex to the downtown area.

Team leaders said their vision includes a $1 billion stadium that would hold 38,000 fans. The team also envisions a surrounding $1 billion district that would include housing, hotels, offices, retail and restaurants.

While they’ve explored 14 individual sites, team officials still wouldn’t say where they plan to locate the stadium — or exactly how much taxpayers will be asked to subsidize the project.

“The bulk will be private,” Royals Chairman and CEO John Sherman said of the financing. “We would expect that private capital would take care of a major part of the ballpark and that private capital would develop all of the ballpark district around the ballpark.”

Tod Palmer at KSHB gave voice to some community groups who are wary of (or outright oppose) the development:

“When I think about a project like this, I think about the impact that it will have on poor and working people and our community,” Terrence Wise, a leader in Stand Up KC, said in a statement via email to KSHB 41 News. “Our community is struggling with poverty wages, unaffordable rents, and school closures, and families like mine have to struggle just to keep our lights on and food on the table. Any project that involves our tax-payer dollars MUST be part of the solution to these problems and we should have a strong community benefits agreement that delivers those details in writing.”

Two AL Central-mates have new catchers, with Mike Zunino going to the Guardians and Christian Vázquez going to the Twins.

The Nationals DFA’d old friend Lucius Fox. Speaking of Lucius Fox, the incredibly cool home run derby that he co-organizes in the Bahamas kicks off today. The derby itself is Saturday. Last year’s winner was MJ Melendez!

Important baseball news:

The Mets seem to be toward the top of the Carlos Correa market, but the Twins are still in as well. After that shakes out, are the Twins a destination for Carlos Rodon?

San Francisco has been in touch with Dansby Swanson.

A World Cupdate: Lionel Messi still plays more beautifully than anyone.

The NBA introduced its updated awards and trophies.

A bill has been introduced that would ban TikTok in the United States. I would miss it dearly, to be honest. I love that app.

Lifehacker put together a slideshow (sorry) of 10 of the best and worst cleaning hacks of the year from TikTok.

What’s going to happen to P-22, the famous Los Angeles County mountain lion who was captured in Los Feliz this week?

Author Jenny Lawson, aka The Bloggess, runs an annual gift-giving spree where strangers in her comments section buy stuff for each other. It looks like so many of the wishes are already fulfilled, which means you can just go read the comments and get a warm fuzzy feeling, at no cost.

SOTD: New Found Glory - Dream Born Again