A couple years ago I went to an Angels game and a little kid sat in front of me. It felt like it could have been the first time he’d been outside of his religious compound. He wanted to talk to me and my also middle aged male friend so bad because everything happening was blowing his mind. Every 10 minutes he’d turn around, eyes lit up, and say something like, “This strawberry lemonade? It’s the bomb!” Hell yeah it is, brother. Welcome to being ballpark-pilled. There’s nothing like it on earth. Lil dude no doubt formed some core memories there.

A lot of my childhood memories are of seeing ballgames at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City watching some very bad Royals teams. The worse your team is, the more entertainment you have to make for yourself. One time my friend’s brother got a sign on SportsCenter about Chili Davis (yes, he was a Royal in ’97. 30 HRs) that said, “Chili Gives Us The Runs.” It was a great sign!

I got to piss in a trash can outside the stadium, I learned how to shotgun a beer from a bottle in that parking lot. One time I got to ride in the back of an El Camino on my way home because my friend’s dad was too drunk to drive us so he had to call his friend who drove an El Camino (bonus, there was a dog in the back!). Formative memories at Kauffman Stadium.

But the memory that has been imprinted in my mind the most, the one that crops up in my mind’s eye whenever I try to think of “the weirdest guy ever” is seeing an elderly man sitting a couple rows behind me across the aisle with a bag full of lemons. This old guy would tear the lemons in half, and just dive those front teeth into the meat of the sour king of yellow citrus. Slurp it down to the pith, toss the rind, and move onto the next one in his large bag of lemons. Like he was trying to replicate the experience of watching a season of mid 2000s Royals baseball through food. Performance folk art.

I’m sure he’s dead now, and I can’t be positive that anyone mourned him. If they did, I bet the weird lemon stuff never made the obituary. So here’s to the baseball weirdo that lives in the attic of my mind, The Lemon Man of Kauffman Stadium. Thanks for putting something strange into the world.

This piece is in Recommend If You Like The Baseball Issue Summer 2026. You can find physical copies in bars, cafes and stores in Chicago and Washington, D.C. The newspaper is available for purchase here. 

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