My photographer’s alarm rang at 5:45am on Thursday August 1, 2024 and our Airbnb in Prairie Village, Kansas began to come to life shortly after. It was game day, and Tom’s grandson’s first game of the National All-State Championship tournament was slated to start at eight o’clock. While last night’s weather could have played havoc on the fields, that wasn’t the case as every inch of the baseball diamonds at the Capitol Federal Sports Complex in Liberty, Missouri were covered in artificial turf.
Bo Watson, who had just finished his second season with the Midland Explorers travel team out of Midland, Michigan, was selected by his coach to represent the state of Michigan in the elite tournament. While there were ballplayers ranging from eight years old to fourteen who came to the Kansas City area from nearly every state in the country to play in the USSSA tourney, Bo’s team was going head-to-head against other players who were nine years old or under.
From my position on the fireplace mantel in the living room, I watched as the young ballplayer’s parents helped him with the uniform. For the two games scheduled for eight o’clock and noon that morning, Bo’s team was wearing their dark blue and yellow-sleeved jerseys with a script ‘Michigan’ emblazoned across their chests. And of course, the youngster sported his signature number 9 on the back of his jersey, which was the same number Bo’s favorite MLB player, Jake Cronenworth of the San Diego Padres, wears.
Tom II, Meghan, and Bo left for the fields at roughly 6:30am, while my photographer and his wife, along with Rory and me, headed out about 45 minutes later. With Vicki behind the wheel of our Jeep, we completed the 27-mile drive through the heart of Kansas City and arrived at the sports complex in Liberty with exactly five minutes to spare.
Following the two games, which Michigan had split with a victory and a loss, our entire family headed into downtown Kansas City for some of their famous barbecue. My photographer’s son picked a place called Jack Stack Barbecue, which at the end of the day, turned out to be a decent choice. I watched as “my Tom” ate his dinner, which included barbecued chicken, brisket, and burnt ends. When his feed bag had been emptied, my photographer claimed his famous “Papa’s chicken” was far superior.
The family returned to the homestead in Prairie Village at 4:30pm and everyone spent the rest of the day doing nothing. The twins, Bo and Rory, played air hockey in the basement, while some of the adults either relaxed in the living room or worked on a jigsaw puzzle on the dining room table.
When the lights went out at 10:30pm, I stood alongside Little Jefferson and thought about the following morning. Although I enjoyed watching Bo play baseball, at the end of the day it’s all about the Presidential and historical sites for me. And before the kids had fallen fast asleep, I overheard my photographer ask Rory if he and Little Abe wanted to visit the Truman Farm when it opened on Friday. When the boy said “yes”, it warmed my resin heart because Tom and I needed our “partner in crime”.
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August 2nd has always held a special place in my photographer’s heart, and on that Friday morning in 2024, Tom had planned on making history on that date once again. For the first time, after two other attempts in the past proved unsuccessful, my photographer will have the opportunity to tour the interior of the Truman Farm in Grandview, Missouri. But we didn’t have an unlimited amount of time for our visit, however, as Bo’s first baseball game of the day was set to get underway at 12 noon in Liberty, which was nearly 30 miles north of the historic farmhouse.
At 8:50am, Tom, Rory, Little Abe, and I all piled into the Jeep for the ten-mile trip to Grandview. In one aspect, it seemed like Groundhog Day as my photographer retraced the same route he had driven two days earlier. But when we arrived that morning, however, there was a noticeable difference – a vehicle was already parked in the small lot.
Due to our early arrival, I posed near the front of the home, which seemed like deja vu all over again to me. As for Rory, he was given the opportunity to pose with Little Abe next to the house where Harry Truman stood in the early 1900s. But for Tom’s nine-year-old grandson, there was something more important on his agenda – Rory wanted his NPS Passport Book stamped at the site. And that’s exactly what happened when our tour guide, NPS Ranger David Suvak, led us into the home along with one other visitor.
For the next half hour, after Rory applied a few stamps in his book, our small group walked and stood in the footsteps of Harry S Truman in the farmhouse he called home for eleven years before he volunteered for the Army. Truman also spent time in the house as a young child. As a matter of fact, he likely learned to start reading in the home before his family moved to Independence when the future President was six years old. David led us through the first floor, which looked like a typical turn-of-the-twentieth-century home before we went up a narrow staircase to see Harry’s bedroom, which at times he shared with his brother or one of the hired farmhands.
Without further ado, I’d like you to see the images my photographer captured during our second visit at the Truman Farm Home National Historic Site in a span of just three days.
Our visit inside the Truman Family farmhouse in Grandview, Missouri couldn’t have gone better. Ranger David Suvak of the National Park Service had no issues with me posing on the furnishings inside the home, and that was a breath of fresh air. When our tour was finished, Tom carried me to the nearby garage where I posed for a few photos as well. That original wooden garage has been a fixture at the Truman Farm since 1914 when Harry moved it there to shelter his 1911 model Stafford car he had just purchased for $650.
The serenity of the farm was something I thoroughly enjoyed, and I wished we had more time to walk the grounds that morning like Tom and I had done two days earlier. During our visit, I thought for sure my photographer would mention the unsightly brush he observed around the Truman henhouse, but Tom didn’t utter a word. Perhaps my camera guy didn’t want to come across like a complete jerk, or maybe it was because he was simply lazy and didn’t want to voluntarily lend a hand with a weed whacker. Either way it didn’t matter, our time had run out. The first baseball game of the day for Team Michigan was slated for 12 noon, which meant we had 75 minutes to make the 28-mile trek from Grandview to Liberty.
By the time we arrived at the Capitol Federal Sports Complex, the temperature was already in the low 90s and rising fast. Team Michigan, which had split their two games the previous day, were slated to play Texas at noon and Oklahoma at four o’clock – which everyone figured would be the hottest part of the day. I had it the worst because I was stuck most of the time in an oven shaped like a black, padded camera bag.
Both games went in favor of Michigan, despite the fact the team’s two-man coaching staff appeared as though they picked the batting lineups out of a hat. One doesn’t have to be Einstein to know there is strategy involved when it comes to setting the batting order or putting the better defenders in key positions on the field, but it was obvious coaches Bob Kohls and Brad Wagner likely never played or watched baseball at any time in their lives. However, even with the inadequacies of the team’s leadership, Michigan won both games on that Friday. The team began their day with a 7-3 win over Texas; which was followed by an 11-9 thrilling victory over Oklahoma; which nearly turned into a brouhaha when one of the Michigan batters was intentionally hit by a pitched ball. I thought for sure that kid’s mother was going to climb the fence like a squirrel monkey and go ape shit on the Oklahoma coach.
When the last game had finished, the fans and families who had travelled to Missouri from Michigan left the ball diamond in Liberty with an unbridled sense of optimism. Even though their pair of unintelligent coaches hadn’t had a negative effect on the team thus far, the games on Saturday, where the competitive rubber would meet the road, had the potential to expose their ineptitude. All anyone could hope for was the talent of the players could overshadow their team’s leadership. As I’ve heard my photographer say many times, “Coaches don’t win games, but they sure can lose them.”
Our group of six, along with me and Little Abe, stayed in Liberty for dinner at The Landing Eatery & Pub where the air conditioning was welcomed more the food. By the time the feedbag was emptied, and we made the 28-mile journey back to our Airbnb in Prairie Village, everyone seemed thoroughly exhausted – and it was only seven o’clock. While the two sets of the Watson family relaxed before the lights were extinguished, I stood on the fireplace mantel and saw Tom open and devour an entire sleeve of watermelon wedges. As a matter of fact, he had eaten so many slices of watermelon during our entire stay thus far, I figured he might have been an actual descendent of Thomas Jefferson himself.
When the lights went out at 10:00pm, I stood next to my little Jefferson buddy and thought about the next day’s schedule. Unfortunately for me, the only thing on my companion’s plate was another full day of baseball – with the first game slated for noon, and the second scheduled for a six o’clock. We had zero time to visit any additional historical places. But that was okay, because we had visited most of the Truman sites already and the entire reason for the trip in the first place was to watch Bo Watson play baseball for Team Michigan.
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Saturday August 3, 2024 began like most mornings when Tom’s alarm rang at 6:00am. But unlike most mornings, my companions were in no rush to get themselves ready because of the late start for the first game. Finally, at 10:45am, Tom snatched me from the fireplace mantel and carefully placed me in the camera case as we left for another action-packed day of watching America’s Pastime. The entire family seemed excited because a pair of victories that day meant Team Michigan would find themselves in the semi-finals, and possibly the championship game, on Sunday.
Once again, the weather was nearly unbearable at the ballpark when the first game started at noon. Immediately after the first pitch, Team Michigan knew they were up against a very talented Missouri team – a group of kids who didn’t have to travel far for the tournament. Errors, poor baserunning, weak play from our catchers, and lame-brained coaching decisions all led to a disastrous 9-3 loss to the boys from the Show Me State.
With roughly four hours to kill in between the ballgames, our small group found a nearby Texas Roadhouse for lunch. Little did any of us know, that restaurant was a foreshadow for the final game of the day. That’s right, our family went directly from the Texas Roadhouse in Liberty to watching Team Michigan become Texas Roadkill in Liberty in a matter of a couple of hours. Bo and the other nine-year-olds from the Great Lake State saw their entire tournament come crashing down in a 10-6 loss to the kids from the Lone Star State.
While unbelievable coaching strategies, which were spawned by the lack of baseball intelligence by both Bob Kohls and Brad Wagner, had led to team’s ‘End of the Road’ swan song, the boys from Michigan nearly pulled off a final-inning comeback when the unthinkable happened. On what turned out to be the game’s final play in the bottom of the sixth inning, Michigan batter Legend Leddy seemingly had beat out an infield hit to load the bases. While the field umpire ruled Leddy safe, the home plate umpire jumped into action and quickly over-ruled his partner in what seemed to be a very accurate impression of Angel Hernandez, also known as the worst umpire in Major League Baseball history. Since the ‘Man in Blue’ behind the dish wasn’t asked his opinion on an appeal, which was the only way a call could be overturned by another umpire, the entire mob from the Great Lakes State went berserk – including Tom and his adult son, both of whom were sitting with me in the bleachers close to the home plate area.
With nearly twenty years of baseball umpiring on his resume, along with more than that time spent as a baseball manager, my photographer verbally chastised the pair of umpires as they left the field following the controversial call. And while Tom’s angst never turned completely hostile, he did his best to inform the pair that what they had done was a violation of the rules. At the end of the day, however, nothing could be done, and Michigan’s tournament had come to a screeching halt. Bo’s team had done quite well, considering they had only one practice together and their coaches were complete imbeciles – including the Midland Explorers regular season coach Brad Wagner, who shouldn’t be allowed to coach a fantasy baseball team let alone a team of nine-year-old impressionable boys.
As our family made the slow pilgrimage to the lot where the vehicles were parked, it was evident young Bo was disappointed his team was ousted from the competition. But I think the nine-year-old was more frustrated by his lack of involvement in key infield positions while some of Coach Kohl’s own players proved over and over again they were defensively inadequate.
Team Michigan held their own against some very good competition, and I agreed with Tom who said the tournament was a priceless learning experience for his grandson. As a resin-headed bobble head who has learned a lot about baseball from my knowledgeable photographer, I thought our team was outdueled by its opponents in three huge aspects – Michigan was out-coached by a wide margin; our team was fundamentally unsound (which also comes from inadequate coaching); and Bo’s team was weak defensively behind the plate.
It was roughly 9:20pm when we made it back for our final night at the Airbnb home in Prairie Village. The place had been our home-away-from home for the past six nights and my companions were packing up and heading towards home in the morning. For the last time, I stood next to Little TJ on the fireplace mantel and wondered what sites Tom had up his sleeve for the 820-mile journey back to St. Clair, Michigan. One thing was for certain, there was likely some untapped Presidential sites in my future.
When the lights were extinguished at roughly 10:45pm, it was time for me to say a little prayer in honor of my time in the Kansas City area.
“Now I stand while Tom’s asleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. Please comfort Bo who’s really sad and provide a coach who’s smarter than Brad. Amen.”
** This post is dedicated to Bo Watson, whose relentless passion and talent for the sport of baseball provided our entire family with the opportunity to travel to Missouri to watch him play. **
