Jun 27, 2012; Kansas City, MO, USA; A general view of Kauffman Stadium during the game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Kansas City Royals. Mandatory Credit: John Rieger-US PRESSWIRE

Tuesday night, when the Royals laid a beating on the Rays 8-2, I had an opportunity to hang out in the Fox Sports Kansas City suite at Kauffman to watch the game. To give you a sense of how unique this opportunity is for someone like me, let me state that I’ve spent many a night sleeping on the floor. I’m a person of the floor, both figuratively and literally.

I was granted the opportunity by Geoffrey Goldman of Fox Sports to check out the new version of Game Connect they’ve launched—to be clear he invited Michael Engel who couldn’t go so I called dibs. Until very recently, I hadn’t heard of Game Connect but apparently it’s a free supplemental program run through the Fox Sports Kansas City website that allows fans to get a TON of extra cool information while watching the game.

Walking in I saw a group of guys huddled around their lab tops about 10 minutes prior to the first pitch. Craig Brown of Royals Review and Bill Ivie from I-70 Baseball were talking about something Royals related with a few guys from Fox Sports. Game Connect sat on each of their screens and they talked about all the information that it provides.

Real quickly, I’ll give you the four things I like most about Game Connect:

1)   Pitch count tracker – One of the things that bothers me about the TV broadcast is that there is no permanent pitch counter. Game Connect has a pitch counter AND stats on how many pitches a pitcher throws on average per outing. It comes in the form of a gas gage that lets you know when the pitcher is ‘gassed’.

2)   Great stats – Almost anything you could want to know about a given moment statistically in on Game Connect. It gives numbers on a given pitcher-hitter matchup. It gives different splits. It gives clutch-hitting stats. It gives player salaries … which blew my mind and I love.

3)   Game talk – Game Connect has a feature called “Game Talk.” Using fancy-dancy computer stuff that I don’t understand, all the tweets that have something to do with the game, either team, any of the players, and so on come up in a feed so you can read what people are tweeting about the game. It’s awesome. It’s like watching the game with the planet, including fans of the other team.

4)   Usability – I’m terrible with computers … much better with books. So, that Game Connect is very graphics oriented and easy to use is really important to me. If it were overly complex or demanding I wouldn’t use it.

Here’s the link to try it out (click on ‘Game Connect’ just below the photo): http://www.foxsportskansascity.com/pages/royals

What the Fox Sports guys stressed, and what I found out the more I used it, is that Game Connect isn’t like MLB Gameday. It’s not ANOTHER way to watch the game. It’s a supplement to watching the game. You use it while watching or listening to the game to get all the information you wish you had while watching the game. I’ve watched two games and listened to one using it, and it enhances that experience.

But walking into the Fox Sports suite I wasn’t really thinking about baseball. I was wondering when someone who looked like a Secret Service agent was going to tell me I was in the wrong place and ship me to Guitmo. It just looked too nice in there. Free food, free drinks, my choice to sit inside or out just behind home plate. This may seem old hat to people who experience this regularly, but to a guy like me it was like being invited to stay in the Lincoln bedroom at the White House.

The night was filled with highlights really. Talking to Craig and Bill, both very nice and smart guys, about baseball was a lot of fun. Meeting Joel Goldberg and Jeff Montgomery and talking baseball with them was cool. But probably the greatest moment was standing in the suite with those guys and seeing my twin brother Mike catch Yuniesky Betancourt’s homerun on TV. He has season tickets, and when I saw the ball headed for his section, I thought Wait, that’s headed for Mike I think. Next thing I know, he’s barreling through old ladies and children to get to the ball (George Costanza style).* I must have jumped like a gazelle screaming “That’s my brother! That’s my brother!”. I know, right? How professional.

*Note: My brother did not actually knock over people to get to the ball, but that is how I will tell the story for the rest of my life. He also gave the ball to a kid per the laws of human decency.

Now that my time among the mighty has passed, I will move back to the seats of the general populous. It was a nice vacation, a great place to visit, and I’ll take that opportunity whenever I can. But really, is there any bad way to watch a game. My brother was down in the stands where he always is, just beyond the Royals bullpen. When I saw him after the game, he was elated. He’d caught a homerun. He’d watched a great game. He’d experienced a beautiful night in Kansas City. And when he left the stadium, just like me, he was smiling.

Steve Physioc will join Rex Hudler as new members of the Royals TV team. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee/Image of Sport-US PRESSWIRE

We had a hunch that Rex Hudler was a favorite to join the vacated spot in Royals TV broadcasts, but the team announced today that Steve Physioc, Hudler’s partner in the booth for Angels broadcasts, will also join the broadcast crew.

According to Fox Sports Kansas City, the pregame duo of Joel Goldberg and Jeff Montgomery will remain in place, while the team’s 140 television broadcasts will be split with Ryan Lefebvre calling 90 games as the play by play announcer and Physioc covering the other 50. The color commentary/analyst role will be filled by Hudler for 120 games while Montgomery fills in the other 20. The announcement also states that Lefebvre and Physioc will do radio broadcasts as well.

After the 2011 season, Ryan Lefebvre had interviewed for the Twins radio position, so Physioc’s hiring may have been partly due to some interest to involve Lefebvre on the radio side more frequently.

Both Physioc and Hudler are high energy guys, though some Angels fans weren’t that impressed with their performance. Both were dropped from the Angels TV crew after the 2009 season.

Thanks for visiting Kings of Kauffman. You can stay current on all the Kings of Kauffman content and news by following us on Twitter, Facebook, or by way of our RSS feed.

The dates are:

• Saturday, April 7 in the 3 pm local time
  Kansas City at Los Angeles Angels – The Royals and Angels also will be on ESPN so the team will be seen a few times the first week of the season. This opening series in Anaheim should be a fun watch not only since it means baseball is back but because it’s against a team that should compete.Other Games -
  St. Louis Cardinals at Milwaukee Brewers
  Boston Red Sox at Detroit Tigers
  San Francisco Giants at Arizona Diamondbacks
• Saturday, April 28, 3 pm
  Kansas City at Minnesota Twins – Three weeks later KC makes another appearance this time they’ll face division rival Minnesota. Last season the Royals played better against the Twins both at home and at Target Field.Other Games -
  Milwaukee Brewers at St. Louis Cardinals
  Los Angeles Angels at Cleveland Indians
• Saturday, May 19, 7 pm
  Arizona Diamondbacks at Kansas City – The last of the pre-All-Star game appearance is an interleague match-up with the defending NL West champion Diamondbacks.Other Games -
  Chicago White Sox at Chicago Cubs
  Texas Rangers at Houston Astros
  Baltimore Orioles at Washington Nationals
  Boston Red Sox at Philadelphia Phillies

Stay current on all the Kings of Kauffman content and news by following us on Twitter, Facebook, or by way of our RSS feed and follow Mike Vamosi on Twitter to be notified each time he posts a story.

Joel Goldberg interviews Michael Engel on May 17, 2011 during a Royals broadcast. Chris Kamler (@fakenedyost) looks on during Blog to the K.

With the winter meetings approaching, Jonathan Broxton signing and the Frank , White situation, it’s been a wild week for the Royals.

We’ll cover all of that plus we’re pleased to have Fox Sports Kansas City’s Joel Goldberg in studio to talk about everything with us. Goldberg is the host of the Royals Live pregame and postgame shows on FSKC as well as the in-game reporter during Royals broadcasts. You can follow him on Twitter at @goldbergkc.

As always, we’ll have our chat room up during the broadcast for any questions and comments and whatever discussion arises. You can also call 1-816-394-9578 and leave a voicemail or join in during the broadcast

The Royalman Report is brought to you by Kelly’s Westport Inn at 500 Westport Road in Kansas City, Missouri.  Tell them the Royalman Report sent you.

Live video feed is after the jump:

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The Royals stated that they wanted to go “in a different direction”. No replacement has been named.

Kevin Shank, producer for the broadcasts, was also let go. The same reason was given for his ouster and no replacement was named for his position either. The hinted reasoning was that White was “too critical” of the organization.

Earlier in the offseason, Ryan Lefebvre interviewed for the Twins radio announcer job but was not offered the position and is slated to return to the booth next year.

There’s more to come, as Frank was on Nick Wright’s show on 610 sports this evening. I haven’t heard the interview, and want to hear it in full before commenting. I don’t think it’ll be pretty, though.

There’s a full transcript and audio available on Chris Kamler’s Rambling Morons.