Kansas City Royals: Comparing Kauffman Stadium to Newest MLB Park

Fountains vs. Monument Garden

For a ballpark that opened in 1973, Kauffman Stadium has one impressive list of attractions within its gates. Undoubtedly, the renovations from roughly a decade ago, which included adding the Royals Hall of Fame in left field, helped modernize the stadium.

The iconic feature of The K is the fountains. Not only are they a cool aesthetic feature, but the meaning behind using them at a stadium in the City of Fountains makes them that much cooler.

Elsewhere in the stadium, there are family friendly spots like The Little K. There are more adult spots particularly across the renovated outfield terrace. The crown jewel—and not just because of the crown on top—is the unrivaled Crown Vision scoreboard.

SunTrust Park boasts its own solid scoreboard with a secondary one that includes pitching stats and out-of-town scores. Here’s a tweet I sent with pictures of the scoreboards:

As expected, SunTrust Park has similar in-stadium amenities to Kauffman Stadium. The kids’ area of SunTrust Park, though, seems to be geared more towards older children. The area—called the Sandlot—features a climbing tower and zip-line. The AJC reports SunTrust Park is the first professional sports stadium or arena with those features.

For me, the undisputed highlight is the Monument Garden.

While there is an indoors portion of the Braves Hall of Fame—similar to the Kansas City Royals’ one—the concourse features an amazing display to Braves history throughout the years. From what I could gather, the indoor portion focused more on the team accomplishments—although the organization’s three World Series banners hung above the concourse—while the Monument Park focused on individual achievements.

My favorite part—the crown jewel of the garden, as it were—had to be the display honoring Hank Aaron:

Advantage: SunTrust Park. Kauffman Stadium made a lot of great strides with its renovations, but it’s hard to top the remarkable Monument Garden. But, hey, the Kansas City Royals still have a bigger scoreboard. Size is all that matters, right?.