Category Archives: Kansas City Sports

October 16, 2009 · 8:43 am

Practice Starts Tonight! Practice Starts Tonight!

Today is a national holiday for this Kansas Jayhawks Basketball nut. Today is the first day the NCAA allows teams to hold official practices. It used to be Saturday. But Lefty Drisel back in the day at Maryland decided he wanted to get a jump on the rest of the ACC and so he would hold practices at 12:01 am on Saturdays. A few schools soon followed suit and Kansas jumped on board 25 years ago today. Thank you Larry Brown!

Of course, the NCAA can mess up anything. Just look at how they randomly choose to enforce rules and eligibility. It’s atrocious. Then someone said that having 16,300 people up late in Allen Field House was too late. Oh, please. So now it starts at 6:30 pm and ends at 9:30 pm. Oh, I long for the days of old when not everyone was so concerned with legislating the fun out of everything. I remember Late Night as a student in 1985. Sure my grades stunk. But darnit! I had a lot of fun! 🙂

Anyway, MY Kansas Jayhawks are supposed to be the favorites to win it all again this season. There is a long way to go and injuries or unexpected chemistry problems and the usual NCAA red-hot tournament team can show up in your path…but I’m hoping and praying (like God cares) for another NCAA championship. (To my Missouri fan clients, sorry, you know my bias!)

Dear Peter Gammons: Shut Up.

So I heard Peter Gammons explaining the other day that Zack Greinke isn’t really his Cy Young candidate because despite his MLB best 2.14 ERA and having won 14 games with the Kansas City Royals (who have a win total of 62 games before last night) who offer no run support at all to his outings.

Gammons’ reason. “Well, he doesn’t have to pitch every night against the Boston Redsox or New York Yankees.” Hey, are you aware that there is baseball not found on ESPN’s eternal promotion of Sox v Yankees? Ever heard of Chicago White Sox or the Los Angeles Angels? Have you seen the Angels’ team batting average? Just because you live in Boston, work in Bristol, and slurp up NY doesn’t mean that baseball isn’t also played elsewhere. Idiot.

But don’t take my word for being an idiot. Take last night. The famed Boston Red Sox that Zack Greinke cannot compete against LOST 5-1 in Kansas City. Zack had SIX SCORELESS INNINGS and lowered his ERA to 2.08.

Is the Cy Young for the best pitcher in the league? Or is it for a pre-designated east coast baseball player? Peter, just leave a comment and let us know here in KC so we can figure out if you ever watch baseball. Hopefully, you stayed up late last night and watched that game.

Now I’m off to go argue about one of the most ridiculous appraisals I have dealt with in a long while. Probably an east coast appraiser.

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September 9, 2009 · 8:02 am

Where There Is Development There Are Jobs

And where there are jobs you can expect housing to be more in demand. And if housing is more in demand you can expect an upward pressure on prices.

Today I logged on to KansasCity.com and about spit out my orange juice. The Kansas City Wizards soccer team owned by OnGoal LLC (think Cerner) has decided to abandon the Bannister Mall (now a huge pile of nothing since it’s been torn down in anticipation of building a soccer specific stadium) and keep the team in Kansas City, Kansas just a few thousand feet from where they currently play. See the full story here.

My Initial Reactions
Kansas City, Kansas continues to out-fox Kansas City, Missouri. Which, given the leadership of KCMO over my lifetime really isn’t saying too terribly much. But KCK was a wasteland twenty years ago, commercially speaking. Now western KCK is alive and vibrant….but taking a hit in this current economy.

KCK’s property taxes are too high. They need these 4,000 jobs that Cerner will bring to the area in conjunction to the Wizards and fans to generate spending which then generates more sales taxes which can help to alleviate the problem of highest property taxes in the KC area for the residents of western Wyandotte County. That’s 4,000 people eating lunch, shopping and a good portion of them looking for housing somewhere close to their jobs.

Kansas City, Missouri could screw up a wet dream. ‘Nough said.

It’s brilliant for the Wizards. Fans are already used to driving to that neighborhood for the games. There is plenty to do before and after the game with all the shopping and restaurants (see the polar opposite of what KCMO did with The “K” and Arrowhead Stadium) and of course there are some pretty nice bars if your festivities head into the early evening.

Note to Jeff Brown: This is the area where we all had that steak dinner before you left town. I knew Google Search would alert you to your name being mentioned. 😉

This really sucks for the people of the Bannister area. They could use some positive news. But sadly your city government blew it again. Something tells me this wasn’t all about money. In fact, I’m quite sure of it.

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May 19, 2009 · 12:25 pm

George Brett on OUR Kansas City Royals & The Media

Turns out I’m not the only one grouchy with so called “icons” here in the Kansas City area.

Kansas v Missouri History Lesson

For all of our out-of-town readers, here is a sign that was unfurled for the first time in last weekend’s Kansas versus Missouri basketball game. That’s John Brown in a classic remake (sort of) of “Tragic Prelude” which is in our state’s capitol building. There are a few variances. For instance, that’s still John Brown leading Bleeding Kansas against Missouri. And that’s still a gun in his right hand. But in his left hand the Bible has been replaced by Kansas’ 2008 National Championship trophy. LOL.

Ramblings….

…our charting boards at our Keller Williams Realty office in Olathe had twice as many entries on the sales board as the listings board. Is this just a spring bounce or are we beginning to clear off some inventory? jayhawk

…the Kansas Jayhawks have just beaten Missouri to a pulp to avenge an earlier league loss to them. That puts the Jayhawks on the cusp of winning their fifth Big 12 title in a row…9 of the last 13. Amazing.

…right now I’m working with a lot more “regular” home buyers than I am with investors. It’s been a trend over the last six months. With investor financing comparatively more expensive and difficult to come by it just makes sense. Now, a couple of the regular home buyers are combining some sort of the Buy & Live real estate investing strategies I’ve advocated for years. So that’s smart thinking on their part.

vacancy_sign_lrg_clr …rents seem to be holding up in most of Kansas City. Where I see a definite softness is in the real low income properties and on the outskirts of Kansas City. Blue Springs, which I’ve loved for years, has had a movement to “soft” and I’m no longer thrilled about it. Though it’s still not a bad place to be.

…here in the Kansas City real estate market we are holding up pretty well. But advantage still goes to the buyer in much of the area.

…why do some real estate agents give up so much information about their clients?

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Filed under Kansas City, Kansas City Real Estate, Kansas City Sports, Misc. Real Estate