KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- With Tuesday's announcement that the American Royal Barbecue will be held at Arrowhead Stadium the weekend of Oct. 4, we have our answer as to what's happening at the Truman Sports Complex that weekend, with both the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals on the road.
What remains a mystery is why the complex is vacant for two of the other weekends during baseball's regular season and why the Chiefs are on the road for three of the first four and four of the first six weeks of their season.
Make no mistake that this also doesn't please the Chiefs, who would rather play at Arrowhead early in the season rather than late. But this season, the Chiefs play only three games at Arrowhead before Thanksgiving. They finish with the last two and four of the last six games at home at a time of year when tickets can be a tough sell in Kansas City.
"We always make a point with the league of asking for as many home games as we can get early in the season when the weather is good here, and conversely fewer games later in the season," Chiefs chairman Clark Hunt said. "It just doesn't work out that way because we're one of 32 games that has those type of requests. The folks who do the schedule at the NFL are trying to balance literally hundreds of requests and it's a very difficult job. They came up with the best schedule they can and we'll look forward to playing them as they come."
That's a tremendously diplomatic answer to a question I posed to Hunt. Maybe it will curry favor with the league when future schedules are handed out.
But giving up a home game to play it on Nov. 1 against the Detroit Lions in London gained the Chiefs no favors with the schedule-makers this year.