Sunday, June 21, 2026
Saturday, June 20, 2026
Another Saturday Night
By Sam Cooke
Another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody
I got some money 'cause i just got paid
How I wish I had someone to talk to
I'm in an awful way
I got in town a month ago, I seen a lotta girls since then
If I could meet 'em I could get 'em but as yet I haven't met 'em
That's why I'm in the shape I'm in
Here another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody
I got some money 'cause I just got paid
How I wish I had someone to talk to
I'm in an awful way
Another fella told me he had a sister who looked just fine
Instead of being my deliverance, she had a strange resemblance
To a cat named Frankenstein
Here's another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody
I got some money 'cause I just got paid
How I wish I had some chick to talk to
I'm in an awful way
Here it is another weekend and I ain't got nobody
Man if I was back home I'd be swinging
Two chicks on my arm
Aww yeah
Listen to me huh
It's hard on a fella, when he don't know his way around
If I don't find me a honey to help me spend my money
I'm gonna have to blow this town
Here it's another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody
I got some money 'cause I just got paid
How I wish I had some chick to talk to
I'm in an awful way (everybody sing)
Another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody
I got some money 'cause I just got paid
How I wish I had some someone to talk to
I'm in an awful way (one more time)
Another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody
I got some money 'cause I just got paid
How I wish I had some someone to talk to
I'm in an awful way (one more time)
Friday, June 19, 2026
Thursday, June 18, 2026
Wednesday, June 17, 2026
Kansas City Diamonds
The story of the KC Diamonds really begins long before there was a team, a logo, or a first pitch.
Kansas City has always loved softball.
On summer evenings, diamonds across the metro fill with youth leagues, travel teams, and adults playing under the lights. The Women's College World Series in Oklahoma City became something of a regional pilgrimage, and countless young girls in Missouri and Kansas grew up dreaming of playing for Oklahoma, Missouri, Nebraska, Wichita State, or any number of programs across the Midwest. Yet, after college, there was always an uncomfortable truth waiting at the end of those dreams. There was nowhere else to go.
Professional softball in America had long struggled to find permanence. Leagues came and went. Olympic medalists and national champions often discovered that the highest level of the game offered little stability. For many players, graduation marked the end of competition rather than the beginning of a professional career.
At the same time, Kansas City itself was changing.
The success of the Kansas City Current had demonstrated something many people had underestimated for years. Fans would support women's sports when given the opportunity. More than that, they would embrace them. CPKC Stadium, the first purpose-built stadium for a women's professional team, became a symbol of what was possible. Women's sports were no longer viewed as secondary attractions. They were becoming part of the identity of the city itself.
Into that moment stepped Jeremy McDowell and Top Gun Events.
Rather than simply announce a franchise and hope for the best, they tested the waters. In the summer of 2025, the Kansas City Pro Softball Series brought elite players together for exhibition games in Overland Park. Former Royal Billy Butler and Olympic legend Monica Abbott lent their names and credibility to the effort. The games were not merely exhibitions. They were an experiment. Could Kansas City become a professional softball city?
The answer appeared to be yes.
Out of those early games came something permanent.
The KC Diamonds were born with a fitting name. A diamond is both the field itself and something formed slowly under pressure. Their slogan, "Cut from KC," captured the spirit of the city. Hard-working. Authentic. Proud of its roots.
Late in 2025, the announcement became official. Kansas City would have its first professional women's softball team. The Diamonds would become one of the founding clubs of the new Professional Softball League and play their home games at Legends Field alongside the Kansas City Monarchs.
The timing was intentional. The season would begin after the Women's College World Series, allowing fans to continue following players they had watched during the spring. For the first time, college softball would not represent the end of the journey but merely the next step.
When ticket sales opened, fans responded immediately. Thousands of seats were claimed almost as soon as they became available. What had started as a question had become an answer.
Kansas City wanted professional softball.
But perhaps the story of the KC Diamonds is larger than a franchise.
For generations, young girls played softball because they loved the game, fully aware that someday it would end. There were dreams of state championships and college scholarships, but there was rarely a dream beyond that. The finish line arrived too early.
Now, a young fan sitting in the stands at Legends Field can watch professional athletes and imagine herself wearing that uniform one day.
That possibility matters.
Sports have always been built on dreams. A child throwing a ball in the backyard imagines something bigger. Baseball players dream of the majors. Soccer players dream of the World Cup. Basketball players dream of the NBA.
For many years, softball players were asked to dream with a ceiling.
The KC Diamonds represent the removal of that ceiling.
Their arrival is about more than wins and losses. It is about continuity. It is about creating a place where excellence has somewhere to go. It is about acknowledging that women's sports deserve permanence, investment, and the same bright lights afforded to everyone else.
And perhaps that is why the story feels so natural in Kansas City.
This is a city that has embraced the Negro Leagues and preserved their history. A city that filled CPKC Stadium. A city that has always understood that sports are at their best when they bring communities together and offer hope to the next generation.
The KC Diamonds are simply the newest chapter in that story.
And somewhere this summer, a little girl sitting in the stands, glove in hand, will watch the game unfold beneath the lights and begin to imagine a future that players before her could scarcely envision.
Sometimes progress arrives with grand speeches and headlines.
Sometimes it arrives with dirt on its cleats and a diamond under the lights.
Monday, June 15, 2026
Sunday, June 14, 2026
Saturday, June 13, 2026
Friday, June 12, 2026
Futbolistas en el llano (1928)
The FIFA World Cup has begun, and today the United States plays its first match. This summer, Kansas City will welcome the world as one of the tournament's host cities, and my brother and I have tickets to attend one of the games. Earlier this year, we made a point of stopping by the World Cup countdown clock during a trip to Kansas City. It was a small pilgrimage of sorts, a chance to stand before a future experience that felt both distant and inevitable.
If you had told me ten years ago that I would be excited about the World Cup, I probably would have laughed.
Soccer was not my first athletic love. I played as a child on teams coached by my father, but my interests quickly moved elsewhere. Baseball captured my imagination first. Then came track and field. Later, I found my way into weightlifting and football. Soccer became one of those memories filed away with childhood, something I assumed belonged to an earlier version of myself.
Yet life has a way of returning us to things we thought we had left behind.
Much of my renewed interest in soccer comes from traveling with my brother. Some of my favorite memories from the last several years have come from the miles we have shared together. Road trips have a way of creating their own traditions, and somewhere along the way soccer became one of ours.
At first, it was simply something he enjoyed. Then it became something we experienced together.
We watched Phoenix Rising in Arizona. We attended matches for the KC Current. More recently, we found ourselves at Sporting Kansas City games. What began as an occasional diversion gradually became something I actively looked forward to. Today, I find myself checking scores, following standings, and watching matches on Apple TV. The KC Current have become my favorite club to follow, though I have developed a growing appreciation for Sporting KC as well.
What surprises me most is not that I enjoy soccer. It is how much I enjoy being a beginner again.
Soccer remains, in many ways, a mystery to me. I understand the rules, but I often struggle to see the deeper strategy unfolding on the field. Added time still feels strange. The clock reaches ninety minutes and somehow the game continues. I cannot always anticipate substitutions or tactical adjustments. Unlike baseball, where decades of watching have taught me how to read a game, or football, where formations often reveal intent before the play begins, soccer still feels like a language I am only beginning to learn.
Oddly enough, that uncertainty has become part of its appeal.
As adults, we spend much of our lives becoming experts in our own interests. We know the history, traditions, statistics, and unwritten rules. We become comfortable within the boundaries of what we already understand. Soccer returns me to a posture of curiosity. It reminds me what it feels like to encounter something without mastery.
There is a particular joy in not knowing everything.
The older I become, the more I realize that openness is not simply a personality trait. It is a discipline. It is the willingness to approach something unfamiliar without immediately dismissing it. It is the recognition that our identities are not finished products but ongoing conversations.
Travel has taught me this lesson repeatedly.
Some of my favorite experiences have emerged from things I never intended to love. A museum I almost skipped. A neighborhood discovered by accident. A meal I reluctantly ordered. A conversation with a stranger. A soccer match that initially seemed like little more than a way to fill an evening.
Life becomes richer when we remain open to surprise.
What I admire most about soccer is its simplicity.
At its heart, the game is simply people and a ball.
The field can be almost anywhere. A vacant lot. A city street. A schoolyard. A beach. A patch of grass behind an apartment building. Goals can be made from sticks, stones, backpacks, or imagination. The game asks very little of those who wish to play it.
Perhaps that is why it belongs to the world.
Many sports require specialized equipment, facilities, or significant expense. Baseball demands bats, gloves, and a diamond. Football requires helmets, pads, and large rosters. Hockey requires expensive gear and access to ice. Soccer strips away nearly all of those barriers. A ball and a few willing participants are enough.
There is something profoundly democratic about that simplicity.
The game belongs equally to children in wealthy suburbs and children in crowded cities. It can be played in places of abundance and places of scarcity. It crosses borders with remarkable ease because its essential requirements are so modest. In a world increasingly divided by economics, politics, language, and culture, soccer remains one of the few truly universal activities.
As the World Cup unfolds in Kansas City, I find myself thinking about that universality.
Soon, people from every corner of the globe will gather in the Midwest. They will arrive speaking different languages and carrying different histories. They will wear different colors, sing different songs, and cheer for different nations. Yet for ninety minutes they will all understand the same thing.
A ball.
A goal.
A field.
A crowd.
Kansas City itself feels like a fitting host. Over the last decade, the city has quietly become one of the centers of American soccer culture. Sporting KC helped establish a passionate fan base. The KC Current have become one of the premier clubs in women's soccer and play in the first stadium built specifically for a professional women's team. The World Cup's arrival feels less like an accident and more like the culmination of a long relationship between a city and a sport.
In some ways, my own journey mirrors that story.
Soccer moved from the margins of my attention toward the center, not through a grand conversion but through a series of small encounters. A game here. A trip there. A shared experience with my brother. What once felt unfamiliar gradually became meaningful.
Looking at Ángel Zárraga's Futbolistas en el llano, I am struck by what the painting chooses to capture. There is no trophy. No celebration. No final score. One player stretches upward toward the ball. Another collides with him. A third lies on the ground after a challenge. No one possesses the ball. No one has won.
The painting captures pursuit rather than achievement.
It captures the reaching itself.
The longer I look at it, the more it feels like a metaphor for the best parts of life. Many of the experiences that have brought me the greatest joy were not things I deliberately sought. They emerged because I remained open long enough for them to find me. New friendships. New places. New interests. New ways of understanding the world.
Soccer has become one of those gifts.
Had I remained committed to the idea that I already knew what sports I liked, I might never have discovered the joy of watching the KC Current on a summer evening, attending matches with my brother, or anticipating the arrival of the world's game in a city I know and love.
The older I become, the less interested I am in certainty and the more interested I am in curiosity.
Like the players in Zárraga's painting, we rarely know exactly where the ball will land.
The important thing is that we remain willing to reach for it.
Thursday, June 11, 2026
Wednesday, June 10, 2026
Tuesday, June 9, 2026
Monday, June 8, 2026
Sunday, June 7, 2026
Saturday, June 6, 2026
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