Call Him "Crazy"

"How'd he do?" D.A. asked him.

The next time Ray called in, D.A. asked him if it was true that he didn't like 610 anymore.

"You made fun of me," Ray said. "I wasn't in the mood at the time. But I like you guys."

A week later, Ray told listeners that he'd received a letter from the Royals, inviting him to the team's open tryouts in Liberty.

"Wait a minute, Crazy Ray. You're telling me Kansas City actually invited you down for a professional tryout?" D.A. asked.

"Yep. And not just me. My brother, too."

"What position do you plan on trying out for?"

"Well," Ray said, "I'm gonna try out for catcher, but I'm always good at infield. I can catch. I can throw. I don't know if I can hit it real hard, but I can hit it deep, and I can also run. My favorite hobby is running. I told you how I like to beat the bag at first. I told you how I like to steal bases."

"Now, Crazy Ray, how much baseball have you played in your lifetime?"

"I played a lot of street ball. I played a lot of hotbox. Hotbox is a warm-up as when home plate and third base is trying to tag somebody out."

"Now, Crazy Ray, last week you tried out for the Army. That didn't go so well. Now you're gonna try out for the Royals. What else are you gonna try out for?"

"When I tried out for the Army, I was trying to get Osama. There's a big reward out. Why not? You know, Crazy Ray is wanting to be something of himself, and he's not also crazy. He just wants to know where he'll fit. You know, he's a young man."

"I love it when you talk in the third person," D.A. said.

"I'm talking in a normal tone of voice, and I think your show is really great. Your show has made me so famous. Somebody at Oceans of Fun was, like, 'Are you familiar with 610 Sports? You crack me up all the time.'"

"Well, Crazy Ray, I'll tell you what. If you try out for the Royals, I swear I will be there."

D.A. brought his remote equipment to Liberty. His show aired live from the tryouts at William Jewell College on July 17, 2006.

Joe Jr. drove Ray to the field. Joe Sr. stayed home and listened on the radio. He was nervous for Ray.

Ray wasn't wearing cleats or any of the professional gear that the other hopefuls were wearing. Seeing all the other guys professionally outfitted and stretching on the field, Ray felt panicky. He kept running back and forth from the field to the locker rooms, hoping for a moment alone so he could collect his thoughts and do some stretches. But the locker rooms were never empty.

Ray realized that he hadn't brought a batting helmet. The Royals' staffers lent him a navy-blue helmet and let him go first in the batting cages, throwing him underhand pitches.

"I whacked them all away," Ray says. "I mean, I hit every single pitch."

Afterward, the Royals offered him four free tickets to a game.

"I don't need tickets. I need to be on the team," Ray says he told them.

Instead, last November, he was inducted into The D.A. Show's Caller Hall of Fame.

Joe Jr. drove him to Paddy O'Quigley's, a massive Irish pub in Lee's Summit, at 7 a.m. for D.A.'s broadcast. It was freezing-cold, and Ray was wearing nothing but a lava lava — the traditional towel that Samoan dancers wear around their waists. He made his grand entrance doing a Samoan slap dance in which the moves mimic the motion of slapping mosquitoes off skin. Ray called it the Samoan Stomp.

"Joe told me to expect something big when Ray came in, but I didn't realize it was going to be that big," D.A. recalls.

On a miserable evening for baseball, 10,513 fans take their seats at Kauffman Stadium. Many are wearing straw cowboy hats that were free at the gates.

The team has come into this series against the Chicago White Sox after sweeping the Los Angeles Angels, who previously had the best record in baseball. The Royals beat the White Sox in the first game. The streak makes June the Royals' first winning month since July 2003.

Ray buys an armful of food from a counter inside the concourse: two hot dogs, two chocolate Frosty Freezes, a large soda. The cashier is patient as Ray orders and pays for each item one at a time.

Titanic drops of water from the upper deck smash against Ray's Royals jersey. He barely notices. From his seat behind home plate, he cheers for catcher Jason LaRue like a 300-level fan at Arrowhead.

"Don't sweat it, LaRue," he yells as LaRue bobbles and scrambles for the ball. "He's already on," he says of the White Sox player safe at second.