Sports & Recreation >>

• Best Deep-Fried Celebration
  Royals 12, Yankees 9 -- August 11
  The Royals might have tanked at the end of the season, blowing several opportunities at capturing the pennant, but Kansas Citians still must rejoice at their team's improbable turnaround from a year ago. After more than a decade of misery, the men in blue finally gave fans something to cheer... More >>
• Best Underdog
  Southwest Missouri State Bears Baseball
  This season was supposed to be a sweet return to Omaha for the Nebraska baseball team. After two consecutive years of qualifying for the College World Series, the Huskers looked poised to make it three straight, with home field advantage aiding them through the qualifying rounds of the NCAA... More >>
• Best Day Trip
  Hermann, Missouri
  With four picturesque wineries close to each other and two more in adjacent towns, Hermann, Missouri, offers that beautiful type of day trip during which you can get drunk and still feel as though you've done something worthwhile. The midnineteenth-century town has German roots and rolling... More >>
• Best Place To Throw Down
  The Disc Golf Course at Waterworks Park
  Kansas City may not have mountains or oceans, but it has trees and hills and more than its share of people passionately devoted to disc golf. Disc golf is like golf, except it's played with Frisbee-like things instead of balls, and baskets on poles instead of holes. Local practitioners of the... More >>
• Best Freak Show
  Mill Creek Park
  People jogging backward. Rope walkers practicing 2 feet above the ground. Bums sleeping in contorted positions. Contortionists praying in seated poses. Frisbee nerds wearing knee pads but no shirts. Melting-pot soccer players scurrying about. Muscle-head white boys flexing their might. Couples... More >>
• Best Predictable Wet Blanket
  Jason Whitlock
  Let's see, what major sports story hasn't Kansas City Star columnist Jason Whitlock shit all over this year: Roy Williams? Nope. This past spring, Whitlock responded to the former KU coach's obviously painful decision to leave Lawrence for his home state and alma mater, North Carolina, by... More >>
• Best Place to Jog
  Budd Park
  In midtown, parks with trails are usually packed. At Mill Creek Park, for example, joggers have to share the 1-mile trail with walkers, families with double-wide strollers, and bikers who whiz by dangerously close. But Budd Park, a pretty, 40-acre green space in Kansas City's historic northeast,... More >>
• Best Mizzou Pariah
  Ricky Clemons
  Mizzou basketball Coach Quinn Snyder stands accused of violating numerous NCAA rules, but no one can accuse him of disloyalty to a player. Consider Tiger guard Ricky Clemons. Clemons not only assaulted his girlfriend and violated a judge's order by crashing an all-terrain vehicle while on... More >>
• Best Optimist
  Tony Peña
  OK, we admit it. We thought the Royals' new manager was goofy back in spring training, when, like a high school pep-squad captain, Tony Peña printed up T-shirts with the word "Believe." Then the Royals started winning. They kept winning past when it should have been a fluke. They kept winning... More >>
• Best Crushworthy Chief
  Marc Boerigter

  Along with "Touchdown, Kansas City!" the other phrase we like hearing during Chiefs games is "Boerigter is in" -- in the game, that is, and definitely in the red zone of hotness. With his shock of dark hair and chiseled good looks, this 6-foot-3-inch, 220-pound, less-toothy version of Trent... More >>
• Best Place to Read in the Summer
  Linda Hall Library Arboretum
  From the vantage point of winter, summer is a time to get outside and enjoy the long daylight hours, the freedom that is coatlessness, the fresh greenery. But when summer arrives, we are reminded of two pesky details: It's hot out, and we are wimps. So instead of sitting inside and crying about... More >>
• Best Place to Time Travel
  The Heritage League of Greater Kansas City
  Without history, Kansas City is just a place. A nice place, to be sure -- one with lots of trees and cozy houses. But to simply live here in the moment doesn't quite feel adequate. Making our rounds through the city's aging brick towers and stately four-squares, we sense that it's all part of... More >>
• Best Swing Set
  Roanoke Park
  There are two swing sets in Roanoke Park. One is plainly visible. It's located just off the brick road that winds through the middle of the park. The other is hidden and, therefore, superior. To get to this swing set, take Wyoming north from 39th Street; when the road forks, go downhill to the... More >>
• Best Place to Get Spacey
  Astronomical Society of Kansas City
  We can't always be clear-thinking, responsible citizens. Sometimes we just have to unwind and let our minds roam the cosmos. Since 1935, the Astronomy Society of Kansas City has given locals the space they need to fill their space-out quota. They meet monthly to tune in to far-out lectures by... More >>
• Best Mizzou Panacea
  Brad Smith
  Earlier this season, University of Missouri-Columbia quarterback Brad Smith literally went above and beyond the call of duty while single-handedly staging an upset against testy Middle Tennessee State. How? Down by 8 points and 73 yards from the end zone, Smith led the Tigers down the field by... More >>
• Best Royal Swing
  Raul Ibañez
  We admit it. We love it when the brooding and mysterious Raul Ibañez steps up to the plate. There's just something about the way he swings his bat around before setting himself for the pitch -- especially when he seems to be in a certain mood, and he'll take his time, holding that long thing out... More >>
• Best Royal Injury
  Joe Randa's Oblique
  Who cared about the neck and back irritation that kept Royals slugger Mike Sweeney out of the game for weeks on end? Boo-frickin'-hoo, we thought as we endured the endless speculation about when he was ever coming back. We much preferred contemplating the status of the quietly dreamy Joe Randa... More >>
• Best Place to Recite Gertrude Stein
  Helen Cuddy Memorial Rose Garden
  Of course, we don't need a modernist writer to tell us that a rose is a rose, but it's comforting nonetheless to wander through Antioch Park, find a place in the Helen Cuddy Memorial Rose Garden and quietly recite Gertrude Stein's hauntingly simple poem. It's a small place, just a collection of... More >>
• Best Reason to Believe
  Ken Harvey
  As wide as he is tall, Royals rookie Ken Harvey just looks like a slugger. He was born in California and went to high school in Beverly Hills, California, of all places, but he embraced the Midwestern ethic playing college ball at Nebraska. Now he's ours. He won us over early, getting clutch... More >>
• Best Reason to Believe in 2004
  Angel Berroa
  One of the major factors in the Royals' worst-to-first bid was first-year shortstop Angel Berroa's own miraculous ascension. At the start of the season, Berroa batted last in the lineup, and the club counted on him only to contribute defensively. At this he initially failed, racking up 19 errors... More >>
• Best Sports Commentary
  Joe Posnanski, "Even now Williams wrestles with his decision"
  Other than the Royals' turnaround, the area sports story of 2003 was undoubtedly Roy Williams' decision to ditch the University of Kansas basketball program for a post at his alma mater, the University of North Carolina. Naturally, KU fans infuriated by the move were pushed to full-on insanity... More >>
• Best Exciting Athlete
  Dante Hall
  Dante Hall is the one player people who hate football can learn to love. Dislike the slow pace of the game? Just tune in for the times Hall catches a punt or kickoff on the dead run, and witness the undiluted excitement of his sideline sprints. Every play in which he participates has a... More >>
• Best Pro Athlete
  Priest Holmes
  In the most mundane of settings -- a sideline interview during a preseason game -- Chiefs running back Priest Holmes managed to make headlines by demanding to "get paid." From almost any other local athlete, such a request would seem uncouth. But Holmes truly deserved the raise for which he so... More >>
• Best Place to Find Love
  Adult Tennis Lessons
  According to the ancient Greeks, there are different kinds of love; there's eros -- erotic -- and then there's agape, which stands for friendship. The latter is more likely to be found through the adult tennis lessons at the Plaza Tennis Center. Classes, which range from beginner to... More >>
• Best Climber
  Josh Carrick
  Josh Carrick gets higher than most kids his age. Three times a week, Carrick hooks a rope into a climbing harness and hoists his 5-foot-10-inch, 135-pound frame up the faux rocks at the Ibex indoor climbing gym in Blue Springs (801 N.W. South Outer Road, 816-228-9988). Recently, Carrick finished... More >>
• Best Way to Get in Shape Without Hating Every Minute of It
  Hyatt Hotel Fitness Club Membership
  If you are a workout fanatic, you won't be impressed by the Hyatt Health Club and Pool. You will scoff at the measly supply of machinery and the absence of certain must-have weight-room components. But guess what? You, quite obviously, aren't the one at risk of hating the process of getting in... More >>
• Best Bike Rides
  128th Street and Holmes
  What started as a couple of guys drinking beer and racing bike trails under cover of darkness has become a citywide mountain-biking movement. A few years ago, late-night riding was a beer-addled inspiration for employees at Bike Source (119th Street and Quivira Road in Overland Park,... More >>
• Best hoopster
  Quinton Day
  The Kansas City, Missouri, School District is becoming quite a talent mill for basketball stars. First there was Central grad Michael Watson, who has become one of the nation's top scorers at UMKC and is a sure first-round pick for the NBA. Now there's Paseo's Quinton Day. Scoring more than 20... More >>