Standoff at Kansas City sports complex delays Pirates' arrival, start time against Royals

With a standoff between an armed man and Kansas City police Saturday afternoon at Truman Sports Complex, the Pittsburgh Pirates remained at their team hotel for four hours awaiting word for when it was safe to go to Kauffman Stadium for their game against the Kansas City Royals.

Police responded to a report of a man firing shots at Arrowhead Stadium, which is home to the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs and shares a parking lot with the Royals at Kauffman Stadium inside the complex.

The game, originally scheduled to start at 7:05 p.m., was delayed until 7:35 p.m. Pirates manager Derek Shelton said the team requested to push for a later start but was denied.

“I think anytime you hear that, first and foremost, you want to make sure everybody’s OK,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said on a video-conference call with Pittsburgh reporters. “That’s the thought process that I have, that you want to make sure people are OK and not only that people are OK but that we continue to monitor and handle the situation. Baseball can be moved back. So, the world goes ‘round. We have to make sure once we are in a safe situation, a safe environment and got the word from Major League Baseball and the Kansas City police, that’s when we decided to come to the ballpark.”

Shelton said the situation was still ongoing when the Pirates were cleared to arrive at 5:40 p.m (ET), so they used a separate entrance and went through their health and safety protocols screening inside the stadium.

“This is a ginormous complex,” Shelton said. “It’s totally on the other side of Arrowhead, from the way it’s been explained to me. … We were able to adapt and adjust.”

The Kansas City Star reported the man fired shots at Arrowhead Stadium sometime around noon. There were no sporting events going on at the time, but Kansas City police closed all entrances to the parking lots.

?ALERT? avoid the parking lots at the Truman Sports complex; police and security have entrances locked down and the complex is CLOSED. Police investigating an armed person in the parking lot. THERE ARE NO EVENTS CURRENTLY HAPPENING AT EITHER STADIUM @Chiefs @Royals @MoDOT_KC

— kcpolice (@kcpolice) September 12, 2020

Royals manager Mike Matheny said some players who were driving around the stadium were sent home.

“There wasn’t even an entrance available for them to get in,” Matheny said during a pre-game video conference call. “We had a number of coaches that were sitting out in their cars for a long time before they were escorted in.”

The Pirates planned to leave their team hotel at noon. It was delayed 90 minutes, then two hours until they were cleared to enter the ballpark. As a result, the Pirates didn’t have time to take batting practice on the field. Shelton said the Pirates would take ground balls and fly balls, just at an accelerated pace.

“It’s more just the sitting around the hotel with nothing to do,” Shelton said. “It’s more than sitting around the hotel in quarantine but from 1:30 on we didn’t know when we were going to leave. You’re waiting to hear, waiting for guidance to move on. That’s the thing that probably makes it the most challenging.”