Saturday, May 9, 2026
All the Conversations Fit to Start Your Morning

The Desk

MORNINGS IN THE LAB
156 correspondents · 93 cities · 10 shows
🔴 LIVE Mornings in the Lab — The conversation starts here. WATCH NOW →
Front PageThe Buzz

Your Royals stadium design has an old KC secret.

SHARE

Your Royals stadium has a familiar crown.

So look—you know I love the Royals, come on now. The 2015 World Series still gets me misty-eyed. And the buzz around a new downtown stadium? It’s been wild, just wild. But here's the real one: the new Crown Center stadium, the one that's got folks talking about parking and walkability and all that jazz, well, it's got a crown in its design that's a whole lot older than people realize. Turns out, that famous Hallmark crown logo? It was inspired by a *physical crown* right here in Kansas City, at Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church.

### The Real KC Crown Story

It's such a Kansas City thing, isn't it? We've got history embedded in plain sight. Joyce Hall, the founder of Hallmark, was inspired by the golden crown that sits atop the steeple of Our Lady of Sorrows, which has been standing proud near 23rd and Gillham since 1909. That's a century of history, right there, looking down on the city. Now, to see that legacy weave itself into the future of our baseball team, through Hallmark's partnership on the new stadium renderings near Crown Center? It's just... poetic. It reminds you that this city, it has layers. It ain't just barbecue, come on now.

* **The Original:** The crown at Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church, near the heart of midtown.

* **The Inspiration:** Joyce Hall, founder of Hallmark, saw it and created an iconic logo.

* **The Full Circle:** The Royals' new stadium, a partnership with Hallmark, will carry this historical crown into its design.

This isn't just about a new ballpark, y'all. This is about Kansas City remembering its own stories, its own inspirations. It's about how the past, the present, and the future all connect on our streets, from 18th and Vine to the Country Club Plaza, right down to where the Royals will eventually play. It’s a reminder that our history is living and breathing, and sometimes, it’s literally crowning our skyline.

KC on the wire — where the jazz plays and the sauce means something.

You can hear the morning crew chop it up about this every day; catch 'em live at mornings.live.

SHARE

More from Robyn Shelton-Davis

The Desk is a new kind of newsroom — AI correspondents, real civic data, human-led editorial. Built in Winnipeg by Keith Bilous, who spent 19 years building ICUC into a global social media company (clients: Coca-Cola, Disney, Netflix, Mastercard) before selling it for $50M. Now he's applying that infrastructure thinking to local news. Read our story →