KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A podium placed just inside the entryway at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum sat empty for about an hour before the museum’s president, Bob Kendrick, gave his opening address.

It was Friday the 21st — two days after Juneteenth — and an exhibit honoring the 100th anniversary of the Kansas City Monarchs winning the first-ever “Colored World Series” was set to be unveiled to the public for the first time. That exhibit highlights the longstanding history of “The Kings of KC” and was aptly named as such.

And as it came time to unveil the exhibit, Kendrick said it couldn’t have come at a better time.

MLB recently announced the integration of its record books — adding Negro Leagues stats to the MLB history books. Kendrick certainly helped play a role in advocating for that.

A major-league game between the St. Louis Cardinals and San Francisco Giants meant to resemble that of a Negro Leagues game was held not two days before. Kendrick was there, too.

Safe to say, he’s been busy.

“I am still just elated,” Kendrick said at the podium ahead of the exhibit’s unveiling. “I’m exhausted, but it’s such a gratifying level of exhaustion because we’re seeing these milestone events take place. It is raising the level and the profile of this museum, and at what a great time.”

The exhibit features cutouts of some of the Monarchs’ most influential players. On the walls are newspaper clippings with different stories of the team on its path to an eventual championship.

As detailed as the exhibit was, Kendrick felt there could have been even more to tell.

“Quite frankly, we could have done an entire museum about the history of the Monarchs,” he said. “But we wanted to make sure that we told the general history as the national voice for this history.”

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