Border Showdown: Shutdown?

Tiger fans are celebrating MU's win over KU yesterday in what has been hyped as possibly the final meeting between the two rivals. Whether the football match-ups are history is yet to be seen - I'm thinking money talks and whining Jayhawks will be saying "Show me the money" - there are still several other MU-KU final Big 12 match-ups in store in this 2011-2012 season, including Baseball.

Fittingly, the schedules released by both MU and KU show them meeting on the field for the final weekend series of the 2012 season, May 17, 18 and 19, in Lawrence, KS.

One thing is missing from those schedules, though:  the annual MU_KU Border Showdown game at Kauffman Stadium.

As traditions go, that neutral-field game at Kauffman is a fairly short one.  2011 was only the fourth game in the series - all of which were won by the Jayhawks.

The interesting thing about the Kauffman game not being on the 2012 schedule is that it WAS on the 2012 schedule.

KU released their 2012 schedule on October 5th, with a press release that included this:

Kansas will play its annual game at Kauffman Stadium against Border Showdown rival Missouri (April 18) as well as a road game against Creighton at T.D. Ameritrade Stadium (April 3) – the site of the College World Series.

Here at SimmonsField.com we posted a bootleg early copy of the MU schedule on August 27th, based on a tentative schedule being passed around among the Baseball staff and the team.  That schedule also showed the annual Kauffman game on April 18th.

But if you look at the the official schedules posted by both MU and KU today, that game has disappeared.

I've not heard any word on who pulled the plug or why, but it's sad that we'll not get that game in this season. And the scheduling of the game would have been special as well.  Like last year, the MU-KU game was scheduled on the same day as a Royals' game, presumably to take place after the conclusion of the Royals game.  The Royals (Aaron Crow's current team) are scheduled to play the Detroit Tigers (Max Scherzer's current team) on April 18th.  that would have been a great day at Kauffman Stadium for Mizzou fans.

But it's not to be.  We'll have to settle for laying waste to Lawrence once again on the final weekend of the regular season.