The Royals front office has made some incredibly stupid moves over the years.

Bad trades. Lousy managerial picks. A tendency, until only recently, to be annoyingly cheap when it came to buying talent.

But surely our Royals aren’t so clueless as to risk offending a large number of fans by promoting a special game night honoring just one side in the battle over abortion.

Especially with the killing of Wichita abortion doctor George Tiller so fresh in everyone’s mind.

“Come cheer on the Royals as they play the St. Louis Cardinals and support the Missouri Right to Life,” read a blurb that was up on the team’s Web site promoting this Friday’s game at Kauffman Stadium.

To their credit, our friends at The Pitch broke the story late last week. Unable to get an explanation from the team, staff writer Justin Kendall then did what I might have done.

He hyped his story just a smidge by referring to the event as “Missouri Right to Life night at The K.”

And away things went from there.

The Royals removed the blurb from their site. But they suddenly found themselves in the midst of abortion politics. Instead of the usual slams for keeping manager Trey Hillman on the payroll, the organization was dissed by online commenters for taking sides on an issue that has divided the nation like no other in the past three decades.

It struck Peter Brownlie odd, too. So Brownlie, head of the Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri, called the Royals to explain his concerns to Mark Tilson, Royals vice president of sales and marketing.

“I think the word that was used was ‘insensitive,’ that given recent events that this was being promoted,” Tilson said. As Tilson explained to Brownlie, there never was a Missouri Right to Life night at the K planned, not in the formal sense.

Like any number of other groups, Missouri Right to Life arranged with the ticket office to reserve a block of seats for their members to sit together.

“It wasn’t done with our state organization, it was done by the region,” said Patricia Skain, executive director of Missouri Right to Life.

But here’s the kicker. About 10,000 of the stadium’s 38,000 seats were sold to groups for Friday’s game. Missouri Right to Life’s share: 50.

So how did that one group out of hundreds rate mention on the Royals Web site?

“I think someone at the Royals organization was just clueless and miscalculated the potential impact it could have,” Brownlie said.

Tilson didn’t disagree.

“It was unneeded exposure, to put it candidly,” he said.

To reach Mike Hendricks, call 816-234-7708, or send e-mail to mhendricks@kcstar.com.

Words that should never appear in a police report: I was working off duty at Kauffman Stadium when I was dispatched to the playground….

And it wasn’t the kids who needed police intervention last weekend. It was the parents who were dirty fighting like they expected to earn a WWF salary. One person was throwing the N-word around. Another was cussing a blue streak that even police could not get her to stop.

The vast majority of the police report can’t be reprinted here, being that The Star considers itself a family newspaper, something anyone could peruse without having their eyes pop out. Those who witnessed the melee, including many children, didn’t garner that level of respect.

Any event that draws the numbers of a Royals game into a confined area, except maybe an outdoor Mass with the Pope, will inevitably bring a few lowlifes into the bunch. It’s simply a matter of numbers. In that way, the Royals are not responsible for the crude behavior.

But suffice it to say ballparks, professional sporting events in general, are not what they used to be. And a slice of this is very much under the control of professional sports. The Kauffman Stadium Web site promises fans will find the new renovations “a breathtaking fusion of energetic surroundings and an intimate place to watch Royals baseball.”

Please, let’s consider ratcheting back a bit on the hyped energy. Ask people who travel to stadiums around the country, and one of the things they note is the rising volume of “fan experience” being cultivated. Pump loud music in, keep people jumping with flat screens at every turn, a plethora of bars, and any number of conjured stimuli.

Apparently, it is no longer enough to spend a peaceful few hours sitting back taking in the sun at an afternoon game, or the cooling evening breeze of a night game. The desire to be “a part of the action” overrides.

Remember the ballpark scenes of “The Natural,” or any number of dated baseball movies? The beauty of the game, the field, the athleticism were highlighted, not fan antics. Used to be, baseball catered to a more serene crowd, not nearly so focused on tailgating for hours of pre-drinking before getting down to the real drinking inside the stadium.

As one friend noted of a recently attended Royals game, he just wanted the game to start so the blaring music on the PA system would stop.

Makes you wonder if people pay to park their car and believe they’ve also paid to park their civility as well. As if they have purchased a right to enter a coliseum and wallow with the masses.

They’ve bought more than a seat, after all. People have been coaxed and primed, ready for an intense “fan experience” in which they are not so much spectators, but participants as well. No surprise, then, that a few folks will take it too far.

To reach Mary Sanchez call 816-234-4752 or send e-mail to msanchez@kcstar.com.