The Kansas City Royals announced today that they will wear a jersey patch for the 2022 season in honor of Art Stewart, the club’s longtime scout who passed away last November at the age of 94 following a 69-year career in professional baseball. Additionally, the Royals will designate an Art Stewart Scout Seat for every home game during the 2022 season, which will be reserved for a scout.
“The Royals have always been built around the excellence of our scouts, and Art is the one we all look up to,” said Dayton Moore, Royals President of Baseball Operations. “Nobody loved baseball or watching baseball players more. He made us all better and was a consistently positive force in so many of our lives. There’s nobody like him, and we’re proud to honor his life and work in this way.”
The patch is of Art’s signature, which is on the first contracts of more than 70 players who reached the Major Leagues, including Royals Hall of Famers Kevin Appier and Mike Sweeney, as well as Bo Jackson, Brian McRae, Johnny Damon, Joe Randa and Carlos Beltrán. The patch will be displayed on the club’s jerseys throughout Spring Training and the 2022 regular season.
The jersey patch in honor of Stewart will be the eighth of its kind in Royals history, following honors in memory of Dick Howser (1987), Joe Burke (1992), Ewing Kauffman (1993), Muriel Kauffman (1995), Paul Splittorff (2011), Yordano Ventura (2017) and David Glass (2020).
Stewart was the longest-tenured associate in the Royals organization, working for 52 years, including the last 21 as the Sr. Advisor to the General Manager. He also served as the Sr. Special Assistant to the General Manager from 1997-2000 and as the Director of Scouting from 1985-96. Stewart was inducted as the 23rd member of the Royals Hall of Fame in 2008, and the Professional Scouts Hall of Fame that same year. In 2007, he received the Roland Hemond Award for longtime service in scouting and player development. The following year, in 2008, the Royals honored Stewart by renaming the Surprise, Ariz. observation tower that overlooks the four fields “The Art Stewart Tower.”
During Stewart’s tenure as Director of Scouting, the Royals were named Major League Baseball Organization of the Year by USA Today in 1984, by Baseball America in 1994 and by Topps, Inc. from 1984-85 and 1994-95. He was instrumental in the organization of the Royals Dominican program, and helped the club start the Salcedo Academy in the Dominican Republic. He was recognized in 1998 when the former Royals Academy building was named in his honor.
In 2014, Stewart co-authored The Art of Scouting: Seven Decades Chasing Hopes and Dreams in Major League Baseball.
Before joining the Royals front office, he spent 15 years covering the Midwest as a Royals scout. He began his career in professional baseball in 1953 as a territorial scout for the New York Yankees and was the Midwest Scouting Supervisor from 1958-69.
