Royals Host 9/11 Stair Climb at Kauffman Stadium

The Kansas City Royals will turn Kauffman Stadium into a memorial staircase on Wednesday, when members of the Royals organization, Kansas City first responders and representatives of veterans' organizations participate in a 2,200-stair climb to match the 110 stories of the World Trade Center's twin towers. The event, returning for its fourth year, honors hundreds of first responders who died on September 11, 2001, and lands during Suicide Prevention Month, tying the climb to mental health resources for first responders and veterans. According to FOX4KC, the Royals organization will join representatives from Kansas City first responder and veterans organizations for the climb at Kauffman Stadium on Wednesday. Leading the effort is Royals pitching coach Brian Sweeney, who plans to climb all 2,200 steps in full firefighter gear. Sweeney serves as a volunteer firefighter during the offseason and, per the same report, has several family members who are also first responders. Sweeney's connection to the firefighting community runs deep. His father, Ed, reportedly served as a firefighter in Yonkers, New York, for 35 years, and Sweeney himself joined the West Crescent Fire Department in Clifton Park, New York, as a volunteer firefighter in 2017 to honor him, according to 1045 The Team. Before landing in Kansas City in 2023, Sweeney had already built a track record of connecting ballclubs with local emergency crews, having established the Cleveland Guardians' 'Ready to Respond' outreach program before 2022 to host first responders at Progressive Field, per The Guards Post. The Royals' current 'Answering the Call' initiative with Blue KC is part of a broader Kansas City Royals Foundation slate that also includes the Salute to Service Seat program. The Kauffman Stadium climb is distinct from — and follows just days after — the city's older, downtown 9/11 tradition. On Sunday, 343 firefighters from more than 20 states and 60 departments gathered at the Skyline Collection, the second-tallest habitable building in Kansas City and the third-tallest in Missouri, located at 1111 Main St., to climb its 110 stories in full gear. Hoodline previously reported that the event marked the 16th annual Kansas City Memorial Stair Climb, and this year's downtown gathering served as the city's first of two stair-climbing observances tied to the 25th anniversary of the attacks, with Kauffman Stadium's climb serving as the second. The 2,200-step distance traces back to September 11, 2005, when five Denver firefighters climbed 110 flights of stairs in full gear to honor their fallen FDNY colleagues — a tribute the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation standardized nationwide in 2010. On the actual day of the attacks in 2001, 343 FDNY firefighters, 37 Port Authority police officers, 23 NYPD officers and eight EMS providers were killed during rescue operations at the World Trade Center, the deadliest single day for emergency responders in American history. A similar 2,200-step climb took place in 2026 at Fluor Field in Greenville. Firefighters die by suicide at rates of roughly 18 per 100,000, compared with about 13 per 100,000 among the general U.S. population. First responder support nonprofit First H.E.L.P. reported 143 first responder suicides nationwide in 2024, a toll that has pushed public safety organizations to promote crisis tools like the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Those numbers have also drawn a federal response. Under the HERO Act, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration launched a public safety officer suicide reporting system meant to better document occupational trauma among firefighters and emergency medical clinicians. The Royals Foundation's support for military and first-responder organizations is framed as part of that same broader effort to support the people who answer the call.