Scheffe sings for Royals in quartet group
Maryville native Steven Scheffe is in a quartet that sang the National Anthem at Wednesday’s Kansas City Royals game. Members of the 4th Bass Quartet are Julian Rivera, Scheffe, James Levy, and Ethan Platt.
Steven Scheffe, Maryville High School graduate and son of Lonnie and Janet Scheffe, is part of a quartet that sang the National Anthem at Wednesday’s Kansas City Royals game.
While Scheffe, a 2008 Maryville High School and 2013 Northwest Missouri State University computer science graduate, is no stranger to Kauffman Stadium or the Kansas City Royals, Wednesday’s experience will not be one he forgets any time soon.
Scheffe, a participant in various theater performances in Kansas City, including theater in the park events, said his performance at Kauffman was easily the biggest crowd he’s performed in front of.
While he hadn’t put much thought into singing the National Anthem at a professional game, it was an item on his bucket list. So when James Levy, asked Scheffe if he’d be interested, Scheffe ran with the opportunity.
“I really had mixed emotions about the idea,” Scheffe said. “Part of me thought it sounded like an awesome opportunity because it was something I wanted to do someday. On the flip side, I wondered how good of a chance we had, so I wasn’t getting my hopes up because I knew a lot of people had been auditioning.”
The quartet Scheffe sang with on Wednesday wasn’t even a group that had been together long.
“The quartet was kind of a last minute thing, not a group I sing with a lot,” he said. “Apart from the auditioning, Wednesday was the first performance we’d ever done together.”
Early in 2016 the group sent in an audio file to be considered by the Royals as an initial audition.
“At that moment I thought even if I don’t get to sing in front of the crowd at an actual game, it didn’t matter because the audition experience was awesome,” Scheffe said.
Scheffe and his group were asked to show up an hour before the game. They were taken down to the field level and set up in a room prior to the start of the game. It was there the group was notified that they had to have a name that would announce them onto the field. Having never sang together before, the guys didn’t know what to call themselves.
“Coming up with a name worthy of being announced at a Royals game was the hardest thing about that day,” Scheffe said. “It was about 15 minutes into the discussion that someone came up with the 4th Bass Quartet. And that’s what we all agreed on.”
As game time came closer, the group was moved to a tunnel right next to the Royals’ dugout. The group grew anxious and decided to run through the song a couple of times.
“I didn’t see it, but after we finished one of our run-throughs, one of the players stepped out of the dugout to clap for the group,” Scheffe said.
“I’d been to a lot of Royals games before then, but this one was definitely a lot more meaningful,” he said. “All of my immediate family was there, and we don’t get together often. So the fact that my singing at the Royals game brought us together made it even that much better. And even if I get another chance to sing there, the first time will still standout.”
Scheffe currently lives in Kansas City and is a software development engineer at Commerce Bank.