I took my 41/2-year-old daughter to her first major league baseball game on Sunday and, I must admit, I was hoping for a “Field of Dreams” moment.

I hoped she’d get one look at the green grass and the blue sky, take one whiff of that major league baseball smell that is by turns hot dogs and sunscreen and sweat and beer and peanuts, get an earful of barkers barking and fans cheering and balls flying off of wood bats and become smitten with the sport just like her parents.

We made it into the fourth inning of the Kansas City Royals’ 10-0 rout of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays before deciding to call it a day, and as we walked out of Kauffman Stadium I couldn’t help but shake my head and hope maybe baseball wouldn’t get its hooks in her, after all.

My wife and I grew up on Royals baseball and fondly recalled going to Royals Stadium and seeing the likes of George Brett in his prime.

Though we’d been to countless youth and Kansas University games together, we wanted our daughter  and, later, our son  to have the same kind of memories to share with their children, so we wanted her first trip to a major league shrine be special.

We had planned to go to a September afternoon game so the heat wouldn’t be oppressive, but it dawned on me we needed to accelerate the schedule to beat an impending work stoppage.

We picked Sunday, the day before the players set a strike date.

Sunday also was Carlos Beltran Bobblehead Doll Day, so I was able to explain to my daughter that some teams, like the Royals, don’t win very many games and so don’t have very many fans, so they get corporate sponsors  in this case, Dodge  to pay for trinkets to lure fans to the games.

We settled into our seats and, for the umpteenth time, I explained the nuances of baseball  how the leadoff batter’s first job is to erase the back line of the batter’s box, the importance of hitting behind the runner and why you want speed at the bottom of the order  and was thrilled to have my daughter call my attention to the field because, “Daddy, there’s runners on the corners!”

Always a people-watcher, Carlyn seemed to drink in the sights and smells, even if the home run fireworks were a bit much.

As we strolled out of the stadium, I started to think about the day.

We had to go to a game we didn’t want to go to because a bunch of spoiled, multimillionaire players threatened to threaten to walk out on their spoiled, multibillionaire bosses.

Had we not stumbled upon some free tickets, we would have had to spend more than $100 for seats (not the best, not the worst), food (not the best and not much) and parking.

We saw a bunch of players she’ll never remember play a not very good game.

On the way out of the stadium, I picked up a ballot for major league baseball’s Memorable Moments promotion, and I thought about my own memorable baseball moments.

I remember games with Brett and Hal McRae and Willie Wilson and Amos Otis. I remember the 1985 World Series. I remember covering Brett’s final game in Kansas City.

I recalled road trips to St. Louis and pilgrimages to Wrigley Field. I thought about Nolan Ryan fastballs and Ozzie Smith backflips. I remembered sizzling at an Athletics game one day and shivering through a Giants game the next.

And I thought how, years from now, my daughter could tell her children how her first major-league experience came when she saw players she couldn’t recall play a bad game she had to be lured to with a doll  on a day she didn’t choose.

And I thought my daughter’s first major league experience probably wouldn’t make my list of memorable baseball moments.

Isn’t that a shame?