KANSAS CITY, KAN. ? What is so rare as a day in June, a breeze wafting through the shaded stands and men in uniform attempting to hit a round ball with a round bat under the noonday sun?

Ah, the scene is at once ethereal and ephemeral, a celestial feeling destined to fade in a short time.

First of all, you can’t watch men play professional baseball at noon unless you make the short drive over to CommunityAmerica Ballpark. The Kansas City T-Bones have a trio of 11:05 a.m. first-pitch specials on their 2006 schedule.

The initial game on the T-Bones’ morning menu was Wednesday against the Edmonton Cracker-Cats, a curiously named professional team unless perhaps there exists a soda cracker-eating feline indigenous to the Canadian province of Alberta.

Ever since the T-Bones arrived in Kansas City from Duluth, Minn., in 2003, I’ve tried to catch a game or two every summer and, after watching Edmonton pound the Steakmen, 9-3, I’m not sure I want to double my displeasure during the summer of ’06.

During their first three seasons, the T-Bones had some quality players, notably Eddie Pearson, a former first-round draft choice of the Chicago White Sox who quickly became a fan favorite.

Pearson is the only familiar name still with the T-Bones and, at first glance, you have to wonder if this team icon has over-sampled all the eateries that have sprung up around the ballpark in this burgeoning area of the “other” Kansas City.

Pearson is listed at 250 pounds, but he may be closer to 300. I’ve seen smaller offensive linemen. I felt sorry for him because several fans sitting around me were jeering the big guy for trotting to first base on groundouts. Trotting may be his top speed.

Most of the boos, however, were showered on Blake Whealy, who plays second base for the T-Bones. Whealy, a 26-year-old former Mets’ farmhand, put on a clinic on how not to play second base.

In the first inning, Whealy fielded a routine high-hopper and threw the ball somewhere in the vicinity of the first baseman, but nowhere near his mitt. In the second inning, Whealy booted a routine ground ball.

Would I be a witness to history? Would I see a player make an error in every inning? Alas, no. Whealy failed to err in the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, eighth and ninth innings. But he did post the hat trick when he kicked another grounder in the seventh.

Meanwhile, as I watched the play of Edmonton shortstop Stubby Clapp, I was reminded just how unfair pro baseball can be. Clapp, now 33 and listed as a player-coach for the Cracker-Cats, languished for nine years in the minor leagues, four at the Cardinals’ Triple-A farm in Memphis.

In his first season with Edmonton last summer, the 5-foot-8 Clapp made the Northern League All-Star team and was named the Cats’ MVP. Against the T-Bones, Clapp went 4-for-6 and made three difficult fielding plays look routine.

After the game as Clapp played catch in front of the dugout with a small boy I assume was his son, it struck me that for every millionaire in baseball there must be at least four or five Stubby Clapps.