Rockhurst, T-Bones Baseball Player Gets Married on the Mound

Talk about fireworks.

Jonathan Krysa, ’00, said he wasn’t that nervous last Friday, despite it being his wedding day. And despite the fact that he was getting married on the Fourth of July. In a baseball park. In front of 8,117 people, many of them strangers.

Krysa said before the ceremony that it might be because it’s an environment in which he feels very comfortable. As a pitcher for the Kansas City T-Bones baseball team from 2003-07, the pitcher’s mound at Community America Ballpark feels like a second home.

“I’m totally used to it, so it’s not a problem for me,” he said.

The ceremony did get plenty of attention with a wedding party dressed in red, white and blue and a bridal procession set to Katy Perry’s “Firework.” A Fourth of July fireworks display inaugurated the new couple immediately after the ceremony.

At Rockhurst, Krysa earned two All-American honors and helped the Hawks in a run at the 1999 Division II College World Series, a season where the team finished fourth nationally. As a member of the T-Bones, Krysa racked up a club record for most appearances with 90, starting at the team’s first-ever game at home in 2003. He also holds team records for most strikeouts and is second for most wins. He now works as a program analyst for the U.S. Marshalls but said baseball is still a part of his life as a member of the Kansas City Monarchs in the MINK league.

It was baseball that initially brought Krysa and his new wife, Stacy Folsom, together. She was a nurse in Kansas City, Kan., when he, as part of the T-Bones, came in for a physical in 2005. He asked her on a date shortly after.

Krysa said he knew when he proposed in May that he wanted to get married on the Fourth of July and hoped Community America Ballpark would host the ceremony. The park agreed, but Krysa said he still had one conversation to have.

“Stacy didn’t necessarily want a big audience,” he said. “And all of a sudden we’re going to have 7,000 people. But she’s pretty easy going and she said she’s in.”