3 of many reasons Salvador Perez loves KC: Royals fans, BBQ, this Mexican restaurant

Your Guide to KC: Star sports columnist Vahe Gregorian is changing uniforms this spring and summer, acting as a tour guide of sorts to some well-known and hidden gems of Kansas City. Send your ideas to vgregorian@kcstar.com.

Salvador Perez was 15 when the Royals first scouted him in Venezuela in 2005, 16 when they signed him a year later and 17 when he landed in Surprise, Arizona, for rookie ball in 2007.

So to augment the loving upbringing by his mother and grandmother, he also was truly raised Royal. Not merely in terms of The Royals Way on the field but even matters as fundamental as learning English from the “zero” he knew when he arrived.

“It was hard to even go to Burger King and ask for a cheeseburger,” he said, smiling as ever, in an interview with The Star this week. “The only thing I knew was, ‘Hi, how are you, Number one.’”

(His Kansas City food tastes have since expanded. More on that in a bit.)

He’d soon rapidly learn the language through Monica Ramirez, then the Royals’ ESL instructor. He treasures her efforts as much as anything else he cherishes about the organization and this city.

From the moment he walked out to the bullpen before his first game at Kauffman Stadium on Aug. 15, 2011, Perez felt so welcomed he immediately sensed he was “home.”

Home, in fact, is a word Perez used about Kansas City repeatedly during a 20-minute-plus interview largely about his adoptive hometown and their mutual love affair.

No sooner had I said I’d been thinking about how much Kansas City loves him than he interjected, “I love Kansas City, too.”

One day surely his No. 13 jersey will be retired. No, alas, there’s no story to Perez wearing that popularly superstitious number other than random distribution when he arrived. But …

“A lot of players (would) want to have my career,” he said, smiling. “So I don’t think it’s bad luck for me.”

He’s been a World Series MVP, eight-time All-Star and five-time Gold Glove winner who ranks second in franchise history in home runs (256, entering their game Thursday, to George Brett’s 317).

And at age 34, he somehow is trending toward possibly the best season of his career for the resurgent Royals — who so far look every part a playoff contender.

Perez said that’s because he’s like wine and joked that along with peers like Patrick Mahomes, he’d play until he’s 90 if he could.

“(With) more time,” he said, “I get better.”

And with more time, he becomes more of a fixture in Kansas City — a notion that came to a crossroads last season when the Royals were entertaining trade offers for Perez amid another dreadful season.

He briefly struggled with a “crazy thing in my head” about whether he should approve or veto a deal — as would be his right with 10 years in the majors and five-plus with one team.

Out of that exercise, though, came clarity and conviction about his future.

Shortly before the trade deadline he called J.J. Picollo, the team’s executive vice president of baseball operations and general manager, and told him he didn’t want to go anywhere else.

“‘I want to stay in Kansas City,’” he remembered saying. “‘Let me finish here.’”

After all, since the United States “just opened the door for me,” Perez became a naturalized U.S. citizen at Bartle Hall during FanFest in 2020. One of his three children (7-year-old Johan) was born in Kansas City. Among the tattoos on his amply illustrated body is a World Series championship logo from the Royals’ title in 2015.

And in addition to being with his wife and mother here, he’ll tell you over and over how the organization and his teammates feel like family.

So much so that when he wakes up on game days he sometimes has to restrain himself from going to the stadium too early.

“I just want to come here and spend the most time I can in the clubhouse with my friends,” he said.

Just the same, he also has come to embrace all things Kansas City away from the stadium.

You might on occasion see Perez and his family at the Kansas City Zoo & Aquarium. Or sometimes out at the movies. On Sunday after the Royals played, he went to the Kansas City Current game at CPKC Stadium with teammates Bobby Witt Jr. and Vinnie Pasquantino.

“My first time. Beautiful stadium. Beautiful,” he said. “It’s 11,000 people every game. It’s unbelievable. I like it. I really like it. The energy. I really like it.”

When I asked him where he felt most at home, though, he said restaurants.

Much as he loves barbecue, especially if it’s spicy, Perez evidently has had so much in so many places that he playfully reckoned it would be best to generalize.

“I like all barbecue,” he said. “Let’s (put) it that way.”

Outside that category, he was direct about his love for The Capital Grille on the Country Club Plaza (“everything” there, including its steaks, lobster mac and cheese and salads), the Mexican restaurant Anejo in Olathe and Crown Center’s Empanada Madness — which specializes in Venezuelan and Colombian cuisine and whose owner, Andrea Penaloza, Perez expressed gratitude for by first name.

Asked what he favored there, Perez might as well have rattled off the entire menu as he spoke about the shredded chicken and shredded beef empanadas as well as its plantains, rice and beans.

No wonder he rolled with it when I suggested perhaps it needs a dish in his honor.

A “Salvy Special,” he repeated, laughing.

Something he’s created himself about every day in Kansas City, where Perez has become one of the most adored personalities in the history of the franchise and the city.

As he spoke about wishing he could have a thousand baseballs to throw to kids from the bullpen every day at The K, Perez said, “I just try to make a smile for them, you know?”

It’s impossible to measure how many he has made over the years.

All because of the same feeling of home that started with the Royals suggesting he work out at catcher in 2005 and signing him and teaching him English and bringing him up through the system.

And so much more.

And everything else since.

“More than half of my life” with the Royals, he said, beaming.

And into perpetuity as a Kansas City jewel.

Star sports columnist Vahe Gregorian is changing uniforms this spring and summer, acting as a tour guide of sorts to some well-known and hidden gems of Kansas City. Send your ideas to vgregorian@kcstar.com.