For Tom Shadoin, Sunday’s Kansas City Royals game carries special significance.

For one, the 67-year-old semi-retired Topeka attorney hopes it is the beginning of a rebound for the defending World Series champions, who have stumbled out of the gate to a 15-14 record.

"I hope (it is)," Shadoin said. "I’m looking forward to another exciting year."

If it is the start of a turnaround, Shadoin will not be watching it firsthand. Instead, he will be listening to the radio broadcast from a meeting room reserved at the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library.

In one of Shadoin’s hands will be a petition, the result of a disagreement between him and the library that can be summed up in one question: In an ever-changing landscape, what services should a public library provide to its community?

In February, the library stopped providing regular cable television access. While the facility still has its cable set up, the removal three months ago of the last television from a corner in the first-floor media room near the center of the building effectively ended the service's usefulness. The decision was the result of a 2014 community survey where more than 800 Shawnee County residents told the library it should focus on literacy, lifelong learning and community support, according to Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library CEO Gina Millsap.

That decision upset Shadoin. He and a group of about 10 others used the location to view two to three Royals games per week and every Kansas City Chiefs contest until the latter’s season ended in January. Both sides acknowledge the cramped media room was not an ideal location, but Shadoin’s frustration stems from what he sees as an unclear policy on what exactly constitutes promotion of literacy at the library, which offers everything from arts and crafts workshops to monthly classic movie viewings to an area with two flat-screen TVs for teens to play video games.

Shadoin contends that none of those offerings promote literacy, which he feels creates a double standard in the library’s explanation of why a cable viewing area is not in its plans.

"I don’t want to get dramatic or anything, but I’m old enough to remember the Kennedy assassination and the Challenger tragedy," Shadoin said. "Any kind of public TV, people stopped and were transfixed. It is a library, it is a center of information. No cable TV means none of that, no breaking news, in addition to the issue of sports. Why would you not want something like that in the library?"

Shadoin reached out to Millsap, chief operating officer Robert Banks and trustee Betty Greiner seeking an explanation. He believes one of the four meeting rooms on the library’s second floor would be the ideal landing spot for his group, which he said included homeless men with no other way to view live sports programming. A mandatory $25 fee for equipment usage remains a road block to that avenue, though.

Millsap responded to Shadoin’s request on April 16, explaining that the library did not plan on replacing the old televisions or providing regular cable TV viewing. In an interview with The Capital-Journal, she cited a lack of cable access in the meeting rooms and demand for the space — which averaged three events per day in the seven potential meeting rooms — among her reasoning.

Another issue with offering a space for cable programming, Millsap said, is potential competition for viewing time among fans of the countless other networks, from HGTV to the Disney Channel. Millsap believes it would create a precedent the library could not accommodate in a nation with a growing number of cord cutters — 8.2 percent of former pay TV subscribers eliminated their service and 45.2 percent reduced it in 2014, according to a survey by TiVo subsidiary Digitalsmiths.

"Name a channel people like," Millsap said. "Should we support all of them?"

Both sides in this dispute are complimentary of the other. Shadoin called the library beautiful and cutting edge, while Millsap said she was not trying to marginalize the hobbies of Shadoin’s group. Millsap pointed to showings of last year’s World Series and other major sporting events in the Marvin Auditorium, as well as a display honoring Topeka Shawnee County Sports Council Hall of Fame, as examples of the library’s commitment to sports fans.

Shadoin, however, remains unsatisfied. Through library donations, he has offered to pay for the equipment and installation needed to restore the service in exchange for a waiving of the $25 fee, but Millsap said allowing individual exceptions to the fee would not be "fair, equitable and ethical."

As a result, Shadoin plans on going forward with his petition — a simple 31-word request for restoration of some space to view cable programming — and is encouraging community members who feel likewise to attend the somewhat symbolic gathering Sunday.

Looking back at last year, which ended up being smashing successes for both the Royals and Chiefs, Shadoin said the unofficial viewing parties were about camaraderie more than anything else.

"I could pay for cable if I wanted to and watch it at home," Shadoin said. "It turned into a social thing. I don’t think a lot of us expected that. It was something we looked forward to."

Even as a patron calls one of her decisions into question, Millsap said she is pleased Shadoin is using the facility for a petition, calling the library the "biggest supporter of the First Amendment in the community." Her team is starting work on a new master facility plan that will once again change how the 167,000-square-foot library looks and what services it offers, and she did not rule out a potential lounge area with cable programming being included.

Still, those plans will not be complete until long after this Royals season is finished, and while she appreciates Shadoin’s passion and advocacy for his less advantaged friends, Millsap stands by the library’s decision.

"He feels very strongly about this and it’s important to him," Millsap said. "And you know what? He’s a library user. He loves us. I don’t want to damage that relationship. He’s an important person in the community. He has friends, and we want him to say good things about his library."

If Shadoin’s petition fails to spur the policy change he is looking for, he said he will take matters into his own hands this fall. He plans on circumventing the $25 fee by bringing his own portable television, which would have a digital box built inside and be capable of showing Chiefs games aired on network television.

"I’ll just pick it up and plug it in and watch the games on one of those," Shadoin said, "unless they plan on blocking that too."