The Kansas City Royals, the
professional baseball team, is currently (as of 8/19/14) in first place in the
American League Central Division.
It feels strange. The team
has the current longest active record of not playing in the post-season, — for
28 years. I will grant that the
Chicago Cubs have failed to win the World Series in 105 years. (As Jack
Brickhouse said, “Any team can have a bad century.”) The Texas Rangers had the longest pennant drought ever at 49
years until they won one in 2010.
So the local team has not been the worst of the worst. They have just been close to it.
Part of the issue is that there are
162 games in a baseball season.
Earlier in the season the Royals fell into third place due to an eight
game losing streak. Like many
others here, I thought that was the beginning of the long-expected implosion. I
expected the team to crash like a downhill skier going off the course. In stead they won ten games in a row
and kept winning until they reached first place. They could win the division. They could also make the playoffs by winning enough games to
be a wild-card entry. It has been quite a while since local fans had to do the
math assessing that possibility.
There are still roughly 40 games
left in the season. It is not
clear what would trigger a swan dive at this point. Pitching has been good. Defense has been good.
The team doesn’t have awesome offense, but they haven’t had it all this
season. They’ve been squeaking out
wins with excellent late inning relief pitching. One of the best players is out with broken bones in his
hand. In spite of the injury the
Royals have been winning. Even
before the season started, Manager Ned Yost has been preaching taking one game
at a time, not getting overly happy or sad about a single game and, as he put
it, “grinding out games.”
That’s fine for him. It may even be fine for the
players. They haven’t gone 28
seasons without a sniff of post-season play, the fans in Kansas City have. These are supposed to be the, “dog days
of August.” Temperatures have been
unseasonably cool this August. On
television the Royals players seem to be enjoying themselves and liking their
teammates.
Surely it can’t last. Can it?
I think the Royals are still doing well. Maybe they will win the pennant this year?!
ReplyDeleteOne never knows. I grew up among Yankees fans in the days when they were on top of the world, playing repeatedly in "subway" World Series. New York was the place for baseball fans! I don't pay much attention any more--I realize I was a "herd mentality" fan, not a genuine one.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I have a sister-in-law who is a diehard Cubs fan. Talk about lack of incentive! The Cubs are one of the saddest teams. But she faithfully goes to games and is always on top of what's going on with the team.
My husband is a Phillies fan (grew up in Philadelphia) which is a mixed bag.
Good luck with your team, enjoy the good parts and don't get too upset about the sometimes stunning losses!