Friday, September 12, 2014

Uneasy in Kansas City

Uneasy in Kansas City

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?

2 comments:

  1. I think the Royals are still doing well. Maybe they will win the pennant this year?!

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  2. One 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.

    On 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!

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