Zack Greinke

You could sit wherever you wanted within reason. The ushers didn’t bother you if you didn’t bother anyone else.

I agree it can be fun following a bad team. I usually try to guess how they are going to f up things. As in, here comes John Bale, how about a single, a walk, an error, then a homer. Game over.

Seriously, how many people are lucky enough to see something historic almost night after night? The Royals may be bad, but they are never boring. Last night’s Joe Poz post is a good example of that.

I want these players to succeed, that is the hardest part. I want Gordon to develop into a better version of Scott Rolen. I want Zack Greinke to make people compare other pitchers to him, instead of Pedro. I want Mitch Maier to develop into an average MLBer at the plate, with above average defense in CF. I want Billy Butler to be the second coming of Babe Ruth at the plate and the buffet table. I want Soria to get 70 saves in a season while only throwing his sick curve. I want Banny to pinpoint exactly where he needs to throw every pitch, execute it, and throw perfect game after perfect game with his brain. I want Disco Hayes to come up and baffle the opposition with his submarine sub-80 fastball. I want Hillman to have actual MLB quality players to manage, where he doesn’t have to second guess his decision to send a crappy reliever to the mound. I want Dayton Moore to learn from this past season about what works and what doesn’t in player acquisition, and fix it for upcoming years. I want Glass to keep breaking even on the team, as asking him to lose money when he can’t sell the team for a profit, seems kind of harsh. I want Kila Ka’aihue to be a given a chance to show that he can possibly be Carlos Pena with half the homers at the MLB level. I want DDJ to keep hitting career highs in home runs every year. I want Guillen, Farnsworth, Anderson, Bale, Olivo or Buck gone. I want, I want, I want.

After laughing so hard I snorted beer out my nose at the Royals latest antics I found myself relaxing and enjoying the eventual conclusion of last night’s game. I have decided to view the remainder of the Royals season as just that sad comic relief. How will we screw up and lose the next game? What kind of dipshit lineup will the moustache come up with this time? How much more snakeoil can the “Dayton” dump on us fans today? I will still rank and complain…but, I will eventually calm down and remember that it is all so sad that it is now funny. Dark humor is sometimes the best humor of all. Guillen’s return to should bring forth belly laughs…

at some point you can’t stand for incompetence. But I am at no point ready to write them off.

On the other hand I think the only reason I still root for this team is the fear of them being good after I abandon ship. I kinda take pride in the fact that my friends are amazed that I have stuck with this team.

even if that appears totally unlikely, one day we’d look back and wonder why we let our blodd pressure rise over stuff like this. Honestly, the whole news hasn’t phased me a bit. Just sit back and watch the show. It’s unpredictable and interesting!

I will have 3 years on you later this month and I think the Budster is pretty close to where you are. Phil is the youngster of the AARP group. We all know exactly what you are talking about and feel the same way you do. 85 was magical and it would be nice to experience something like that again. Damn, it would be nice to experience a couple of winning seasons. Every new GM has a new “Process.” I have seen so many that it is hard to not think of them as pure BS. Oh well, at least they keep the blood pumping and sometimes provide some comic relief. Hochy, you are a gem.

last night’s bale fuckup was just hilarious…what can you do but laugh at this point. i hold out hope, i always hold out hope but i can already say that i will not look as forward to 2010 as i did 2009…this season took something out of me for sure…i haven’t given up because their my team from my city and always will be, but it’s nice to enjoy zack, billy and soria. the rest of the guys are just roster filler for now.

there’s still nothing much better than a baseball game on a summer night.

Because you’re either a Royals fan, or you’re not. The Royals are either your team, or they aren’t. In my opinion, being a fan means you celebrate the good times and you stick it out through the bad times. Even if the bad times are really bad and last for a long time, you stick because that’s what a fan does. It’s just that simple.

I root for the losers.

The day the loser fought back and beat up the bully in the schoolyard…. everyone remembers that day…

Everyone remembers that day. And no one forgets.

No one forgets Namath. No one forgets Mazeroski.

The Yankees can take their rings and shove ’em up their ass.

The day the losers win a championship, it will be worth more to us than 50 World Series combined.

That’s the day you and me can look everyone in that schoolyard in the eye and tell them… I told you sucka

I’ll be the last word on this subject. My allegiance to Kansas City pro sports and Kansas college sports is entirely geographic. I was born into a sports family in KCK the year MLB came to town. I was hitting whiffle balls (my sister did the pitching) by the time I was 2. The game is ingrained in me in a way no other sport ever will be.

I discovered the A’s in ‘62. Someone in the stands at Kensington Park was listening to the A’s radio broadcast while we watched the live softball game (the KC Dons women’s team, I think), and I was off and running as a fan. I had already discovered the Cardinals on radio, but I never listened regularly. The A’s were different. I started collecting baseball cards and knew every MLB roster, but my A’s cards were my prized possessions. I had all their stats committed to memory.

The fact that they were no good never really entered into the equation. They were a crappy team, but they were my crappy team; I never questioned it. When Finley ran off with them we were given the Royals almost immediately, and they were better than the A’s had been almost immediately. Thanks largely to the Yankees’ resurgence, we retained the underdog feel and I was able to enjoy the success. Even when we won the Series, the rest of the country (I was in Alaska by then) hardly cared or recognized the accomplishment because it was only two Missouri teams playing. The Denkinger call is what most people around the country remember.

Coincidentally, I grew up as a good player on terrible teams, so that probably heightened my appreciation for the underdog/loser baseball team. This appreciation never has translated to the other team sports for me. The Chiefs were good, and I expected them to be. Ditto for KU basketball. Hell, the Kings were even pretty good during their brief sojourn in KC. I actually lost interest in the Chiefs during the dark years of Kinney and Blackledge. The only reason I lost track of the Royals was my residency in Alaska and the lack of national coverage. I still read the box scores frequently, but I couldn’t maintain the obsessive fandom from the distance and relative isolation of Alaska.

Thankfully, the internet has changed that. In 2007 I jumped back in with both feet, and with the help of the people on this site I have become just as obsessed with this team as I was with the A’s. They’re as bad as they wanna be, and I don’t care. They’ll get better and maybe win something someday; that’d be nice, but not necessary. There’s nothing rational about fandom. I might even like it better as it is. In the music business, we have a saying; “People don’t know what they like, they like what they know”. Teams like the ’09 Royals are what I know. The more infrequently they succeed, the better it feels when they do. Is that so wrong?