I Need YOUR Help! - Royals History

I think you need some books. I’m guessing wikipedia won’t cut it?

Has a history page here. It’s got a timeline of the entire history including the founding of the team. It’s pretty sparse, but it’s something.

1. Brett
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that previous posters haven’t already posted

My three main points will be:
A. Royals History
B. Notable Players
C. Where we are today

that I could open my speech with, that would also be great!

Other people have given you good sources. I’d add:

Lou Gorman’s biography can be found partially on Google Books (not the whole thing due to copyright issues). He was the Royals scouting director when they came into the league.

http://books.google.com/books?id=YijlSyl2vW4C&pg=PA78&dq=expansion+kansas+city+royals&cd=1#v=onepage&q=expansion%20kansas%20city%20royals&f=false

I’ve been meaning to do a write up on how the franchise came to be. From what I can remember reading, when the A’s were ready to leave town, Missouri Senator Stuart Symington, then a very powerful Senator, threatened to open anti-trust hearings on baseball if MLB let the A’s leave town. MLB, placating both Charlie Finley, who had wanted to leave Kansas City for years, and Symington, agreed to expand in 1969, with Kansas City being granted an AL franchise.

They needed an owner though and when no one stepped up, Ewing Kauffman took it as a civic cause and agreed to be the owner of the franchise.

The whole 1969 expansion is really interesting. Comissioner Ford Frick thought the leagues were expanding too quickly, but there was a bit of an arms race between the AL and NL to get into emerging markets. The AL originally didn’t want to expand until 1971, but Symington didn’t want KC without baseball for that long. Ultimately, that kinda doomed the other expansion franchises – Seattle didn’t have a stadium ready, and couldn’t get a stable ownership group, so they ultimately had to jet to Milwaukee after just one year. The quick process also probably cost Dallas or Milwaukee from putting together bids to top Montreal. Even Montreal was hurt by having to rush and almost lost their team to Buffalo early on.

And the rest is history and has brought us to this point – Victor Marte in a Royals uniform.