Why Are You a Royals Fan?

My dad covered the royals for the star. We used to go to spring training in ft myers. Once, we ran into vida blue on st Patrick’s day. He was housed and told me that he may be Vida Blue, but today he’s Vida green! Little did I know, he likely was also Vida white on that day. Another time I was able to go in the locker and get autographs for my baseball, Quisenberry offered to buy it from me for a dollar before he laughed and signed it. I remember dead drunk fuckers tearing seats apart in GA, listening to game 7 in 85 on my clock radio. Lots of reasons I love the royals….but like gatsby said, mostly self hate.

So, yeah.

However, I really started getting into it in 2009. I never really followed the Royals closely because they so were so bad. And then, as you all know, 2009 was supposed to be a year in which the Royals could contend. Then there was that infamous 18-11 start and Greinke’s brilliance. Regardless of what was going on, there was always Greinke Day every 5th day. Good times—at least once every 5 days.

I used to be Marlin fast back then when they won the World Series! After the Marlin organization demolish the team, I stopped watching baseball and stopped being a Marlin fan. I got to admit, you KC Fans are true Fans! I never went back to cheering for the Marlins and of course now that I am a Royals fan…there is no chance of me being a Marlin fan again. My sons friend was drafted to the Royals and I started watching baseball again. Although, we lost many games, this young team captured my heart! I enjoyed watching them fight to the finish, the walk-offs, their jumping for joy everytime they won and more! No matter what, they stuck together, played as a team and looked like a family! A team that enjoys playing baseball! Their last half come back, not finish last, was awesome! Never did they give up and fought to the finish. When you see a team, bring excitement and had fans happy enjoying the games…how else can you not like the Royals! I love the Royals and will cheer them on through wins and loss! I still say, going to be a great season for us this year! Go Royals!

While distance and years of being bad have eventually whittled away at the time and energy he puts into following sports at all, I’m stuck with his fucking fandom. Aside from living in Mulvane for part of the 1990 and all of the 1991 season, I never lived in market and always followed from afar. We went to a bunch of Royals games at the Metrodome during the 1988 and 1989 seasons, which was awesome, and with Bo being so popular, the Royals were at least on TV some still. I never saw a Royals playoff game, as I was only six and deemed too young to stay up and watch by my parents. It likely wouldn’t have meant much anyway, but it irks me to this day.

But really, this is all driven by self-loathing.

and now I live here…so they’re my A.L. team due to proximity.

Back in the 80’s, he would have had no idea the repercussions of making one’s kin a Royals fan, so I guess I can’t blame him too much. We spent most of my formative years bonding by going to about every single baseball card show in the area, and we collected every single Royals’ card from 1969-1994 -when the card industry started getting out of hand.

Also, my best friend across the street was somehow also a Royals fan, I think mostly because of Bo Jackson. We used to have huge arguments about who got to pretend to be Bo Jackson when playing anything, until at some point 8 year old logic prevailed and a compromise was reached; one could be Bo Jackson baseball, and one could be Bo Jackson football. This was all the funnier because as Indiana kids, we were usually playing basketball.

Now I’ve just grown to enjoy the obscureness of being a Royals fan. Seeing as how I’ve never lived in KC, people automatically make the (correct) assumption that I must just love baseball if I love a shitty team like the Royals this much. It’s a weird, backwards-ass, smug kind of pride. I imagine this is how hipsters feel about .

good god your old as dirt

It isn’t about following a winner. Your team is your team. You don’t abandon them because they lose a lot or because the front office isn’t taking the team in the right direction. I’ll be a Royals, Chiefs and Wildcats fan until I slip loose the mortal coil.

Wildcats, Ichabods……….I’ll never get over it. I want my Kings back!

They passed a bill in 1874 which called for the building of a military prison in Leavenworth, Kansas. One hundred and twenty four years later, my father was transferred from Fort Knox to Fort Leavenworth while he was in the JAG Corps. I was four at this time, thus my first vivid memories involve my time in Kansas. Michael Kerr and that bastard James G. Blaine really screwed up my life.

They were just coming off being World Champs. Dad took me to Royals Stadium as a kid. Grew up in rowdy right with Santa Claus Royals fan and Jim Eisenreich. Asked my dad for World Series tickets the day we signed Mark Davis. Had a huge Bo Jackson poster in my room. Had Starting Lineup figurines for George Brett, Bo Jackson and Bret Saberhagen. Grew up modeling my swing after Danny Tartabull. Threw grounders off the wall like I was Kurt Stilwell. Pitched in Pony League like Kevin Appier. Had a bulletin board in high school covered with pics of David Cone, Ape and Monty. Went to college and participated in the dorm Playstation MLB League as of course, the Gary Gaetti-led Royals. Went on early internet message boards to call for the firing of Herk Robinson. Began posting at Royalboard to slam the Neifi Perez trade. Briefly started a website called fireallardbaird.com. Got a partial season ticket package once I moved back to KC. Joined Royals Review. Started writing a bit about Royals history. Stopped writing about Royals history much to the ire of cmkeller. Cheered on the Best System in the History of Whatever.

Its a disease. And soon, my two sons will have it too.

I became a Royals fan in 1979 when my Dad took me to my first game in KC and I must’ve had 4-5 hot dogs at the ripe old age of 5. It was like the greatest place on earth. We lived in north central Iowa, and as the oldest of at the time 2 kids, KC was our vacation destination. We went to several games every year, and the next Xmas I got a clock radio so I could fall asleep listening to Royals games. In 1981 we moved to Monte Vista, Colorado and I was devastated. I thought for sure that I’d never get to listen to Royals games ever again. We got cable tv and I fell in love with the god awful at the time Atlanta Braves. Thank You WTBS the Superstation! Later that summer, my Dad asked me why I had bailed on the Royals and I told him it was because I couldn’t listen to the games anymore. Unbeknownst to me, the Royals had signed an affiliate out in La Junta, CO and also in Dodge City, KS and both signals were huge at night! My love was restored! That July, we made the trek across the Midwest to see some family in Illinois and on the return trip down I-70 made a left at then Royals Stadium. That was the night that I met Frank White and got his autograph. I was living high on the hog. I thought I was the greatest 8 yr old on the planet. Fast forward 30 years and it’s more of the same, except that with 3 kids now I have plenty of people to suffer with. I have shoeboxes crammed with baseball cards and memorabilia. I still get them out all of the time and share them with my son who’s just now starting to really “get it” like I did at his age. His favorite cards? The Bo Jackson Score error cards that I have, and he hates the Cardinals. Take that morAns!

First there was Amos Otis. Then Fred Patek. Then John Mayberry. Then Hal McRae and George Brett. By the end of 1974, I was all in.

It sounds crazy but its true. My dad grew up in STL then moved here right before I was born for work, so he was a die hard Cardinals fan. He wanted to expose me to baseball but couldn’t take me to STL, so he would take me out to the K, and up until age 3 or 4 he would dress me in Cardinals gear for Halloween and when they came to town. Gary Gaetti was my favorite Cardinal, so when he joined the Royals (not that I remember this… I was 4 or 5) I switched my allegiance to the Royals. Now, me and my 3 younger brothers have suffered so much with the boys in blue ( I was born in 1992…), and my dads family is so brutal with the Royals jokes, that my dad actually cheers for the Royals now for our sake. I love the Royals more than I thought I could love any sports team and will never stop loving them. They are my hometown team, and all the bullshit and jokes we have put up with will pay off when we finally win it all. The reward will be that much sweeter

because I love the K. I love walking into the stadium and watching the warm up ritual. I love getting a beer and sitting in different seats every game. I love the smell of the K. I love the hot dog race, and the waterfalls. I love the outfield seats and the nachos with jalapenos. I love the atmosphere with every game. You’ll always see a fan of the visiting team and they’ll always talk about how great the stadium is………..thats what i love about the Royals……and Eric Hosmer

About baseball is its equanimity. The worst team will beat the best team with some regularity. I swear the Orioles were 18-0 against the A’s one season when I was a kid, but I can’t find any evidence of this.

The point is, being a fan of the local team always offers some gratification. Individual performances can be great without the team succeeding. Norm Siebern was a great player for one season. Ed Charles quietly put together a respectable career on a terrible team. Orlando Pena and Diego Segui both lost 20 games while being demonstrably good pitchers. As a fan, you find reasons to be excited.

The Royals were good so fast they spoiled us. I kind of tuned out after ‘94 (not hard to do in Alaska), but I came back in a big way in ’07. I’m not going away any time soon. Get used to it.

I grew up in South Dakota, and we vacationed to KC every year to see relatives in KC. So growing up I got to occasionally go to Royals games. I got to be a fan that way, and of course the Royals were good. I would think this is a fairly average fan making experience.

What followed however is shocking to me. I have been a fan since maybe 1982-1983? maybe, and been a pretty good fan since, listening to games on the Royals Radio Network (Easy to spot, easy to park, the parking spot at KCI…), checking box scores, living and dying with my team (mostly dying).

Then my first cousin got a job with the Royals as a low level scout. This cousin and I are pretty close and both grew up being Royals fans. So this is him living the dream. But then he tells me of how awful the Royals are with their minor leaguers and draft picks. Only drafting college seniors after round 5, and then only offering 5k to sign- this Royals organization is the laughing stock of baseball. They had scouted Albert Pujols and wanted him badly, but he would not accept their lowball offer to sign. This is a team to give up on and pick a new team. A real team, with talent and minor leaguers that will be good players one day, not this abysmal team with it cast off parts trying to stay relevant. That cousin got a better job coaching in college and then scouting for the Rockies.

He was right of course. The Royals have been heartbreakers, with little hope and little money for a long time, I should have picked a new team, and obviously the Rockies would be logical, with a family member in the organization. But I can’t. I have tried. I have wanted to not care. I have tried to move on. I can’t. The Royals are my team. I have to know how the game went. I have to know how the kids are coming along. I have to wonder why Ned did this or didn’t do that. The Royals are in my blood, and there is nothing I can do about that. It is perplexing to me.

I grew up a Dallas Cowboy fan as a kid. I survived Jerry Jones firing Tom Landry and loved Jimmy Johnson/Troy Aikman/Emmitt Smith. But after Barry was fired and the whole debacle with the ‘white house’ and one of the players dying from a heroin overdose, I was done with the Cowboys. I have solidified my fandom to the Chiefs and have never looked back. A happy little Chief fan with no regrets. But then why can I not quit the Royals? What is it about the Royals that keeps me hooked? I cannot figure it out.

I still live in Twins territory, and have to buy the MLB internet package to watch my team (which I do). I think that if I really want to move on to a new team, I will have to go to rehab to get it done as if the Royals were a drug that I have to quit.

Now of course, the Royals have a light at the end of their tunnel in talented, home grown players that could mean respectability and competitiveness. I no longer have to consider harry carey as my only way to end my Royals fandom.

Hopefully, someday it will be fun to be a fan.

For me it is kind of like really strong Christians trying to explain why they believe. I can’t really explain it.

I can make a list that involves stadium smells, crown vision, Bo Jackson, Tom Goodwin scoring from first on a Gaetti single, Joe Randa, Coneheads, Lemonade, the Hammer, Kung Fu Quinn, fellow fans, the coolness of the Royals crown logo, the fact that I’d probably wear blue anyhow, nights in the basement listening to Denny, and my dad taking me to a game in 100 degree heat with hospital-admittance grade poison ivy. But that just wouldn’t be enough.

It is ingrained in me. It’s not like the Chiefs. When I was a kid, I almost rooted for the Dolphins more than the Chiefs. I mean, I went bonkers when the Chiefs were in the AFC Championship, but nothing would have been able to contain me if the Royals made the playoffs. Now I watch the Chiefs and root for the Chiefs and think it is cool when they win, but I really laugh at them when they suck, and I almost expect them to suck and I don’t care.

With the Royals, I care about everything. I care when the Tigers intentionally walk a Royal that is a single away from the cycle. I care when we get no hit. I just freaking care. I just love the Royals. I can’t explain it. If they lost 120 games, I would still throw the blue on and be recharged the next year. It is just the way baseball is for me. It is truly America’s Past Time. The aura of a game that could never end, the shadows of yesteryear, the mystique of a career minor leaguer getting a cup of coffee in the big show, a sport that plays every single day, I love it all. It is unexplainable. I’ve tried to quit this team, and I can’t.

Mowing enough lawns to buy a Brett rookie was a right of passage. Was in 5th grade when they won in ’85. Attended an ALCS game that year. Oddly enough I was rooting for the Blue Jays: mostly uniform related but something about Lloyd Moseby, George Bell, Dave Stieb, etc struck a chord with me. (Might have been the uniforms.)

I have to say that Royals Review is not only my favorite Royals site but my favorite SB Nation site as well. Along with KU basketball, I follow the A’s too, now that I live in the Bay Area and none of those SB sites even compare. RR is the perfect combination: nerdy and hyperbole laden, by a fanfare beaten into having a sense if perspective.

Lotta typos in my post. on phone. so it goes I guess..

You elected not to go the career route, I take it. Was that always the plan?

I love the campus/grounds. I was just there a couple of years ago. Annapolis is a nice little town, too.

Obviously the class size is fairly large, but did you know Fred Weisbrod (I think that was his last name when he was at The Academy, although he may have gone back to Fred Krohn (mom/dad divorce-related name change))? He was really, really fast. I went to high school/ran track/competed in Knowledge Bowl with him. He got his Bachelor’s in Oceanography, class of ’01.

Named after George and Bo, of course.