FanPost

My Royal Ride

My Royal Ride

I am 20 years old and consider myself to be a diehard Royals fan. I watched or listened to every one of the Royals 162 (177 including playoffs) games this season, including watching them on another continent. Last night, I watched a miracle run come to an end. It was the best season the Royals have had in nearly 30 years. But this was more than just a successful season. It was more than the unimaginable comeback victory against Oakland. It was more than the sweep to the best team in baseball. It was far more than the heartbreaking loss in game seven of the World Series. This team proved again and again to me why baseball is one of the greatest games there is.

On July 21st, 2014, I picked up the phone and called one of my best friends, who is also a baseball fanatic, because I was furious with what I had just watched. The Royals, who slumped to the All Star break, just had lost to the White Sox, after being swept in Boston to the last place Red Sox. He and I spoke about what a disaster this organization was. "Fire Yost. Fire Moore," I said. I even recall saying that we just need to get rid of anyone with any value because it was clear that they could not win here. Boy, was I wrong. And I am so proud to admit that I was. This team taught me that the wise man in baseball is the man who knows nothing. The moment that you think you have this game all figured out is the moment when the game will slap you in the face and prove to you that you are wrong. Baseball is the game of life. Its a game of failure. There are guys who are in the Hall of Fame that failed to get a hit 3/10 times. One of the best ways I have heard it put was from Royals play-by-play announcer Rex Hudler, who says, "Baseball is a game of failure. It took me a long time to understand this. The best players in this great game are the most successful failures."

This team has done a lot more than capture my attention as a fan, though. This team united a community. There is something special about watching the game with your family. I was lucky enough to watch the game with my parents, brothers, and my uncle. It was special for me to witness two generations of people watching such a beautiful game, and such an exciting team. I grew up hearing stories from my parents and their friends about the Royals of old. Names like Willie Wilson, Amos Otis, George Brett, and Frank White were all I heard about. These names should not be forgotten, however, there has been a major gap in talent. For the past 20 seasons, there were no heros to be spoken of. Sure, there were a few young guys that had great potential and talent, but the majority of them just left Kansas City after their rookie contracts ran out. This season gave us more amazing memories to cherish. I can now speak about Lorenzo Cain making plays in center field. I can speak of Yordano Ventura, a 23 year old rookie, pitching a gem to keep the Royals alive in memory of his friend Oscar Taveras in game six. So many memories were made this October, memories that I will never forget. I was so lucky to witness all of this with an amazing family, and bond with my uncle, as well quickly fell in love with this youthful and exciting team.

While most of the memories made this October came on the field, many of them came off the field as well. I worked with my uncle Bill doing street ministry and helping the homeless with their needs. In this time, I won't soon forget the conversations about the team I had. These people lived on the streets and the Royals gave them hope. They talked about how excited they were for the game that night. It didn't matter where you went in Kansas City. You could be in the wealthiest or poorest of neighborhoods, and people were loving what the Royals were doing. I saw many posts of young children who were recovering from cancer or who were battling cancer, and the Royals were motivating them. I heard blind people calling in to Kansas City sports radio shows saying that they could see the beauty whether they had sight or not. I got to witness Kansas City embracing a man from across the planet in SungWoo Lee. SungWoo is a lifetime Royals fan, and he is a local celebrity in his hometown of Seoul, South Korea, thanks to the welcoming city that we live in. ESPN is going to run an entire hour long documentary about SungWoo's experience on their famous show "30 for 30." This is just another example of how this amazing run was so much more than just baseball.

To me, one of the final touches on this amazing season was seeing the involvement from people around Kansas City that previously had not even known that there was a baseball team in this town. If you paid attention throughout this run, I'm sure you had friends or family that became fans throughout this miracle run. My example of this is my mom. She used to go to a game or two each season with our family of all guys and watch the game, but she just went to soak up the atmosphere and people watch. Before the playoffs, my mom didn't know any players names or anything about them. I was so proud of the Royals for turning my mom into a fan, and allowing her to see the beauty of the game of baseball. After the Royals' stunning comeback against Oakland in the Wildcard game, my mom was calling me to see what I thought about the game and tell me how excited she was. When the Royals clinched a spot in the World Series, my mom was just as invested in this team as the next fan. She was posting about the players stories, she was buying Royals shirts for the whole family, and she was listening to daily sports talk radio shows to know what the word on the Royals was. In the World Series, my mom was a better fan than I was. She was extremely optimistic, no matter of what the score was. She was asking if I knew certain stories about players, and she was just as hurt as the next fan when the Royals fell in a final battle against the Giants in game seven of the World Series.

When Pablo Sandoval, the Giants third baseman, settled under Salvador Perez's foul pop up with two out, my immediate emotions were pain, hurt, anger, and so much disappointment. I yelled profanities at the TV when the Royals third base coach Mike Jirschele decided not to send Alex Gordon home with a chance to tie the game. I had a very negative and frankly poor outlook on this season for a moment. Then I took a moment to gather myself and my thoughts on what I had just witnessed and realized what a fool I would be to be negative at this time. About 15 minutes after the game I felt nothing but proud of my team and the season they had. I began to think of one of the more famous baseball quotes of all time, from A. Bartlett Giamatti (7th Commissioner of the MLB), "Baseball breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops." As Giamatti says, the game breaks your heart, as it is designed to do. Only one of thirty teams can end up on top. The Royals were 90 feet away from tying this game and having new life, but it wasn't to be. So while I feel sad and disappointment, I also feel an overwhelming sense of pride for my city and my team. I am so thankful for the season that they had, and for turning this town back into a baseball city.

This FanPost was written by a member of the Royals Review community. It does not necessarily reflect the views of the editors and writers of this site.