FanPost

Making a Royals Pitcher

Ian Kennedy entered the field in Surprise, Arizona. The dry desert heat already had him wishing for home in the more temperate environment of Huntington Beach, California. The wind blew like an unfiltered furnace in a home he did not grow up in.

"I want to do homework, Daddy."

"NO! You will practice pitching you little maggot! You will do as I tell you."

All Ian wanted to do was to study, to learn more about the world, but his daddy had his heart set on living through his son vicariously. He had wrecked his shoulder performing a prank some twenty-five years before Ian was born.

"Hey guys! Watch this!"

In a drunken stupor, Ian's dad dislocated his shoulder in a stupid attempt to impress his so-called friends by tackling a phone booth. In his mind, he hoped to simultaneously impress them with his strength (destroying a phone booth) and his wit (destroying the place that Superman changed his clothes). He accomplished neither.

"Why did you ask us to watch you fall down and cry like a baby?"

That failed prank was something Ian's dad would never forget.

"I never forgot that phone booth. I never told Ian about it, but I made dammed sure he understood it. Never forget. Never forgive."

"Dad hated it when we used a telephone, one time he caught my sister, Shawna, using it..."

"Yeah, right. I had just learned about telephones in grammar school. How you could call places, maybe even order take out food in advance of arriving, sometimes they would even deliver. I thought I'd give a try, but dad came in and ripped it from the wall. Domino's did not deliver that day."

"Am I proud of what I did that day? No. But if I knew for certain that one day my kid would be pitching for the defending World Series Champion Kansas City Royals, I would do it again."

"I have come to learn that despite all of the ads, Domino's really sucks. But, so does DiGiorno. Delivery, not delivery, who cares? Crappy pizza is all the same to me, crap."

"I just hope I don't crash into a phone booth in Kansas 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.