FanPost

The Challenge, The Solution


As a child, I learned at my father's side how to be a Royals fan, how to dislike the Yankees, and how to accept failure. From 1982-1994 we would travel the short journey where we lived in Pittsburgh or Topeka, Kansas to Royals Stadium and pay the $4 to park. Sometimes we parked at the Adam's Mark Hotel across I-70 and walked over what would become known as "George Brett Bridge" to get to the stadium. Yes, we sometimes couldn't afford the parking when we got tickets for free through someone my father knew at his work. We brought hot dogs from home wrapped in foil and drank from the water fountains, as warm as the KC air in mid-July. Yet, we had a great time watching the Royals even while victories didn't come as often as in prior years.

After the 1985 World Series my dad and I talked about the Royals almost daily. One day after I suggested the Royals might win multiple World Series' my dad suggested it might take 30 years before they win another. I don't know if I'd call that a healthy pessimism about sports and how they can let you down or a premonition but it would prove to come true, that much I know. At the time I thought it ludicrous, but I didn't tell him that. He didn't want my hopes to get too high because he knew how rare it was for one of your favorite teams to win it all. It had been since 1952 that our Jayhawks (sorry Tiger fans) had won a championship. Our Chiefs hadn't been to a Super Bowl since 1970 (sorry Chiefs fans, still haven't).

It is a challenge to teach a young son who loves his favorite teams not to think too highly of them when one has just won a title but my father's solution was to teach me to enjoy the moments because they're so rare.

Not long after that championship Kansas City became known as a team run on the cheap and rightfully so. As an example, they went to all generic medication in the clubhouse rather than splurge for name brand drugs for the players. It saved a few hundred dollars at the time but the damage to their reputation around the league was worth far more. Prospective players didn't want to come to Kansas City to play for an owner and a general manager who weren't going to take care of them. The Royals were failing at the game of baseball and it was no secret.

Royals fans did not fail, however, to support the franchise. During some of the worst seasons of baseball that any franchise had seen in decades, the Kansas City faithful still managed to fill the stadium almost every opening day and on the holidays. What the casual fan was waiting for was reason to come back and spend their discretionary dollars on the entertainment they came to know and love from the 80's into the early 90's.

Like every great riches to rags to riches again story there is a turning point that can be clearly seen after the fact. It is not so easy to see the point as it is happening because, of course, the ship hasn't completely turned yet. That point for the Royals came when they hired Dayton Moore as general manager in 2006. Success did not come back right away. It took Moore and his crew seven years to take a perennial 100 loss franchise and mold it into a winner again.

What Moore found when he came to Kansas City was a fan base hungry for a winner and waiting to explode for a winning franchise like it did when they won in the 80's. He also found a team that desperately needed to resurrect itself before losing forever fans that love the game of baseball due to the strike of 1994. It was not until 2015 that the Royals drew as many fans in attendance as it's pre-strike years. The combination of the poor rapport with fans that baseball earned from the strike and the losing the Royals did from 1995 through 2006 was to the point many fans vowed not to return.

Return they did.

The first winning season in 10 years came after the franchise rebuilt not only the on-field talent but also the front office talent. The fans returned to the seats and respectability returned to the clubhouse for a franchise that once attracted the highest paid free agent's on the market in the early 90's. What the Royals earned across the league last season was respect from every team that challenged them. It began early in the season with the Chicago White Sox and continued through the Oakland A's and to the Toronto Blue Jays. Team after team went after Kansas City with words and pitches and threats and in spite of their attempts the Royals prevailed by winning the pennant for the second consecutive season and eventually the World Series.

Enjoy it. This is a rarity.

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.