The First-Place Racists of Cleveland Are Comin' to Town

Trust me, it was as weird for me to type that hyphenate adjective in the headline as it was for you to read it. Yes, the first-place Cleveland nine have toted their luggage into the Kansas City Metro Area and are gearing up for a fight to the death with the hometown Royals. Or at least a three-game series of baseball matches, or "games" as the kids would say.

This starts a 20-game stretch in which the Royals mettle will be tested as they will host Cleveland, Oakland, Detroit, and Baltimore and will visit the Yankees and Cleveland. Of those teams, the Yankees have the worst record. These next 20 games will see the Royals facing teams with a combined .547 winning percentage heading into action today.

If the Royals hope to avoid the annual march towards irrelevancy, they get their first chance to maintain course today as they send their Majestically Maned Mexican Mauler, MendozACE to the mound. The Clevelanders will parry with Corey Kluber, who I have been assured is not a fictional player invented by a video game name generator and is instead a flesh-and-blood Major League Baseball player.

Here begins the 2013 Royals' vision quest. Let's hope that it somehow avoids the career trajectory of Matthew Modine, whose curriculum vitae curiously mirrors that of the Royals--largely irrelevant since the 1980s but you still might see him on the screen in a supporting role from time to time.