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Royals Rumblings - News for September 29, 2015
Craig Brown of Royals Authority discusses Chris Young's great performance, the end of the hangover, and the achievement of winning the division.
Over the last several years, we have seen a footballization of baseball. Wild cards, replay, and yes, home field advantage. Some of the changes of the game have been necessary to advance the sport in the 21st century. (Wild card has been a huge success and I’m actually for the second wild card team, simply for the fact it brings the one game playoff into the mix.) The downside is, it brings about a certain mentality in watching the game that doesn’t benefit baseball. While I was counting down the magic number for the division, a number of people would reply to me that winning the division didn’t matter… Home field advantage was paramount. I couldn’t understand this. Maybe I’m just too old school of a baseball fan, but the winning the division was a hell of an accomplishment, on par with advancing to the World Series. I don’t care that the Tigers took a huge step to the back of the line. Or that the White Sox were beyond mediocre again. Or that the Indians shot themselves in the foot with another slow start. Or that the Twins just weren’t good enough. None of that matters to me. What matters is that the Royals showed themselves to be the class of the division. They won and they’re in. Yes.
Lee Judge discusses the difference in how umpires interact with veterans and rookies.
Ask around and you’ll hear it’s harder than it should be to get a called strike three on Miguel Cabrera when a game is played in Detroit. You might hear also how certain star pitchers get a more generous strike zone. But some of those stars are reluctant to get sideways with the umpires; they want to stay on their good side and continue to get calls that personally benefit them.
When Ed Hickox approaches the Royals dugout, Hosmer — now a certified star player — steps up and confronts him. Hosmer holds up his hand like a cop stopping traffic and, if my lip-reading skills are any good, says: "Wait! Relax!"
Hickox probably wouldn’t have listened if Christian Colon had tried the same thing. Hosmer has stepped between an umpire and his teammates and tried to defuse the situation, and that’s what real team leaders do.
John Viril of Kings of Kauffman thinks that Dayton Moore should be the frontrunner for Executive of the Year.
Kansas City Royals general manager Dayton Moore is an Executive Of The Year Candidate according to Joel Sherman of the New York Post. Sherman cited Jon Daniels of Texas, Toronto’s Alex Anthopolous, and Pittsburgh’s Neal Huntington as possible competitors.
Mike Swanson gives a statement from Chris Young about his father's passing, and Ned Yost discusses it as well in this video (I would embed it, but the video autoplays and autoplaying videos are the bane of my existance).
Other items of interest
The Daily Show with Trevor Noah premiered last night, and Noah played it safe and comfortable in regards to the format.
Why did Speaker of the House John Boehner resign, anyway?
Introverts might be getting left behind in an educational world of group collaboration that rewards the outgoing.
Check out these great pictures of the recent lunar eclipse.
EDIT
Weekday classic
Gustav Holst's suite The Planets premiered in 1918 in London. The seven movement piece starts with Mars, the Bringer of War, a bombastic and exciting romp in an uncommon time signature.
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