Royals Rumblings - News for July 7, 2017

Mike Moustakas won his second All-Star Game Final Vote in 3 years with over 15 million votes. The voting map is pretty fun to look at.

Sam Mellinger writes about how Royals fans delivered this victory:

We also know, without a shred of uncertainty, that any human being employed by the Royals and put in an online vote will destroy any other human being employed by any other baseball team.

Many Kansas City institutions got behind the Royals third baseman.

Moustakas was leading on Wednesday afternoon in the Final Vote, and there was a big push to get people to vote on Twitter. This came from other sports teams, athletes, Kansas City museums and the police.

Predictably the Yanks were, well, about what we expect from them. In yesterday’s Rumblings, there was a good word for them. The Tigers and Twins were pretty awesome in response. #Midwest4life. Also as mentioned in Rumblings yesterday, ESPN had some lame story on the front of their ESPN page stumping for said Yankee but I’m not linking to it because they don’t deserve the clicks.

Ahead of the results of the Final Vote, Moose had some kind words for Royals fans.

“I’m just trying to be along for the ride,” he said, smiling. “The fans are taking me for a pretty good ride right now. So hopefully, it continues, and yeah, I would love to go to Miami and stick around for a couple days instead of just one.”

Rustin Dodd writes about how he got to this point:

In the months before Opening Day, Moustakas and Sveum retooled his swing, focusing on hitting the ball the other way, away from the defensive shifts that had haunted him. The adjustment changed his career, but in more ways than you might think.

Moustakas is seeded 4th in the Home Run Derby on Monday.

Royals third baseman Mike Moustakas learned his pairing for Monday's T-Mobile Home Run Derby, as it was announced Wednesday that Moustakas is seeded fourth and will face No. 5-seeded Miguel Sano of the Twins in the first round... f Moustakas advances, he'll face the winner of No. 1-seeded Giancarlo Stanton of the Marlins and No. 8-seeded Gary Sanchez of the Yankees

ESPN has a cursory look at said Home Run Derby.

I felt a little bad about how the game went on Tuesday after reading the game recap over at Lookout Landing as they are dealing with their ace becoming mortal again. Respect for King Felix and the King’s Court.

I felt a decade’s worth of dominance and I felt the Cy Young Award and I felt Felix tearing up when the whole staff cheered for him outside of the elevator when the extension was announced and I felt the perfect game and I felt every single pitch his right arm ever threw. I felt a bond between a man and a city, and the relentlessness of hope.

Meanwhile, over at Let’s Go Tribe, they’re advocating for the Royals to go for it!

Going for it now would almost guarantee doom for the Royals for the next 4-5 years, at least. Teams can compete for more than one cycle of core players, but it requires drafting well, something the Royals have not done recently.

I dunno: I would be careful what you wish for as the baseball gods can be fickle and it’s not like the Indians don’t have a team full of guys with injury histories. (And to the point above, it neglects how much doom the Royals are due for even if they do sell. But I believe that argument can be had over here.)

One estimate over at Fangraphs has Mike Moustakas hitting 46 home runs for the season. While others have him at 36 to 39.

(Ed note: Some of my news stories are a couple of weeks old but I don’t think they’ve been on here yet. If they are, um: reruns!)

I love this one about the hero electrician who left “Trust the Process” and “Hinkie Died for This” messages all over the 76ers practice facility.

So apparently there are these things called Fan... posts on SBNation. Individuals can contribute to the blog instead of just relying on Kevins. Weird, right? And one of the ones posted to the Iowa State blog Wide Right Natty Lite talks about the time Nebraska was kicked out of the Missouri Valley Conference way back in 1919, showing that conference realignment arguments have been going on for 100 years.

I’m trying to get together some good stories about Qatar because what’s going on over there is a big deal. But this is the best I’ve got: dry overviews from NPR and the Guardian, NYTimes editorial with more personal story than overview, and Vox kindof talking about the whole picture. Honestly, it’s so politically charged, that I haven’t seen any articles about it that don’t have a huge pro-Qatar or anti-Qatar slant that the reader has to try and triangulate around.

If the GOP has to answer for Kansas and Louisiana, who gets to answer for Connecticut? Meanwhile, Illinois finally has a budget after 2 years without one.

Want something happier? Here’s the theme from the rebooted DuckTales, which begins in just over a month. Woo-oo!

Or if you prefer the retro version... well, good luck getting that out of your head today.

I figured a third video might be a bit much but my thing for Rumblings is video game music, so here’s the nifty sing-a-long for the DuckTales Remastered trailer. I had no idea it was “derring-do” or “what derring-do” was until much later.

Yes, it’s a triple dose of the same song. But if the season ended today, the Royals would be in the playoffs. Woo-oo!