2020 Royals Review Holiday Gift Guide

It’s been a crappy year. What better way to make ourselves feel less bad than a little retail therapy? Whether you’re purchasing something for a loved one or a present for yourself—hey, we aren’t judging—the team at Royals Review (and by team I mean me) are here to help with your shopping.

But hey, it’s easy to pick out a good Christmas present on the official Kansas City Royals online store. They’ve got a lot of nice things there. It is far less easy to dunk on the items hidden in the remote caverns of the store that no one ever buys for good reason, and it is for that reason and that reason only that this guide exists.

The Best Kansas City Royals Merchandise Gift Guide

Men’s Kansas City Royals Polyester Grid Tie

Price: $24.99

Starting off the list with something mostly innocuous: a Royals tie. I say mostly innocuous for three things. First, there is only one Royals logo on said tie. This bothers me. Second, the tie-makers didn’t even bother to center it. But third, who is buying anyone a tie in 2020? Who thinks this is a good gift when dollars are limited across the country? Everyone who would wear a tie even semi-normally is decked out head to toe in spandex, fleece, flannel, or soft cotton “pants” as they read an article about bad Royals gifts when they should be working.

Men’s Kansas City Royals Fanatics Branded Heathered Gray Static Quarter-Zip Pullover Jacket

Price: $25.99

It looks like there aren’t many of these left, and by the time I hit “schedule” there may not be. This makes sense, because this looks like a mistake and sounds like the name of an NFL play that would include a lot of window dressing to confuse the defense before the halfback gets the ball and goes right up the middle for two yards.

Women’s Kansas City Royals DKNY Sport Black The Donna Half-Zip Dress

Price: $31.99

Dresses are not an item that is in my wardrobe, but when I saw this, I recoiled instantly at its absurdity and stupidity. Just to double check that my intuition was right, I asked my wife, who owns some dresses, what she thought. Her responses:

• It looks like a towel.
• What material is it?
• What is with the zipper and the turtleneck?
• Who is this for?
• Why is it so short?

Indeed, I have not the answers, and I genuinely do not understand who would buy this. If you would buy and wear this, please let me know why in the comments and how the lobotomy is doing.

Kansas City Royals Maikel Franco Autographed Bat

Price: $200

Maikel Franco will be a footnote in Kansas City Royals history. He was pretty good over 60 games, but a lot of players were pretty good over 60 games for Kansas City. Some rather forgettable players who have played more than 60 games for the Royals recently have been:

• Kila Ka’aihue
• Matt Treanor
• Rosell Herrera
• Elliot Johnson
• Scott Podsednik

Would you buy a bat from any of those guys for $200? Maybe someone would. I saw a woman wearing a Ka’aihue shirsey at the K once. Maybe she would.

Kansas City Royals Salvador Perez 24” Player Plush Studd

Price: $27.99

This is the Cristiano Ronaldo statue of Royals plushes. This is as if someone drew a three-dimensional caricature of Salvador Perez, except the drawing was on an apple and that someone left said apple in the sun for a few days. This is what it would look like if you took a toddler’s drawing and gave it form. This is an abomination, but at least it is a soft and cuddly abomination.

Kansas City Royals Game of Thrones Mascot Bobblehead

Price: $59.99

The national Game of Thrones discourse is over, and it is forever dead. Moreover, I’m not sure it’s coming back; unlike Harry Potter, a franchise connected to many people’s childhood and a franchise that is still relevant and going on today, Game of Thrones is shot itself in the foot with a final season that alienated an awful lot of people. So why are we selling Game of Thrones slash Royals merchandise?

Beyond that, it strikes me as extremely odd that Slugerrr is happily sitting on a throne of bloodshed and promoting a series where rape, decapitation, nudity, and murder are as common as a Nicky Lopez groundout to second base. Slugerrr is hardcore now. Deal with it.

Kansas City Royals 2006 Media Guide

Price: $14.99

Hello! Welcome to the 2006 Royals Trivia Edition. One of these four awful, hidous statistics about Kansas City’s hideous 2006 season is false. Can you guess which?

• One position player managed -1.5 bWAR in less than 135 games
• Eight pitchers managed -0.5 bWAR or worse over the season
• The team had two 11-game or more losing streaks before Memorial Day
• Kansas City gave up 9 or more runs in 20% of the team’s games

Psych! All four were true. Anyway, buy the 2006 Kansas City Royals Media guide today.

absolutely useless thing

Kansas City Royals Roadside Emergency Kit

Price: $71.99

I would just like to be in the marketing meeting where it is decided which mundane, random, entirely unrelated piece of merchandise gets an MLB logo slapped on it to sell at the MLB.com store. But more than anything, I’m just mad that the only Royals-themed thing is the case itself. I want Royals-colored pliers, screwdrivers, and blue-and-gold jumper cables, gosh heckin’ darn it. Give it to me.

Kansas City Royals Women’s Blue Team Toppers Headband

Price: $19.99

Wait. There’s something missing here. Stop. Enhance.

Kansas City Royals Women’s Blue Team Toppers Rhinestone Headband

Price: $19.99

Perfection.

Infant Kansas City Royals White Personalized Burp Cloth 6-Pack

Price: $99.99

I am not a parent, so maybe I’m unaware of the particular “burp cloth” (or, it seems to me more accurately, a “vom-rag”) etiquette. But I do have two cats, and my family has had cats going back two decades, and I know very well the care we use to treat their vomit, which is to say: clean it up with whatever is around. Let’s just say we did not have personalized cat vomit cloths.

And if we did have cat vomit cloths, we sure wouldn’t put the logo of something we like on it. So, if you must purchase personalized vomit cloths for one U.S. Benjamin greenback currency cloth, might I suggest you the St. Louis Cardinals vom-rags instead.

Kansas City Royals DreamSeat Champs Team Stealth Recliner

Price: $699.99

This recliner looks comfy. It does not look $700 comfy. I can stencil a Kansas City logo over my $200 Ashley Furniture couch, thank you very much. But hey, it’s not a DreamSeat, which will lull you to either dreams or nightmares depending on which season of Royals baseball you watched most recently.

Mostly nightmares, if we’re being honest.

Kansas City Royals The Sports Vault Large Spatula

Price: $12.99

I’m convinced these items only exist to pad the stats of the people who collect sports memorabilia items. Why, otherwise, would you purchase this? Don’t answer. I don’t want to know.

Kansas City Royals Personalized 11” x 19” In This House Sign

Price: $39.99

You remember those Magic Eye books and posters where if you stared at the 2D image in the right way and for long enough, a 3D image would appear? I kinda feel like that when looking at this, except instead of a 3D image I just see worse things. At the very least, someone needs to uninstall the fonts on the designers’ computer.

But also, I like to think that the Name Family are the only ones that can buy this, because it certainly does not like there is enough space for families with last names longer than four characters.

Kansas City Royals Peanuts Wireless USB Mouse

Price: $34.99

Here we are: I think we’ve found it. The worst thing on the website. There are certainly more baffling things, dumber things, less useless things, even uglier things. But there is nothing that quite matches this single USB mouse at the intersection of “depressing mediocrity” and “garish uselessness.” Certainly, nothing can be worse.

Kansas City Royals Hot Dog Wireless USB Keyboard

Price: $54.99

“I never say it can’t get worse.” - Buddy Bell