Royals Rumblings - News for December 21, 2022

Have you voted for who should be added the Royals Hall of Fame yet?

Congratulations to Royals beat writer Anne Rogers and her husband Andrew! Rogers shared some details of their wedding and honeymoon in this week’s newsletter.

The feature story in the newsletter, however, was outfield prospect John Rave, and how he has used baseball to grieve the sudden death of his father in February of 2020.

On Feb. 17, 2020, Rave arrived in Bloomington, Ill., for a quick trip home in between his offseason workouts in Arizona and the start of Spring Training. It was late, so he and his dad agreed to meet up the next day — grab some food, talk baseball, just like always.

Rave never got the chance.

Mike had fallen down the stairs the night John got home but didn’t think much of it. He went to work the next morning before feeling like something was wrong, so he went back home and called a friend for help. By the time that friend arrived, Mike was gone.

“It was shocking, and incredibly tough,” Rave said. “Losing a parent, it never gets easier. That was a very, very hard year for me, really hard few months.”

The Royals told Rave to take all the time he needed, but he decided to head back to Arizona for spring camp. Getting a sense of normalcy by returning to the baseball field with his teammates and friends was something he needed to move forward — only to have that come crashing down again when the COVID-19 pandemic hit that year.

Nick Deeds at MLB Trade Rumors figures the signing of Jordan Lyles means the Royals are out on Zack Greinke:

Last night, reports came through that Jordan Lyles was nearing a two-year deal with the Royals. With Kansas City also having inked Ryan Yarbrough to a one-year deal, it’s possible this Lyles signing could take them out of the pitching market if completed. If that’s indeed the case, it would leave likely Hall of Famer Zack Greinke looking for a new club to play for during his age-39 season. Brady Singer, Brad Keller, Kris Bubic, Daniel Lynch, and Jackson Kowar are among Kansas City’s current options to start alongside Yarbrough and Lyles. A Lyles deal would also take yet another veteran back-end arm off of the free agent market, which has been thinning rapidly for weeks.

The Giants postponed their introductory press conference for Carlos Correa while something medical that popped up during his physical gets figured out.

The Oakland A’s are signing starting pitcher Drew Rucinski, who has been pitching in South Korea for four seasons.

The NFL might be turning to YouTube as the next home of Sunday Ticket.

Lionel Messi’s Instagram post is the most-liked post in the history of that app, finally dethroning a picture of an egg.

There’s a lot of hard-won wisdom in the comments of this Reddit post on r/LifeProTips: If you’re going to donate a toy, donate a toy that doesn’t need batteries. If a family cannot afford toys, they probably can’t afford batteries.

A magnitude 6.4 earthquake hit northern California yesterday.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky will address a joint session of Congress in person this week.

Safety tips for the impending SUPER cold weather.

Lots of interesting stuff in Google’s ‘Year in Search’ for 2022. By the way, 2022 is almost over. How on EARTH did that happen?

SOTD: Cher - I Found Someone