when i was knee high to a grasshopper, the year the royals went to the world series, i lived less than a mile from royal's stadium. i sat on the roof of my house watching the lights of the stadium and hearing the roar of the crowd. 29 years later, the royals have scarcely been worth talking about. sure, there have been a couple memorable seasons, notably 1994 when the strike knocked every team out of the world series. that year, hal mcrae's team had as much chance as anyone, but even that was 20 years ago. since 1994, the royals had only two winning seasons coming into 2014. there were several 100+ loss seasons and a handful more that were very close to 100 loss seasons. and despite having a winning record in 2013, the royals didn't seem to be anymore of a threat than half the other american league teams. particularly in late september this year, the royals seemed to be on the verge of blowing their playoff chances. fortunately, oakland and seattle also shot themselves in the foot and the royals got things together over the last few games and went into the playoffs on a hot streak. i won't say that the royals are a bad team, but the fact that two wild card teams are looking to be matched up in the world series, this is a bit ridiculous. yes, the royals have a solid pitching staff from top to bottom and are unbeatable after the 6th inning. and yes, the royals are so deep in pitching that they have supplied other teams around the league with quality pitchers. years in the bottom of the standings gives good draft picks and the royals certainly have made some noise with theirs. and the the royals have some good hitting, timely hitting. but all of this is a relatively new phenomenon. the royals could scarcely hit a home run in the regular season, now they can't stop producing. eric hosmer (3rd pick 2008 draft), as much of a beast as he is, still was barely average for american league first basemen. he hit .270 with 9 home runs in the first 162 games. now, he has hit .462 with 2 home runs in the last eight games, including the 11th inning game winner at the angels!
hosmer represents the royals late season surge in a nutshell. all the guys on the roster are producing even better than normal. that's timely.but the fact of the royals getting to the world series is not, by itself, as impressive as how they did it. a team that barely merited much consideration and has lost more games than most any other team over the last 20 years, not only are suddenly in the limelight, they are dominant in the limelight. the royals have won eleven consecutive post season games! the all time record is twelve consecutive. the 1927-36 new york yankees won twelve straight; they swept the pirates, cardinals and cubs 4-0 in '27, '28 and '32 respectfully before losing game one to the giants in '36. the first three of those teams had babe ruth, the '36 team had joe dimaggio. the 1998-1999 new york yankees also won twelve straight post season games.
and then consider this: although being "dominant" the 2014 royals are dominant by the slightest of margins. it's not like they come out and win every game 10-0, like the '27 yankees could be expected to do. of the last eight games the royals have won dating back to the wild card game vs. oakland, six of those wins have been by two runs or less, four of them took extra innings. every game has been close enough to go either way, but the royals have learned how to win close games because they have played in so many of them. in the post-season, the royals have been unprecedented in doing exactly what needed to done, exactly when it needed to be done and nothing more, "almost on cue," eric geschwind adds.
a sacrifice fly by nori aoki is the most representational of the royals post-season situation as can be seen and maybe the highlight of the entire season. in that one game playoff, oakland sent out lester as a starter, who "the royals never beat," says todd teghtmeyer. oakland was winning 7-3 in the bottom of the eighth. then, oakland took out lester, and the royals have since been unfazed. they scored three runs in the eighth after a key hit by cain. then, down 7-6 in the bottom of the ninth, dyson comes in to pinch run, gets to second on a sacrifice bunt and then steals third base. with one out, aoki does his job perfectly on cue, flying out to right field that brings dyson home with the tying run (video to the right). that prolonged the season a few innings more and then seven games more.
un-believable. ridiculous. silly. but historical. the royals don't have to win another game to make this a mind-blowing season, but they should just go ahead and win four more in a row anyway, for posterity's sake.
watch alex gordon knock himself out making
a saving catch in the clincher versus baltimore.
thinking about the difficult feat the royals pulled off, have their chances been better in 2014 than they were in 1985? this is not really to compare the two royals' teams, because both seem to be quite similar in style. the 1977-80 royals were a team that won games convincingly. but thinking about this more in terms of odds... in 1985, there were 14 teams in the american league. in 2014, there are 15. in 1985, it took four wins to get to the world series (up until 1985 it only took three wins). in 2014, it took the royals eight wins to get to the world series. however, under the old system, the royals would not have made the playoffs. with three division of five teams and two "wild cards", getting into the playoffs is easier. just that getting through the playoffs is harder. it's even harder not having the home field advantage, which the wild card royals did not have. now, in the world series they get home field advantage. yikes!
another little historical fact... this year's american league divisional and championship series featured the four teams from the 1983 and 1984 league playoffs. in 1983, baltimore beat the angels before winning the world series. in 1984, detroit swept the royals before winning the world series. then, the royals won the 1985 world series. putting the 2014 playoffs into symbolic terms, the 1983 winner beat the 1984 winner in the first round and the 1985 winner then beat the 1983 winner. based off that progression, the royals should cruise to a win in the world series. the giants (probably not cardinals) may have something else to say, but who's listening?
basically, right now, i am looking up southwest airfares to go to see the royals in san francisco. not that i will make it because i have several promises to my clients already that weekend, but it's a tempting proposition. i will certainly let last year's NCAA football championship be a lesson. when the missouri tigers were on the verge of going to pasadena, i lost a one-way ticket because american/us airways is not customer friendly in the least. at least i was able to re-book my other ticket on southwest... the advantage to going to san francisco is that game tickets are cheaper. on vividseats, game one, standing-room-only tickets in kansas city are starting at $543!!! on stubhub, the same tickets start at $728!! they go up as high as $11, 329! that's more ridiculous than the royals even being in the series. obviously, i can not, and would not even if i could, go for any of those prices. i wouldn't even pay $543 for a front row seat behind the royals dugout. but in san francisco, starting prices are at $260 and $336, respectively for those two resale sites.
if the half-price difference surprises you, reread this blog from the beginning please. royals fans have been starving for almost thirty years. giants and cardinals fans are feasting all the time. when you go to a restaurant after not eating for several days, you spend a lot more money than if you had three meals already in the same day. this is the difference. so, san francisco sounds like a great vacation destination. at $260 for a ticket and slightly more for the r/t flight, that is doable, especially considering how much cash i dropped going to kansas city last month. times like this aren't likely to happen in kansas city for a long long long time. and even if the royals are back next year, and the year after, this was the season that it all broke open, just like aoki's sac-fly was the "hit" that broke this post-season open.
dropping that kind of cash could be surprising considering that professional sports means nothing to me. read any of my other blogs or posts on the subject and i bash the hell out of pro sports. most of the baseball games i watched this season were during the ten days i was back in the midwest. and i watch even less of the other leagues. i saw one NBA game last year; the blazers-warriors game in april was the first game i attended since the kansas city kings had a team! i saw as many as five NFL games in the last five years on TV and hadn't been to a game since the chiefs beat the titans to win the division in 2010. in fact, last year, i was given three tickets to a seahawks game, but traded them for a ride to yakima. that's how little i value this crap. i went to one portland timbers game last year, begrudgingly, though it was a blast. that's a total of about four MLS games, counting a few kansas city wizards games in the '90s.
i don't care about soccer, even less about the NHL, or pro sports in general. everyone that knows me, knows that i would rather spend $6 to watch NAIA basketball or single-a short-season baseball and know too much about those teams, but nothing about the pros. for example, george brett is principal owner of the tri-cities dust devils. and then consider this parallel: unprecedented, in their second season, the hillsboro hops swept their way to the 2014 northwest league championship. unprecedented, after a 29-year drought, the kansas city royals swept their way to the 2014 american league championship. the latter obviously being a far greater accomplishment, but who else can make that comparison?
comparatively speaking, i only found out who eric hosmer was this year. funny for me to be in this "who are they" position being as how i always complained about the fair weather fans in kansas city. i was at royals stadium almost everyday in 1992-1994. the royals were decent, fun to watch, but the stadium was empty. only in september 1994, when george brett was making his farewell tour, did the "lifelong" fans come to pack the stadium. they didn't come back in 1995. i stopped going to games too because the royals betrayed the few fans they did have by hiring bob boone. however, most royals "fans" approved of the managerial change, for whatever they knew about it. these days though, i live 330 miles from the nearest major league stadium. my priorities are different. and i haven't even been to a mariners game since 1999 because i refuse to pay $36+ to sit 30 rows deep in the outfield. and don't get me started about TV. i have never, will never, own one. so, no, i don't see a lot of pro sports. nor do i care what celebrities do anyway. as with the music or film industry, i have always cared about those getting no exposure. a better entertainment experience, plus it costs almost no money. that leaves money for when i do have that seven year itch to attend a pro sports game or a big name concert.
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| cain't touch this: it takes a lot to be in this position. |
after that, i will vote. you think the royals were underdogs, just wait until the union county commissioner's race... rossholt and mcclure can get swept as the angels and orioles did!
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