You can’t play the role of an underdog forever…
At some point in time, success not only breeds success, it breeds things like jealousy, distrust even. Such seems to rapidly be becoming the case with the darlings of last October, the Kansas City Royals.
In the space of but a month the team went from a collection of nobodies to somebodies. And when the 2015 baseball season unfolded in April, when they picked up pretty much exactly where they had left off, those somebodies started to become household words.
As evidenced by the fact that seven out of the eight starting position players in this year’s All Star Game look to be Kansas City Royals.
I don’t have to tell you how high the city is riding on Royals fever.
The other day I spoke to an exec who used to ride herd over the Royals radio network who had once confided in me he had not attended a single home game, even though he had all the access in the world to the best seats in the house.
“I watch every game I can on television now,” he said last week, “I’m dying to go to a game and I’m outside now wearing a Royals jersey.”
Hey, times change.
However Cinderella is no more.
Take USA Today’s about seven Royals leading in the All Star balloting by fans.
“The country fell in love with these adorable Kansas City Royals last year, stealing our hearts with their improbable run to the World Series, ending that ugly 29-year playoff drought,” writes USA Today’s Bob Nightingale.
“Now, eight months later, destiny’s darlings have a country outraged, wondering how they could callously infiltrate our democracy.”
Get the picture? From good guys to bad guys eight measly months.
“Where are these votes being counted, in Florida?” Nightingale cracks. “Have we gone back in time to 1957? Fans once again are stuffing the All-Star ballot box, only in the technological age of balloting, using computers and smart phones, with no paper ballots.”
Worse yet, the question has arisen that computer magic may be at work in garnering all those All-Star votes for a team in a tiny town like KC.
Did AMC’s owners in China somehow hack the system? Because no way the anemic Kansas City Star could have pulled something like this off.
“And this time, it’s in Kansas City and not Cincinnati that has Major League Baseball officials scrambling to make sure no computer geniuses have hacked the system,” Nightingale continues. “This isn’t 1957, when the good folks of Cincinnati elected seven Reds to the All-Star Game, thanks to pre-marked ballots that were distributed in the Sunday editions of the Cincinnati Enquirer.
“(Then) Commissioner Ford Frick stepped in and declared that a couple of guys named Willie Mays and Hank Aaron would replace the Reds’ Gus Bell and Wally Post. He was so incensed that he stripped fans of the vote until 1970.”
Yep, darlings no more.
And here’s the problem: If eight Royals find their way onto the starting team, “nine of the top 10 home-run hitters, and nine of the top 10 leading RBI hitters” eill either be sitting on the bench or staying home.
So enjoy it while you can, Royals fans – vote your butts off.
Because KC’s days of being lovable losers and overachievers is a thing of the past.
Now we’re unapologetic, ballot box stuffing cheaters are trying to ruin baseball.
That was a quick ascent from being lovable losers to Cinderella story to already hated franchise.
Hearne maybe thats a bit over the top. The Royals do have a legit argument on maybe 5 guys. Moose, Gordon, Escabor, Sal and well I think Hosmer was a maybe front runner but has fallen off badly lately so no he is maybe on the team but not a starter. Cain is borderline as well. Omar, oh my, no. There would be many Royals on the team, likely two releivers as well, probably no starters. So its not all smoke and mirrors. They need to win it all to be hated. Hah.
Am reminded of the Chiefs 2003 & 2013, each undefeated thru nine games – spotlight on KC: “best team in the NFL”, “Superbowl bound!” Then, like a broken neck snapped a criminal’s career these here parts once upon a time, sudden death ended the life in a sports season same.
From Cinderella’s thence to KCindy today: Royals. ‘If’ (and it’s a big one) they made it to the World Series, but, result All Star voting shenanigans, lost home-field advantage – and in the process the WS – to what end? Winning a ballot-box battle only to lose an Trophy case war.
Local fandom is being set up for another big fall – not a Championship in October but from a pedestal theirs built the sand. Unlike Dorothy in Oz who wished as she clicked heels thrice reel life, isn’t as easy in real life. Substance before style… 30 years or 45.
I think a winning percentage of .603, second best in baseball, and one that has been sustained so far this season, is “substance.” bullpen is “substance” (and style). even the manager, unlikely hero that he is, has the most wins of any Royals manager – that’s “substance.”
and local fandom isn’t being set up for another big fall at all. are you kidding? if the Royals fail to return to the WS, the ALCS… hell even fail to win the division, Royals fans will be disappointed, but not crestfallen or heartbroken. just making a good solid run at it, contending, playing good baseball, is likely enough for most fans after so many years of being perennial losers.
Or the Royals take a big lead in the first, and Ned Yost refuses to pull his players from the game because they are the best defensively. So its the whole Royals roster v the NL for eight innings and the Royals win the game. How about that for a nice cup of STFU.
The 1966 Chiefs tied the Packers in Superbowl I; in fact, would’ve led in that game shy a missed field goal, but, miss they did, woulda, coulda and shoulda. 2014, the Royals tied GIANTS after six games; alas, had to play one more & nod Eenie, Meenie, Miney & Moe: ‘my mother told me to pick the very best one & the Royals were not it’, catch a losers lament by their toe.
The way that it works: be no kudos for a team ties or manages lead some point in time a contest or a season, any more than one that goes undefeated after its first 9 games, nor one leads a division after 39% of the season has been played. Too many ‘what might have been’ season’s a 1967, 1970 and 1971 Chiefs (ditto 1997, 2003, 2013) , 1986, 2014 and Kerouac suspects, the 2015 Royals, same. Substance – 1969 Chiefs and 1985 Royals; style points – all of the also-ran rest. “Show me an man who’s a good loser and I’ll show you a…”
a) “loser” – Vince Lombardi
b) “idiot” – Leo Durocher
c) “failure” – Knute Rockne
KC has accomplished NOTHING outside ’69 and ’85, the last 74 seasons equate 45/29 years each of but a long laborious labor of verification. A fandumb that is content ‘getting there’ (post season) gets what it deserves: ‘wait till next year’, ad nauseam, ad infinitum… enjoy.
so, your point, krac, is that because of the failures of the past, we should expect failure in the future? you trundle out this nonsense every single time KC sports comes up. we get it. did you lose on ‘all or nothing’ bets in 69 and 85 or something? so brokenhearted you carry the bitterness still today? jeez….
“so, your point, krac, is that because of the failures of the past, we should expect failure in the future?”
– can’t get nuttin’ past you, huh michelle…
“you trundle out this nonsense every single time KC sports comes up.”
– a regular subscriber (if more so irregular be your narrative evacuations)…
“so brokenhearted you carry the bitterness still today?”
– so vexed your spirit, cannot help but respond Kerouac, the Lays Potato Chip of blogdom?
Mission accomplished.
🙂
Who said we were content “getting there”? KC fans are like the old ECW fans, we have a bloodlust and a cult love for our Boys in Blue. We smell blood in the water and its “Our Time” to “Be Royal” and “Take the Crown”. Nothing short of a title will do. Do I need to remind you we are the same city that flew airplanes over Arrowhead and booed that sorry quarterback named Matt Cassel
“Who said”
– michelle count? Her complete post above, affirming (resubmitted in part below, for your disapproval)
– “just making a good solid run at it, contending, playing good baseball, is likely enough for most fans after so many years of being perennial losers.”
1970
1985
~
So you boo a QB, fly an airplane over a stadium, gnash teeth & wring hands and “make a good solid run at it.” Then, as the condemned cross days off a calendar, one day you wake up and you’re a Cubs fan, dead, Chiefly, Royally screwed.
Wake up.
~
“Watching The Wheels” – John Lennon
People say I’m crazy doing what I’m doing, well they give me all kinds of warnings to save me from ruin, when I say that I’m o.k. they look at me kind of strange,
surely your not happy now you no longer play the game.
People say I’m lazy dreaming my life away, well they give me all kinds of advice designed to enlighten me, when I tell that I’m doing fine watching shadows on the wall, don’t you miss the big time boy you’re no longer on the ball?
I’m just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round, I really love to watch them roll, no longer riding on the merry-go-round, I just had to let it go,
People asking questions lost in confusion, well I tell them there’s no problem, only solutions, well they shake their heads and they look at me as if I’ve lost my mind, I tell them there’s no hurry… I’m just sitting here doing time.
I’m just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round, I really love to watch them roll, No longer riding on the merry-go-round, I just had to let it go.
Didn’t Cinderella go on to Take the Crown and live happily ever after? Maybe the Cinderella reference is still at play.