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Although I certainly enjoy other teams (including the nearby Colorado Rockies, who I always watched on TV after we moved to New Mexico from Missouri), my favorite baseball team is the Kansas City Royals. A couple of weeks ago, Brian wondered how anyone could enjoy being a Kansas City Royals fan. Earlier this month, ESPN.com had an article about the failure dynasties, a list of five baseball teams that has earned a recent reputation for failure. Given that the Royals haven’t been to the playoffs since I started following them (I was four the last time they were in the playoffs, the year they won it all), why should I be interested in a team that hasn’t put up big numbers or employed superstars? Wouldn’t it be more enjoyable to just find a favorite player and follow him through his career, or adopt some new team who has more recent success stories?

It’s hard to explain why I like the Royals, but it all started when I was a kid. While I was growing up in Missouri, something about baseball struck a chord with me. We played baseball a lot with our neighbors in the field across the street from our house, and even though there were only four or five of us playing it was one of my favorite things to do. Tyler was a Cubs fan (probably because you could see so many of their games on WGN), Ray was a Cardinals fan, and I was a Royals fan. I chose the Royals because I liked their players and they were fairly close to where we lived so we could see some of their games on TV during the year. The sports section of the Joplin Globe often included stories about the Royals, and I read every one of them.

When we lived in Missouri I became more and more interested in baseball. The Royals were the third best team in baseball in 1989, just missing the playoffs. One of my favorite Christmas presents ever was the video game RBI Baseball 2 for the Nintendo. I collected a lot of baseball cards when I was a kid, memorized the statistics, and kept track of the players, but I kept my Royals cards in a separate binder, with all the George Brett cards at the front. In fourth grade we had to do a large research project for school, and I chose the Royals as my topic. My mom saw a note in the newspaper saying that two of the Royals players were going to visit a local bank, and they would be signing autographs! I thought this would be the perfect highlight to my Royals report, but unfortunately the players weren’t able to make it. I was disappointed, but they did send some autographed photos to hand out to the fans who showed up, which I promptly added to the cover of my Royals baseball card binder.

The Royals remind me of being a kid again. My family went to two Royals games when I was a kid, and I won’t forget how fun that was. My dad took us back once since we moved away, and I had just as much fun as I did when I was a kid. I loved Little League when I was little, and I was fascinated by the fact that Mickey Mantle played in the same town that I did when he was a minor leaguer for the Yankees. I continued playing baseball even until high school, and I loved every bit of it.

So fast forward to now. My favorite players from when I was a kid have all gone, but I’m still with the Royals. It’s been a while since they were very good, but that doesn’t stop me from following their team. I cheered with them through all their 100-loss seasons. Recently it’s been much easier because the Royals have some young talent that seems to be getting better all the time. I don’t only enjoy it because they win. Following a winning team isn’t what being a sports fan is about, it’s about being a kid again. It doesn’t take a playoff berth or a World Series banner for me to get excited about a team, although I don’t discount how exciting that can be for their fans. In my book baseball means fun from March to October. There are highs and lows for sure, but I’ll take a sweep of the Tigers any day over an over-hyped, over-paid team.

I really enjoy spring. With the arrival of spring comes warmer weather, a cheerful feeling of rebirth in everything around, and, of course, baseball.

As I write this my Kansas City Royals sit alone on top of the American League standings. If Cleveland, Tampa Bay, and the Yankees lose this evening then they may have a whole day to enjoy it. This doesn’t happen often, so we Royals fans can at least revel in the fact that we’ve beaten a team twice (the Tigers) that many have predicted to win the World Series this year, what with the addition of some great firepower to their lineup. I’m not sure if two early losses to the Royals are enough for Tigers fans to get nervous, but it’s moments like this that I’ve had to live for as a Royals fan. (Some readers will note that I’m also a Colorado Rockies fan, but my loyalty to the Royals remains and precedes the Rockies’ existence.)

So I can say that I’m officially enjoying spring, even if it means the return of lawn mowing and eagerness as I look out the classroom window* as I wait for the end of the semester to go outside and play.

(* note: there are not actually any windows in my classrooms, and even if there were, they would just show me some ugly buildings)

First, I just wanted to say that the last few weeks have me somewhat disappointed in the national media. With that said, I immensely enjoyed my trip to Denver to see the Rockies in the first World Series game in Colorado, which was also the longest 9-inning game in World Series history. The reason for mentioning the national media is because of their labeling of the World Series as boring… which I really disagree with. If you only looked at box scores and post-game reports, you might think that I was really depressed watching my Rockies, which just wasn’t true. They played well, all things considered. The Red Sox are a great team, which gives me all the more reason to dislike them. In fact, I’ve had more fun loathing them lately than I have had loathing the Yankees (although that will never stop being entertaining). I’ve had this rising anger toward the Red Sox ever since they beat up on the Cardinals in 2004… not fun. Bottom line is that this World Series was as close as it should have been, and there were enough momentum shifts to keep me in my seat along with tens of thousands of other Rockies fans in Coors Field. I got to go to the World Series, and that’s something even Red Sox dominance couldn’t take away from me.

Check out this video showing the Rockies miraculous postseason run. This video forgets to show us the 14 of 15 games they won at the end of the regular season, which was miraculous enough. Thanks, Rockies! I’ll be back to see you soon.

Well, it’s not Christmas in October but it’s close. I’m writing this from a hotel in a suburb of Denver, Colorado, making final preparations for our trip to the World Series. That’s right, tomorrow I’M GOING TO THE WORLD SERIES! I’m very excited. It’s nearly midnight, and I can’t think about sleeping. It’s like waiting up for Santa Claus.

It seems that scoring tickets to this event was just about as unlikely as the Rockies winning 21 of 22 games, so I’m pretty excited for the chance to be here. I wish that Julia and Emmy could have been here, too, but I’m glad they let me come! This may be a once-in-a-lifetime chance, so I’m definitely going to make the most of it.

Go Rockies!!!

So, as I predicted, the Rockies have won the National League pennant in a most sweeping fashion. I’m not sure if it’s their luck or mine on this thing, because back on September 18th, when the Rockies had only a 3.1% chance of even making the playoffs, I asked Julia if I could go to the World Series in Denver if the Rockies made it. Well, here we are four weeks later, and they’re in! Now I just have to get lucky enough to find a way to get tickets without selling my soul to the Yankees or something…