Royal’s baseball! You have to love our guys right now. Everything is going the “Boy’s in Blue” way. Ned Yost is no longer a “dunce” and life is really good.
Last year’s Royal success was a longtime coming.
Twenty-nine years to be exact since the Royal’s beat the Cardinals in the World Series.
How about a little Royals history lesson? They lost to the Yankees three times – 76, 77, & 78 before finally beating the Yanks in 1980 befor losing to the Phillies in the Series 4-2.
Best memory for me was 1977 game 5 in KC. We took Karen Yewell our baby sitter and big Royal’s and Freddie Patek fan to that Sunday night game. The Royal’s took a 3-1 lead into the ninth, but brought ace starter Dennis Leonard in to close out the game –bad decision – the Yankees plated three runs and won the series.
In 1981 KC lost in 3 straight to A’s. In 1984 the Royals returned to the playoffs, but lost in the ALCS to the Tigers.
1985 was cool coming from down 3 games to one and beating Toronto in the ALCS before they beat up on St. Louis 11-zip in game 7.
Best memories – taking eighth grade son Brady to game late in season as Royals roared to the pennant and George Brett chased a .400 batting average. And, game 7 of World Series. John Patton and I had gone together on tickets. I offered him both tickets for game 6 if I could have both for game 7 – if one occurred. Don Deckinger is one of my heroes. After the Royals won my wife had the good sense to get a cup full of dirt from the infield at the K. Little packets of World Series dirt made great stocking stuffers that Christmas.
Now back to reality. I’m not sure what happened last night in All Star game, but I do know the Royal’s Nation should be really proud of their All Star voting efforts. Especially when you consider Kansas City is the second smallest fan base in major league baseball.
The Royals are currently 52 and 34 with 76 games left to play. If they play .500 baseball the Royal’s will finish with 90 victories. The Tigers won the Central last year with 90 victories. If KC wins 60% of remaining game like they have done so far they end up with 97.6 wins! Can you say Pennant?
