Duane Cunningham
Member
I'm heading home soon, where I'll have a houseful of people watching and won't get to post as much. But before we all get into watch position, I just wanted to say...
I've spent the last five or six years in MLB-GAF rooting for the Royals. And I've spent all my life doing so IRL. And this is just surreal. I spent a lot of time feeling like the only Royals fan on earth, but driving around the city today and in recent weeks shows that clearly I'm not. This baseball town wasn't dead after all, just hibernating. Now it's awake and roaring at maximum blast. EVERYBODY today is wearing blue. The grocery stores are full of cakes and pies with logos baked into them, and KC jack o lanterns painted blue. There are pennants hanging from every light pole, signs in people's yards, evening classes being called off for the night. I always knew that IF this day came, it would be like this, but that little doubt deep in my brain was IF it would actually happen.
And sports mean so much to this city. Everyone knows what Chiefs fans are like. And that Power and Light district World Cup watch party clip from the summer that made all the montages. Man, people were nuts when Sporting won last year. But this city's true love, deep down, has always been the Royals. Always. And with them "gone" all these years, it's like our civic soul was gone. And now it's back. We're back, finally.
People who aren't very familiar with a city and only ever hear about that city's sports teams start to project what's been drummed into their head about said teams onto the city. I don't really know anything about Green Bay, Wisconsin, but I have a pretty positive image of it in my head. If it weren't for the Packers, I probably wouldn't even know the town existed at all.
Enough decades go by of people hearing that Kansas City sucks in a football or baseball context, and they start to just hear Kansas City sucks. They start thinking the place is just some shit hole. But it never has been... it's a great place with friendly people, clean air, good food, good beer, good music and crazy passionate sports fans who still averaged 22k at their long comatose ball team's games even when they lost 100 for three years in a row. But the rest of the world just heard that last part. "Kansas City is no good."
We needed this so bad. We're back. Everyone is on the same page. Even if we don't win, this was something we needed. But we will win.
I'm old enough that I remember 1985. I was a kid, but I remember it. A LOT of Royals fans have NEVER known this. They've just heard the stories. But this is better than 1985. A team like George Brett, Dan Quizenberry and Brett Saberhagen is SUPPOSED to win the world series. And it's ridiculous that their job didn't end in 1985... their victory legend had to be on the job for the next THIRTY YEARS.
But this team... I've never seen a team in any sport that so lived up to the phrase "greater than the sum of its parts". And they swept the entire playoffs!
We're going to win this. And our city is on the upswing. After this is over, we're going to get back to work with our new flag flying overhead (AL Champs or WS), our Google Fiber humming, BBQ for lunch, and great things are going to come out of Kansas City once again as it has in the past. Our true sports team is back, Kansas City as a whole is back, and we're proud once again.
TLDR: Go Royals, let's do this!
I've spent the last five or six years in MLB-GAF rooting for the Royals. And I've spent all my life doing so IRL. And this is just surreal. I spent a lot of time feeling like the only Royals fan on earth, but driving around the city today and in recent weeks shows that clearly I'm not. This baseball town wasn't dead after all, just hibernating. Now it's awake and roaring at maximum blast. EVERYBODY today is wearing blue. The grocery stores are full of cakes and pies with logos baked into them, and KC jack o lanterns painted blue. There are pennants hanging from every light pole, signs in people's yards, evening classes being called off for the night. I always knew that IF this day came, it would be like this, but that little doubt deep in my brain was IF it would actually happen.
And sports mean so much to this city. Everyone knows what Chiefs fans are like. And that Power and Light district World Cup watch party clip from the summer that made all the montages. Man, people were nuts when Sporting won last year. But this city's true love, deep down, has always been the Royals. Always. And with them "gone" all these years, it's like our civic soul was gone. And now it's back. We're back, finally.
People who aren't very familiar with a city and only ever hear about that city's sports teams start to project what's been drummed into their head about said teams onto the city. I don't really know anything about Green Bay, Wisconsin, but I have a pretty positive image of it in my head. If it weren't for the Packers, I probably wouldn't even know the town existed at all.
Enough decades go by of people hearing that Kansas City sucks in a football or baseball context, and they start to just hear Kansas City sucks. They start thinking the place is just some shit hole. But it never has been... it's a great place with friendly people, clean air, good food, good beer, good music and crazy passionate sports fans who still averaged 22k at their long comatose ball team's games even when they lost 100 for three years in a row. But the rest of the world just heard that last part. "Kansas City is no good."
We needed this so bad. We're back. Everyone is on the same page. Even if we don't win, this was something we needed. But we will win.
I'm old enough that I remember 1985. I was a kid, but I remember it. A LOT of Royals fans have NEVER known this. They've just heard the stories. But this is better than 1985. A team like George Brett, Dan Quizenberry and Brett Saberhagen is SUPPOSED to win the world series. And it's ridiculous that their job didn't end in 1985... their victory legend had to be on the job for the next THIRTY YEARS.
But this team... I've never seen a team in any sport that so lived up to the phrase "greater than the sum of its parts". And they swept the entire playoffs!
We're going to win this. And our city is on the upswing. After this is over, we're going to get back to work with our new flag flying overhead (AL Champs or WS), our Google Fiber humming, BBQ for lunch, and great things are going to come out of Kansas City once again as it has in the past. Our true sports team is back, Kansas City as a whole is back, and we're proud once again.
TLDR: Go Royals, let's do this!
