Baseball has faded in and out of my consciousness since the strike in 1994. I've had years where I was lenient in my punishment of the sport during the last twenty years, but the games I've been to in that time still number less than one per year. The arrival of baseball in Washington DC coincided with some of my leniency. The newness there was quickly replaced by talent and I attended a few more of the old ball games.
I always had some sense of the Royals during those years. My sense was that they weren't doing well. I'd read about their farm system and how great it was. It seemed possible with what little I know and how often I saw their best players, the only ones whose names I knew, they'd all ended up on someone else's successful roster.
I didn't tune in, certainly not on a transistor radio, and tracking standings is a fuzzy childhood breakfast memory that fell somewhere before the comics and after a cursory glance at the sports page headlines. The Internet has brought me back to the sports page headlines and baseball makes those headlines in the summer. I read the Washington Post and it tells the tales of the Nationals and the Orioles. The Nationals always felt like somebody else's team. And for a while somebody else's team was losing just like my old team, the Royals. The Orioles were somebody else's team. Baltimore is incredibly far away from DC, perhaps especially because it's only 40 miles away. The Post hyped the team and we all pinned our hopes on Strasburg and Harper and a team of Nats. Things got exciting, but my attention got diverted. Baseball was still there though. There were Cardinals games that had to be watched after wedding rehearsals. There were Phillies fans who tried to be more obnoxious than Boston fans who were trying to be more obnoxious than Yankees fans. I stayed out of that fray, only watching it in passing.
For some reason, I started to long for home. I bought a Royals hat, there in the 26th year without a playoff appearance. I didn't really tune in more, but I satisfied a need to identify where I was from. I wore the hat proudly. It's my favorite color and identifies my home. I could barely remember baseball success, but it was important to show my support, not necessarily to the Royals, but to Kansas City. Something about roots and the trees that grow ever taller.
I moved from DC out to Colorado. The hat became a conversation piece. People here know someone from KC or have a connection of their own. It wasn't too far away to consider. It was just far enough away to discuss. The conversations weren't always about the Royals and if they were I could hardly hold my own. Baseball hasn't been the same without my grandpa. He kept it interesting. He bought me that transistor radio. He listened to his own with one earpiece plugged in. He taught me how to keep score and had a loyalty to the Royals and to sports like no one else I knew. Baseball will always be connected in my mind with him.
About three weeks ago, I heard that the Royals might win their division. The paper no longer passes by my breakfast table and the standings don't seem as powerful or as easy to find on the Internet. I found myself starting to search for the standings. I started to check on those boys in blue to see how they were doing. They struggled against the Tigers and despite some late season drama lost the division lead, but earned a wild card bid.
The news that the Royals were in the playoffs for the first time in 29 years was a popular sports talk conversation. It's been so long since the Royals were in the playoffs that I didn't even realize that the Wildcard game was not a series, just a game. I went to bed before it was over and woke up to realize that the Royals had more playoffs to play.
I still haven't mustered the energy to find a game or even stay up to see one to its finish. I'll wear my hat proudly, wave my Facebook status updates, and keep checking on the team. I'm not the fan of baseball or the Royals that I once was (I don't even have a Royals watch any more), but if there's room on the bandwagon, I'm happy to jump on. These Royals look like they are having fun. I like a team having fun and I like an underdog story.
These guys might win me all the way over yet. If they don't, I wouldn't mind if they just won it all. I'm rooting for KC.