Champions!

Amazing.  Just amazing.  I’m on Cloud 9 right now, as I just experienced one of the most exciting moments of my life.  I’m probably going to write a lot of words, and I don’t even care!  In my sports fan lifetime (1988 and beyond), my favorite pro football team (the Broncos) has won two Super Bowls, my favorite hockey team (the Penguins) has won three Stanley Cups, my favorite pro basketball team (the Bulls) has won six NBA championships, and my favorite pro soccer team (Sporting KC) has won an MLS Cup (they also won one when they were the Wizards). So I’ve been lucky, as that’s more than most fans would get from whatever their mix of favorite teams is.  But I have have had two favorite baseball teams over that time (originally the Cubs but later eclipsed by the Royals) and the closest thing I’ve had to even a World Series appearance was the Steve Bartman experience for the Cubs a decade ago, until last year when the Royals went to the World Series but got Madison Bumgarnered.  K-State winning an NCAA championship in either football or basketball would be the ultimate, but it’s unlikely, though far from impossible, that I’ll ever see that.

I don’t watch as much baseball as I used to, partially because I’m a parent and a husband and I travel for work, which means my free time for watching TV is almost non-existent.  Also, our Dish Network package doesn’t include Fox Sports Kansas City, which has all the Royals games.  But I’m no less of a baseball fan than before.  I’m passionate about the Cubs and the Royals.  The Cubs for years were my favorite team, but since I’ve been in Kansas City, the Royals were my second favorite for a long time and eventually overtook the Cubs as my favorite team.  At the start of every baseball season, it’s convenient for me, because as a fan of those two teams, I’ve been able to have zero expectations of success, and when they didn’t achieve anything for, well, decades, I didn’t have to be too disappointed.  But this year was different.  I knew the Cubs were on the right path (I fully trust Theo, but I thought they were a year away from contending), but this was the first year in my life that I’ve had expectations for the Royals.  Because of the close call last year, I went into this year thinking the following: Anything less than an ALCS appearance would be big disappointment.  Anything less than a World Series appearance would be a slight disappointment but understandable, and anything less than a World Series win would of course be a little disappointing, but it would be very understandable, giving how hard it is to do and how much luck is involved.

The Royals had a great start to the season at 7-0 and pretty much cruised to the Central Division title, at times having a bigger division lead than all other division leaders combined.  By late summer, we realized that barring a huge collapse, the Royals were going back to the playoffs.  They easily clinched the division, and the only thing in doubt was home field advantage throughout the playoffs.  Thanks to the American League’s performance in the All-Star Game, the Royals were guaranteed home field advantage in the World Series if they got that far.  But they were very close with Toronto at the end of the regular season, and for a couple days trailed Toronto for the best record, but in the end (thanks, Tampa Bay!) had the best record in the AL, meaning they would have home field advantage in every series.

They started with a five-game series (it’s surely a matter of time until the revenue opportunities make this round a seven-game series) against the Astros.  They were down 2-1 in the series before facing a must-win game in Game 4.  Playing in Houston, in a win-or-go-home game, they were down 6-2 in the 8th inning, and the Astros seemed in control.  Some fans had declared the season over, and even I, ever the eternal sports optimist, realized things were looking grim.  I was working in our garage that day, listening to the game on the radio, and I remember thinking, “If any team could come back, it’s this year’s Royals.  That’s what they do.”  Baseball Reference indicated that statistically they had a 1% chance of winning that game at that point, meaning it was VERY improbable.  But this Royals team scoffs in the face of improbability.  They can’t be killed.  They were two innings from going home for the offseason, and most teams would’ve packed it in as a lost cause.  But not these guys.  In the 8th they hit FIVE consecutive singles (“Keep the line moving!”) and ended up taking the lead and held on to win. And then they went on to win a winner-take-all Game 5 in KC with Johnny Cueto finally proving he wasn’t a worthless trade deadline acquisition, and the Royals beat the Astros to move to the ALCS against the Blue Jays.

In the ALCS, it was essentially the Royals pitching against the best offense in baseball: the Blue Jays.  With Josh Donaldson, Jose Bautista, Troy Tulowitzki, and Edwin Encarnacion, the Blue Jays had a formidable line-up.  The Royals got rocked in a couple games, but held strong to win the series in 6 games, sending Bautista and his bad attitude home for the winter.  That meant, for the second straight year, the Royals would play in the World Series!

In the World Series, they faced off against the New York Mets, who had a very strong second half fueled by the trade deadline acquisition of Yoenis Cespedes, and Daniel Murphy’s historically great NLCS against the Cubs.  It would have been crazy to have the Royals and the Cubs in the same World Series, and I would’ve rooted for the Royals, even though it would have been a little painful to root against the Cubs.  The Mets’ core strength was starting pitching.  With Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, and Noah Syndergaard, the Mets were loaded with flame-throwing arms.  But, the Royals were the best team in baseball at hitting fastballs, and were even better on the fastest of fastballs.  Game 1 started with an Esky inside-the-park home run, but the Royals were down by one in the 9th against one of the best closers in baseball in Jeurys Familia, when Alex Gordon tied the game with a homer, and then the Royals won it in the 14th inning on a Hosmer sacrifice fly.  In Game 2, the Royals trailed in the bottom of the 5th 1-0, but came back to win again.  The Mets took Game 3, and then in Game 4 the Royals again found themselves trailing in the 8th inning, before they came back yet again to win, setting up Game 5 tonight.  As has happened in every World Series game this year, the Royals fell behind and were losing 2-0 going into the top of the 9th with a statistical 3% chance of winning the game.  But Matt Harvey talked Terry Collins into letting him stay in the game, and the Royals pounced, scoring two runs to tie the game and send it to extra innings.  In the 12th inning, the Royals broke the tie with a barrage of five runs, and of course Wade Davis then finished off the Mets in the bottom of the 12th.  And just like that, the Royals had won the World Series!!!  I really didn’t expect I would be this happy, but I really am.  It’s glorious!  People who aren’t sports fans can’t really relate to deriving such joy from a bunch of professional athletes accomplishing something, but anyone who has ever loved a team and has seen them win it all knows the feeling.  Because it’s wonderful.  I tend to overly invest myself emotionally in my teams, and when they lose, that makes it worse.  But when they win, that makes it so much better.

This Royals team has been so fun to watch.  They play historically good defense, they run the bases well, they make contact better than any team in baseball, and they’re a fun group guys that are easy to root for.  But their calling card is their never-give-up attitude, and their ability to make comebacks.  They did it somewhat last year, but they did it so much this year in the playoffs.  In different postseason games, they had the following chances of winning the game: 18%, 1%, 25%, 8%, 10%, 16%, and 5%, and they won every one of those games.  Of the 11 postseason games they won, they trailed in eight of them, and in seven of those they were losing by multiple runs.  And in the World Series specifically, they trailed in every single game, including in the 8th inning or later in three of them, and they still won four out of five.  And out of the many hundreds of times a team has been down by four runs or more in the 8th inning or later of a playoff game, there have only been two times in history where that team ended up winning the game: The Royals in last year’s Wild Card game, and the Royals in Game 4 of the ALDS this year.

Ned Yost has done an outstanding job, and Escobar, Zobrist, Cain, Gordon, Morales, Moustakas, Perez, Gordon, and Rios, and even Colon all played big parts.  And Cueto pitched well at home, including two gems, and the rest of the pitchers including, of course, Wade Davis, but also Herrera, Madson, Young, Medlen, Ventura, and Volquez all played key roles.  They came together and somehow did what has since 1985 almost seemed impossible: they made it possible to truthfully say the sentence: The Kansas City Royals are World Series Champions!