Some of you may read this and think, "dude--where you've been?" That's fair as I think it was the visit to Kauffman Stadium on Monday night which cemented my frustration--again--with the state of the Kansas City Royals.
I think this edition of the Royals is particularly painful for all of us given the belief of what might be coupled with the exhibition of what once was.
In the "what might be" category, we have what is obvious to all of us who considered ourselves Royals fans, or ex-communicated Kansas City baseball fans--the potential of the young players on this team. Alex Gordon had an all-star season in 2011, signed a huge contract in the off-season, and is now settled fairly comfortably into his left field and lead-off hitting role. Gordon is not a stereotypical lead-off guy but is batting smartly and getting on base regularly. Alcides Escobar is batting .311 and is displaying All-Star talent at shortstop. Billy Butler--Kansas City's All-Star representative--has 17 homers and 55 RBIs. Mike Moustakas is making big plays at third base and displaying power with his 16 home runs.
The point is that the nucleus is there with young talent--Gordon, Escobar, Moustakas, Salvador Perez, and, of course, Eric Hosmer, who hopefully can somehow catch fire in the back half of the season and display his hitting talent of last season.
What's missing is painfully obvious--pitching. And, that huge chasm of talent not only has bitten K.C. in the standings but soon will be biting the Royals in their attendance behinds.
You see, the All-Star Game illuminated what kind of baseball town this is--that's the "what once was" category. Royals' fans are pining openly for a team which brings them to the ballpark. They want to relive the glory days of the mid-1970s into the mid-1980s. Young talent, dripping with potential, will do that. However, two games against the worst hitting team in the majors, who scored 18 runs on your pitchers, will throw a big tub of cold water on that optimism.
It was during the All-Star Week celebrations, when the stadium was filled with cheering (and booing) fans, that I realized that an entire generation had been brought up on losing--and bad--baseball. The last K.C. All-Star representative to even get a hit in the Midsummer Classic was Bo Jackson...in 1989!
I'm not going to use this post to take David Glass and his minions to task. I'll leave that to Jack Harry's bulldog "reporting." I'm simply stating the blindingly obvious and, once again, emphasizing how it's only deepened my frustration and lack of interest at going to Kauffman Stadium to watch a five-run first inning by the opposition's hitters.
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