The Royals

Here in the last few weeks, I've been taking a new phrase out for a spin in the reaches in my mind. It is a set of words that explains my state of mind and what kind of man I think I've become.

West Texan by birth, Kansan by choice

I feel I truly learned how to be an adult during the 7 1/2 years I lived in Clay Center, Kansas. I met many lifelong friends, including my bride. I learned how adults work, make decisions, treat each other, and have fun. The places I worked in Texas did not offer me these opportunities. That, or I didn't know how to take advantage of the chances I got. I worked a lot of lonely shifts at TV and radio stations when there very few others around to learn from. As a result, I didn't learn how civilized adults behave.

So I consider myself a Kansan first.

I've also become partial (or have strong opinions of) the state's teams. Specifically, the Kansas State Wildcats, the Kansas City Chiefs, and these guys:

2014 American League wild-card winner, Division Series champion, and winners of the 2014 American League pennant

In addition, the radio station I used to work for was a Royals on Radio affiliate, a network the called the largest radio network in the American League. We'd go to to Affiliates' Day at Kauffman Stadium, hear Royals officials speak, listen to George Brett, and visit/meet with their radio people. This included Denny Matthews, Ryan Lefebvre, Fred White (miss ya, Fred-- RIP), Paul Splittorff (also RIP) and even the broadcasters from the other team, which one year included Joe Castiglione and I think Jerry Remy of the Boston Red Sox. We then got good seats for the evening's game and got back to Clay Center after a three-hour drive back up I-70.

I didn't listen to decades of games on the front porch or while plowing fields, but I did listen to my fair share and I did watch my portion of the Royals during the 2000s, which were some wretched years. What I'm saying is that KC winning the pennant doesn't mean as much to me as it does to a lot of my friends (who have waited longer than me), but I was just as excited to see our guys beat Oakland, the Angels, and Baltimore.

So I bonded with the team and I consider myself a Royals fan, and I understand what this team means to a bunch of us Midwesterners. This story by Joe Posnanski hits the spot for me:

What the Royals mean to us

I've also learned what baseball teams mean to folks. A good friend who hired me in Clay Center gave me a Starting Lineup figurine of Ozzie Smith in a Cardinals uniform as an expression of thanks when I covered him as he went to go bury his mother, who was a huge St. Louis fan. It is a prized possession.

Another friend is a huge Orioles fan who lost his wife about a year ago. A friend went behind his back asking the O's to do something to maybe bring a smile to his face. The team responded with a very kind condolence letter. A third friend is a man I served in the Navy with. He's an Orioles fan and I've seen the pictures on Facebook as he passes along his love of the O's to his son.

In 2004, when the Boston Red Sox went to (and later won) the World Series, The Sons of Sam Horn message board had pages and pages of powerful stories of fans who wrote what this would have meant to their blind grandmother who would stay up to listen to the late-night Sox games from the West Coast. Or of going to the Sox games with their dad, seeing Ted Williams or Johnny Pesky or Carl Yastrzemski play at Fenway.

I feel that sort of connection with the Royals, and I identify with the folks who have been fans longer than me. They are the ones who were around in the glory years of the 70s and 80s and the 1985 World Championship side. They also felt it worse when KC would regularly lose 100+ games with a collection of guys nobody wanted.

This team and this season are why we watch and the reason we stick around and why we are loyal to a fault. This is what we Royals fans have been waiting for. Regardless of how the series with San Francisco turns out, it will have been a remarkable and wild ride.

Finals Series

It's been a few weeks since the Australian Football League crowned its premiers for 2014, which means I haven't needed to record the matches that air live either late at night or early in the morning, here on the east coast of the U.S. I've been recording them and watching them during the week to get my fix.

The AFL Twitter feed is dormant at times I usually check, so I never saw the final score before I watched. I still haven't really adopted a team to follow, and that is probably a good thing, since I typically follow underdogs, and underdogs typically lose. I kind of have a thing for Gold Coast, Fremantle, Port Adelaide, St. Kilda, and the GWS Giants. It's a long list and it's somewhat fluid. I just like watching the matches.

They also have a rather unique finals system, which is how they seed teams for the playoffs. They call it 'making the eight.' The sides are seeded according to their regular season record. 1 plays 4, and 2 plays 3. In the bottom half, 5 plays 8, and 6 plays 7. The top half features no elimination games in the first week. Winners there get a bye directly into the Preliminary Final round, and losers must play the winners of the bottom half of the eight in the Semi Final round. Losers in the 5/8 and 6/7 matches are eliminated. That is what happened to Richmond this season-- they won about their last nine games to squeak into the eight (beating Sydney, which is a good side) on the last day of the home and away season, only to get beat down by Port Adelaide. I guess they spent so much energy on qualifying that maybe they were spent. (1) Hawthorn beat (4) Geelong, and the Sydney Swans beat Fremantle. Bottom half: Port Adelaide beat Richmond and North Melbourne took down Essendon.

Anyhow, we're down to six sides. The two losers in the top half play the winners of the bottom half. Geelong lost their first match to Hawthorn and then lost their Semi Final match to an inspired North Melbourne side. In addition, Fremantle fell to Port Adelaide in this round by 22 points. So the Geelong Cats and the Fremantle Dockers are both done, and we're down to four sides remaining.

Hawthorn and Sydney both got byes into the Preliminary Final round, and both were winners. The Hawks beat Port by three points in a match that saw the Power rally at the end only to come up short by an eyelash. In the other game, Sydney gave it to North pretty good. It's the advantage of doing well in the regular season, to give yourself the chance to rest and only play two games to make the Grand Final, where a team from 5-8 would have to win three times just to make it.

Now all these playoff games were available on my cable system, but the Grand Final was not, and paying an extra $15 a month to watch one match just didn't seem worthwhile. This was a rare good decision on my part, since Hawthorn dominated the Sydney Swans to earn the premiership.

It is a back-to-back premiership and the 12th for Hawthorn since their entry into the league in 1925. They were one of the better sides when I used to watch a bit as a teenager, and they are pretty dominant nowadays too.

So no more AFL until the 2015 premiership season starts in mid-March. The trade window is still open, schedules will still be released, but we are still several months away from matches that count. I'll be waiting.