We’ve been waiting on this day since October 28, 1985, the day after the last Kansas City Royals post-season game. On that morning, I went off to school, two months into my freshman year of high school. There was a buzz in the air from the Royals winning the World Series the night before. We were putting the final touches on packing up the duplex my mom and I had lived in for five years, along with all of my step-dad’s items he had moved in over the summer, preparing to move into a brand new house the following weekend.

I doubt I spent much time thinking about the future of my favorite baseball team that morning. But I’m pretty sure if I had, I would have never guessed the next time the Royals were in the playoffs I would be grown and married, have three kids, and be living 500 miles away. And, of course, be nearly three decades older.

But here we are, September 30, 2014. I will wear Royals gear today not out of generic home town pride or irony, but rather because it’s the biggest Royals game day since Bret Saberhagen took the hill the evening of October 27, 1985.

I hope, late tonight, I will look back and think it was worth the wait.