D's Notebook

Tag: Kansas City Royals (Page 2 of 14)

Thursday Notes

February 15, 2024 /

I had planned to post a new Reaching for the Stars entry today, but I can’t quite get the right flow to the piece, so I’m going to keep at it a few more days. Instead, some assorted notes to unload my brain.

Health

After nearly three weeks I think I’m finally beating whatever has been ailing me. S kept asking me in week two if I wanted to start taking antibiotics. Since I had no signs of sinus infection, I kept saying no. Sunday she forced me to start. Who knows if it was the meds or the illness finally running out of steam, but I’ve been getting better each day since.

I guess this is a good moment to share that late last year I had a couple more Afib episodes, my first big ones in four years. Each seemed to be triggered like the ones that led to my initial diagnosis: having a drink late in the evening.

The second episode was a little concerning because it did not seem to fix itself. I’ve had five of these events (that I know of) and each time my heart rate normalized after about 12 hours. Two weeks before Christmas, though, my heart kept beating faster than normal beyond that 12 hour window. No other bad symptoms – chest tightness, shortness of breath, etc – but where my resting heart rate is normally in the low 60s, it remained in the 80–90 range. When it didn’t clear after 12 hours I called my cardiologist, who asked me to come in for an EKG.

This was on a Friday afternoon before Christmas, and I have to pass two malls to get to the hospital. Traffic was a nightmare. But, you know what? Trying to get through holiday traffic to see your cardiologist must have been the right kind of stress because halfway there my heart rate slipped back into normal. I guess I should have left the house earlier.

The EKG read normal, my doctor had me wear an event monitor for two weeks and it came back clean.

Since then only once have I felt like things might be a little wonky, but my Apple Watch claimed I was still in normal rhythm. What triggered that? Having a beer one night after one of L’s games.

So, I’ve kind of stopped drinking. I’ve had a few drinks when we’ve gone out to dinner. But other than those I’ve had maybe three other drinks in 2024. Not that I was a big drinker before. I had already pared it back to having one drink maybe four nights a week. When I had two drinks at dinner one night last week it felt like five or six. I’m going to have to switch to low alcohol beer for spring break so I’m not passed out by noon.

Getting old is fun.

Career Change

No, not with me. I’m still manager of the house and kids.

S had a major change in her job recently. I won’t go into all the details but her organization went through some serious reorganization and adjustments of priorities last year, pivoting away from primary care and towards cancer and heart medicine. I guess that’s where the money is.

In her role as medical director S was responsible for passing word from above to the pediatric world of the changes. Changes she had been fighting against for months. The first eight months of last year were kind of terrible for her. And they were stressful around our house since she spent two days of the week here doing that administrative job. Often I could walk by her and feel the anger radiating from her body. Other times she would vent to me after contentious calls. She didn’t take it out on us but she wasn’t always fun to be around.

As part of the reorganization the network decided to eliminate her medical director job in August, splitting it into smaller, regional positions. They offered her what they claimed was a lateral replacement. She would go from managing over 100 docs and the org’s entire school-based program to about 10 pediatricians plus a handful of family medicine docs.

She told them to pound sand.[1]

Starting in September she was still home two days a week, but they became vacation days, burning through the time she never took off because she had been so busy. I wish I could tell you we spent those days doing fun stuff, but they were more a chance for her to decompress after a wild three years in the Covid era. She watched a lot of movies. I got annoyed with her being around. I counted down the days until January.

When the calendar flipped to 2024 she went back to seeing patients four days a week. Her current stress level is so much lower than it was a year ago. She is still super busy, but it is just devoted to taking care of kids. No more administrative BS.

Today was a perfect day to share this as it is her normal day off. Maybe we’ll go to the gym together, and then lunch. Maybe we’ll run some errands. Maybe she’ll sit and watch movies all day. Whatever it is, she won’t be on calls for 10 hours with her blood pressure steadily rising.

Cars

I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned this yet, but this is a new car year for me. You know what that means? The return of the New Car Chronicles!

I will preemptively tell you that this round won’t be as exciting as the last. With one kid in college, another headed there in 18 months, plus my wife having 50% fewer jobs than she had the last time I went through this process, my budget has changed quite a bit.

That doesn’t mean I’m going to get a crap car. It just means I will not be replacing my Audi with something as nice/nicer than it.

I’m already zeroed in on three vehicles with plans to start test driving after spring break. Watch this space for updates.

Royals Stadium

First off, I’m pleased to report that everyone I know in Kansas City who was at the parade Wednesday seems to have been nowhere near the horrific shooting. I’m sure the Founding Fathers had spraying bullets into a peaceful, celebratory crowd of a million people in mind when they wrote the second amendment.

The Royals released renderings for their potential new stadium on Tuesday. I have to say, they were gorgeous. But stadium renderings usually are gorgeous. I, like just about everyone else, immediately noted there was no crown-shaped scoreboard. While there was a water feature – right in the batter’s eye, which makes no sense – there did not seem to be fountains. Again, I know these are just renderings and can/will be adjusted, but seems like the people coming up with these knew nothing about Kansas City baseball.

Anyway, the pictures were dazzling. I do have questions, though. I’m in the camp that isn’t convinced that Kauffman Stadium, one of the best places to watch an MLB game, is obsolete. But there’s new ownership, and modern ownership groups often care more about building revenue generating machines than winning baseball teams.

One of the architects who spoke Tuesday said that the K has reached the point where its original concrete is beginning to deteriorate and could fail…sometime in the next 40 years. That seems like a pretty big window to require a new stadium in the next five years.

And, if I’m not mistaken, part of the tax extension being requested to pay for the new stadium will also fund further upgrades to Arrowhead Stadium. So I guess the concrete at Arrowhead is just fine since Kansas City taxpayers aren’t being asked to replace it, too?

I don’t have super strong feelings about the new stadium. As sterile as the giant parking lot around the K seems, that tailgating culture is part of being a Royals fan. How many dozens of hours have I spent in those lots before games, drinking, eating, throwing baseballs/footballs with friends? Taking 30 seconds to think back brings back all kinds of fantastic memories. Sometimes we did it when the weather was awful, and that became a huge part of our experience. That April Saturday in 1997, when Tiger playing round three of his first Masters in Georgia and a few of us braved sub-freezing temps to watch a bad baseball game. There were games when it was well over 100 in the parking lot and we powered through. There were days when we sat in the rain hoping the heavy stuff would blow through so the game would start. And there were a lot of balmy, summer nights where you got there early, told friends where you parked, and waited for the party to build.

I know with a downtown stadium the pregame stuff gets moved to bars and restaurants, which has some advantages. But you also lose most of what made pregaming at the K unique. You can’t walk into a bar with a President’s platter from Gates.

I’m not a Kansas City taxpayer and my focus is keeping the Royals in KC and competitive. If a new stadium makes that happen, I suppose I am for it. Even if the argument against the K seems flimsy to me.

  1. You know what calls were fun to listen to from the other room? The ones where the person above her in the org chart tried to say the new position was a lateral move. Talk about steam coming out of ears.  ↩

Sports Notes

August 8, 2023 /

After just a week it’s already time for some more sports notes.

Big 12/Realignment

I neglected to include a section about college realignment in last week’s post as it seemed like the next domino was close to falling. I was expecting medium-sized news, like the Big 12 adding one-to-three more PAC schools to complete its expansion. Little did I know the general landscape was so tenuous that it would quickly feel like 2011 again.

First, the Big 12 added Colorado as expected. Which Big 12 fans went nuts about. A lot of people pointed out that CU isn’t all that great of a get. The Buffs haven’t been very good for about 20 years, and have been only marginally better than Kansas over the past decade. Sure, they have Coach Prime coming in, but I don’t know if many people outside himself and their AD think he’s going to turn them into the CU of the 1990s again. In hoops, they’ve been solid since Tad Boyle took over, but have only won two NCAA tournament games in his tenure.

What got Big 12 fans excited was that the Big 12 was adding again rather than subtracting members. It was a nice bonus that the new school was one of those that fled in the initial exodus a decade ago. Also nice that Boulder is one of the best road trips in any conference.

Then, a week later, Arizona, Arizona State, and Utah signed up for the Big 12. Or Big 16. Or whatever.

After over 10 years of being the conference that was constantly getting raided, the Big 12 actually seemed to be operating from a position of strength, now adding eight new schools over a couple years. And it, finally, seemed like a conference of true equals. Mostly similarly-sized schools, mostly public universities, all in the same ballpark in terms of athletic budgets and revenues. And everyone seems content, for now, that they are in the third most important conference that seems locked into its current structure for the time being. There’s no Texas throwing its considerable weight around and constantly whining when it doesn’t get its way. If the Big 10 decided they really wanted Kansas basketball, or a restructuring ACC went after West Virginia and UCF, it wouldn’t wreck the conference.

In the midst of all of that came the bigger earthquake: the Big 10 landed Oregon and Washington to grow to 18 schools. The PAC-whatever is dead, and the Big 10 has again raised the stakes in the arms war of realignment. Might the SEC try to match them, grabbing Florida State and Clemson? Would the Big 10 then swoop in for North Carolina and Duke to get to 20? Would the Big 12 follow by trying to snap up a couple stray ACC schools and/or UConn to get to 20 programs themselves?

I don’t think anyone really knows when this will end. For the moment, it’s nice that KU is in a semi-stable environment. Even if that stability may be illusory and temporary.

I’ve seen several people mention that eventually the most elite of the elite football programs are going to decide they don’t need to share their money and run off and make their own league and try to suck up as much for themselves as possible. Hopefully we have another 10 years or so of the new normal before we get to that point.

I just hope all this realignment nonsense stops some of the complaining in downtown Indy at the NCAA headquarters and from university administrators about players getting paid ruining college athletics. Amateurism has been dead in D1 sports for decades. The constant realignment churn of the past 15 years shows that the true powers that be in college sports care most about maximizing how much media revenue they can generate, not about any out-dated ideas of amateurism or about the rivalries and regionalism that make college sports special.

KU Hoops

I should have waited another week for my KU thoughts, too. I wrote that it seemed like the roster for the coming year had locked in, as rumors of adding an international player had faded. And then Australian Johnny Furphy, the kid who was generating the buzz in early July, surprised everyone by reclassifying back into the class of 2023 and committing to KU.

I’m a little suspicious about how much of an initial impact he will make. His highlight videos, while impressive, were often against smaller Australian or International competition. I’m not sure he’s going to be able to take two dribbles and smash on three defenders in the Big 12 as a freshman the way he did in his summer games.

He does have a very nice set of skills to work with. Bill Self called him a mix of Svi Mykhailiuk and Christian Braun. Which is kind of unfair on the kid, but also means if he can come close to that, he’s going to be a very nice, multi-year player for the Jayhawks. We’ll see. I think his biggest immediate contribution will be as another body on the roster, allow Zach Clemence to keep his redshirt status, and serve as a hedge in case Arterio Morris’ eligibility comes into jeopardy.

I watched most of KU’s three games in Puerto Rico over the weekend.[1] You can’t get too up or down about these summer games, and I won’t dive in too deep to my observations.

It was fun to see most of the new guys for the first time (Furphy has not yet joined the program). Hunter Dickinson and KJ Adams already have amazing chemistry. They are going to be a problem for the Big 12.

Elmarko Jackson and Morris looked worthy of the hype they arrive with and bring an athleticism KU hasn’t had on the perimeter in a long time. They, DaJuan Harris, and Kevin McCullar were absolutely killing guys they were guarding at times. Add in a legit shot blocker behind them and the KU defense has a chance to be as good as the 2020 team’s.

And if anyone can consistently hit 3’s – an evergreen concern with KU – this team could be un-guardable.

On the negative side, McCullar and Harris don’t look like they’ve been shooting the 8000 3’s a day I think they should be shooting. Although Harris did hit three deep ones and scored 23 points on Monday.

These were games in August against older competition with weird rules.[2] What it all means is just speculation.

One of the highlights of the trip was playing against former Oklahoma All-American and current Indiana Pacer Buddy Hield. He only played two quarters Saturday and three on Monday, but was a great match-up for McCullar and Harris. Both guys ripped him a few times. Monday he hit two ridiculous 3’s with one of those guys draped all over him to turn a two point deficit into a four point lead at the end of the third quarter.

Best of all, though, was when he came over and talked to the KU radio crew during the third quarter Saturday.

He spoke about his recruiting process, and how Self had told him if he came to KU he might not play right away. He said he respected that, since other coaches weren’t as honest with him, and understood it since “you never really know how kids are going to turn out.” But when asked if he ever lets Self know he made a mistake, he responded, “I don’t have to say anything. He knows.” Hilarious.

When asked about having to play against Kevin McCullar he said something like, “Yeah, he’s nice. He plays hard. He talks a lot of shit.”

Broadcaster Brian Hanni immediately jumped in, “I’m not sure we can say that on the radio.”

Buddy immediately looked chagrined and apologized, and did so again at the end of the segment, “Sorry about the curse word.” I was rolling. Buddy is the best.

Finally, when Bahamas made a little run and forced a KU timeout, he started yelling at Self, who was about 10 feet away, “We coming, Self! We coming!”

It was a pretty good five or so minutes of radio.

I found it odd that Washington Township native and North Central High School graduate Eric Gordon was playing for the Bahamas.[3] I mean I get it: his mom is from there so he is eligible according to how the rules are these days. What I didn’t get, though, was that he has played for the United States in international competition before. I thought you had to officially change citizenship to be able to swap teams. I guess I was wrong. Or no one really cares about a 30-something NBA role player.

The Bahamas has a stacked roster. There’s Buddy and Gordon, Klay Thompson and his brother will apparently play for them in next week’s Olympic qualifying tournament. Former Texas player Kai Jones is on the roster but did not play against KU. Most of the rest of their roster played D1 ball in the States. And then there’s former NBA #1 draft pick DeAndre Ayton. The Bahamas insisted he would play this weekend. He sat out Saturday’s game but told KU he would play on Monday. When Monday rolled around he worked out for an hour before the game then disappeared when the game began, strolling to the bench in street clothes and sunglasses midway through the first quarter.

How NBA guys handle these exhibitions is always strange. The games don’t mean anything to them, and with Olympic qualifying ahead, they are glorified scrimmages for them. Often their NBA teams will place minutes restrictions on them, and the Pacers seemed to do with Buddy.

Ayton being weird was no real surprise, though. I am not sad that the Suns matched the Pacers’ offer sheet for him a year ago.

I saw Buddy and Gordon have long moments with the KU coaches and players after each game. They would often tap the KU guys on the shoulder or side as they walked past during dead balls. I didn’t see a ton of interaction from Ayton, although Hunter Dickinson was notably bigger than him when they shook hands. If you know your college basketball recruiting history, you know that Ayton and KU once seemed like a sure thing, until Arizona and Nike beat what KU and Adidas were offering. Allegedly.

USWNT/World Cup

Well, it sure looks dumb to have all these ads with the US Women’s National Team members running in high volume during prime time when the team could only muster four goals in four games and lost their opening knock-out game.

I did not wake up to watch the loss to Sweden, which proved to be a wise decision.

I’ve chosen really poorly this tournament. Every game I’ve watched has been pretty boring. And then I’ll check a micoblogging social media site formerly represented by a blue bird and learn a game I did not watch was bananas.

Royals

Hey, they ran their winning streak up to seven games! Of course they’ve lost three-straight since then. Kind of crazy a team that hadn’t won three-consecutive contests all year turned their first winning streak into the franchise’s longest since 2017.

  1. Props to KU for coming up with a way, last minute, to show the games. The single cam on the sideline wasn’t perfect, but was better than a lot of high school single-cam streams I’ve watched.  ↩
  2. It was clear in the two Bahamas games that the refs were making calls late to keep the games close. KU got dinged in for a few bad calls in the game they won Saturday, and benefited from a couple terrible calls when they were losing Monday. Self seemed surprised by the calls, but perhaps international refs try to make the end of exhibitions more interesting, or give coaches a chance to practice more late game stuff.  ↩
  3. If you don’t know your Indy geography, and why would most of you, we live in Washington Township and North Central is one block from our house. Pretty far from the Bahamas.  ↩

Sports Notes

August 1, 2023 /

I’ve stacked up a lot of sports thoughts over the past several weeks. Let’s dive in and see how long it takes to get through them.

Tour de France

After watching the Netflix show Tour de France: Unchained in June, I was all-in for this year’s tour, even ponying up for Peacock for the month to watch.[1] It was like the good (bad) old days watching Lance Armstrong as I turned the race on first thing every morning and tracked the day’s progress.

This year’s race was awesome. Week one was incredible, with all kinds of cool attacks and finishes until Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar, combined winners of the last three Tours, took over. The duo battled across France and stayed within seconds of each other into the final week, until Vingegaard won a convincing victory in stage 16’s individual time trial. The next day he blew the race open in the Alps. What had been a nine second lead exploded to over seven minutes. It was a remarkable two days to earn a deserved second-straight Tour win.

I had a few sources for reading about each day’s stages, one of them The Guardian. Which, being The Guardian, threw aspersions towards any biker who performed particularly well. Vingegaard got the worst of it as he took over the race. Who knows if the speculation is accurate or not. His team noted how many times his blood was tested over the month, an argument we’ve heard before. I just found it interesting it was NEVER discussed on the TV broadcast.

It also drove me nuts that the announcers, the same main two guys as back in Lance’s prime, have the same quirks they had 20 years ago. They’re looking at the same footage we are watching, and somehow almost always misread biker’s body language. Multiple times they suggested someone was in great shape, only to get dropped moments later, or that someone was struggling only for them to surge away from their rivals. And they love to speculate, with like 80 kilometers to race, that some guy with a minute lead “surely has this stage won.” I blame Europeans and their strange ways of covering sports.

KU Hoops

I’ve never followed up on my May thoughts, after Hunter Dickinson committed. It’s been a busy summer.
Both Zuby Ejiofor and Ernest Udeh transferred out, which really, really sucked. I totally understand why they left, and that is the big downside to adding a massive transfer in like Dickinson. I wish Bill Self could have talked at least one of them into staying. Udeh ending up at TCU was a real bummer, but better than Kansas State, which was one of his other options.
Kevin McCullar decided to come back, which was huge.
Christian Braun’s brother transferred in, giving KU another body in the front court.
Zach Clemence, who had said he was transferring to UCSB, changed his mind and announced he was returning and would redshirt.
Incoming freshman Chris Johnson saw the roster crunch in the backcourt and decided to de-commit and go to Texas.
Then, after a couple weeks of summer school, fellow freshman Marcus Adams decided Lawrence was “too country” for him and bailed, burning his free transfer in the process, for Gonzaga.

Suddenly a super-deep roster was kind of thin. There were rumors KU might grab an international player who could come in and play this year, but those rumors have faded. There could still be a grad transfer to add, but it looks like KU might roll into the season with just nine eligible players, assuming Clemence sticks with redshirting. Self normally only plays 7–8, but all it takes is a couple tweaked ankles or the flu running through the locker room for the bench to get shallow real quick.

The Jayhawks go to Puerto Rico this week to play a few games, two of which are against the Bahamas national team and could include several NBA players. Just need no one to get hurt…[2]

Pacers

Man, the Pacers had a nice summer. They made smart draft picks to start. Then they signed Bruce Brown. During the NBA Finals I knew someone would overpay him after his great performance, and I was bummed when it was the Pacers.

However, while his contract was reported as two years, it is basically a one-year deal that the Pacers can get out of if he doesn’t perform this year, or re-sign him on better terms for each side next year if he has a good season. A savvy, win-win signing.

Then they traded for Obi Toppin, which seems like an awesome move. He was always forced to play out of position in New York, and seems like a perfect match for Tyrese Haliburton. The duo showed up at a local pro-am league last week and combined for approximately 800 alley-oops. Toppin has vibes of the classic guy who needs a change of scenery to finally capitalize on his potential. I don’t think he’s going to be a superstar, but he fits what the Pacers are trying to do.

They still need to massage the roster a bit, the young guys need to develop, and Haliburton and Myles Turned need to stay healthy. But they could be one of the most fun teams in the league next year, and should battle for a playoff spot.

Royals

Props to the R’s! They won their last three games of July, giving them their first three-game winning streak of the season. No one keeps the Royals from winning three consecutive games for four months!

Colts

The team didn’t even get to training camp before drama popped up. Jonathan Taylor was part of a group of running backs around the league who met virtually to discuss how their position gets screwed by the current collective bargaining agreement. Then he suddenly was placed on the PUP list when camp opened. Two days later he requested a trade. This from the guy who has been the epitome of how you want a player to behave, and kept insisting he wanted to play his entire career in Indy.

I totally get where he, and his fellow RBs are coming from. Only kickers are compensated less under the franchise tags since the NFL has decided that running backs are basically interchangeable and dispensable. But that’s an argument they need to aim at their own union, not at ownership that is following the agreed upon rules.[3] And I also understand Taylor’s specific fears. He was hurt last year and had off-season surgery designed to keep his ankle healthy. The Colts drafted a dual threat QB who is going to be given the keys to the offense soon enough, which will cut down on Taylor’s carries, yards, and touchdowns. If he doesn’t get his money now, he might not get it next off season.

The Colts don’t seem inclined to move him; I wonder if they’ll have the guts not to play him. Regardless of cause and odds of resolution, it’s not a great way to begin the season. Especially when his prime backup broke his arm in practice on Monday.

Oh, and I read this morning that the Colts have dropped hints that Taylor also hurt his back over the summer working out on his own, a claim Taylor angrily denied. We’ve moved beyond ugly and are pushing irreparable.

USWNT/World Cup

Ooof. I was not up at 3:00 AM today to watch the US women’s national team’s final group stage game against Portugal. Pretty glad I did not set an alarm. The outcome could have been worse, but not much. A team that has looked sluggish through their first two games failed to score and had to rely on Portugal hitting the post in stoppage time to advance to the knockout stage.

Head coach Vlatko Andonovski has faced a lot of criticism for how he’s constructed the team and how they played in the run-up to the tournament. I haven’t watched enough nor know enough about high-level soccer tactics to be able to critique his choices. At some point, though, the most talented team in the world, filled with both veterans who own two World Cup titles and some of the brightest young stars in the world, have to take responsibility for their play. Even if Andonovski has made terrible tactical choices, they should be good enough to overcome his errors.

I guess the only good thing about the team’s subpar performance is that so few Americans can watch it because of the time difference.

  1. Strangely convenient how our free access to Peacock thanks to being Xfinity customers expired the day before the race began.  ↩
  2. Jinx. You read it here first.  ↩
  3. Note is, as it may be a first: me siding with ownership over labor.  ↩

Baseball Notes (+1)

September 29, 2022 /

My season-long boycott of baseball has continued. It’s really not been hard since the Royals have been so shitty this year. I’m not feeling any inclination to crack in a week when the playoffs begin. I’m sure I’ll watch some of the games, but I don’t expect to be as into them as I have been in recent years. I have plenty of other things that can entertain me during evenings in October.

Still, I thought I should drop a few baseball related thoughts.

Dayton Moore Fired

This is over a week old, but the Royals have finally moved on from their long-time general manager/president of baseball operations, the architect behind the 2014 pennant and 2015 World Series winning teams.

This was a good move.

Everyone says Dayton is a decent man who loves the franchise and the Kansas City area, and I don’t doubt that. But his methods had become outdated and it seemed like as long as he was in charge, the organization would remain stagnant.

When you look back at his career, it’s really remarkable that the R’s ever got to the postseason. It’s not that they weren’t deserving; those teams were filled with high draft picks and smart acquisitions. Rather what made those two Octobers seem so unlikely are the seasons around them.

I think Dayton was probably one more under-performing season away from losing his job in 2014. And the post-World Series era has turned into an absolute disaster.

A Twitter commentator said that championships are never truly flukes – it takes too much to win one in any sport to write them off as breakdowns in the matrix – but when you look at how the Royals performed in Moore’s first seven or eight years, and then in the seven years since, that title seems like a huge outlier.

I’m hopeful that J.J. Picollo, despite being a Moore protégé, is the right choice to move the franchise forward. He seems more open to using advanced stats and more modern training methods than Moore ever did. Perhaps that will unlock the potential of all the pitchers the R’s have collected in the past five years. His changes to the organization’s hitting philosophy are promising, so that bodes well.

The Dayton Moore era was filled with contradictions. The Royals were one of the few franchises that looked to take care of all of its employees during the pandemic. His efforts to build a new baseball academy are exactly what the sport needs to stay relevant and capitalize on talent that doesn’t come from the baseball factories of the American south or Latin America. Then there was his weird interest in educating players about the dangers of watching porn. Of all the ills in the world, that’s the one he chose to take a stand on? Bizarre.

There was a lot of shitty baseball between 2006 and 2013, and again since 2017. But what happened in the middle can never be discounted, no matter how much of an outlier it was.

Aaron Judge

I’m sure my long-time readers will be shocked that I’m super-annoyed by the coverage of Aaron Judge’s pursuit of the American League home run record, a mark he tied last night.

There’s the way ESPN has covered it. I don’t watch a lot of Sportscenter these days, but when I switch by it drove me nuts how the crawl would say something like “Judge Still Stuck at 60.” Still stuck. Two games after he hit #60. God I hate American journalism sometimes.

There was the same whining that happens anytime a record is being pursued and a hitter gets walked a lot. It’s not the job of the opponent to serve up meatballs, especially when they are fighting for a playoff spot. Ironic that some of the people complaining about Judge’s walks are the same people who fit into the next group and are allegedly concerned with the sanctity of the game.

But what has annoyed me most is the commentary around his chase, and the idea that should he break Roger Maris’ 1961 mark, he will become the “real” home run king.

That is garbage.

The MLB home run record is 73. It doesn’t matter if you hate Barry Bonds, if you think he didn’t play a clean game in his life, and if you think everything about that era was suspect. Those games, and those home runs, happened. You can’t strike them from the record without removing everything that happened in that era. So, Yankees fan, do you want to eliminate the team’s consecutive titles between 1998 and 2000? Roger Clemens was on those teams. Andy Pettite was on those teams. Jason Giambi. Kevin Brown. And those are just the big names we know about.

And you know how I feel about steroids. Do we know for certain that Judge is clean, or that he’s not using something now that is illegal but won’t be allowed in five years? The PED line is always moving, there are always advances in medicine, and I refuse to get upset about who is/is not using when the criteria for what is/is not allowed is not fixed.

Aaron Judge is a marvel, and what he’s doing is one of the most impressive performances in baseball history, especially when you compare his numbers to the other power numbers. He’s in position to break the AL home run record while also winning the Triple Crown, which is nuts. Let’s just celebrate that without trying to re-litigate 20-year-old grievances.

Albert Pujols

Hey, Pujols has had a remarkable summer, too. I figured when he signed with the Cardinals it would be for a victory lap, maybe a couple home series in the summer in front of packed crowds, then he’d slip away with an injury that would keep him on the IL until the final weekend of the season when he would come out for a few final ABs and hat tips to the crowd.

Boy was I wrong! Despite being 52 years old,[1] he’s somehow rediscovered the magic he lost over a decade ago and has bashed his way to 700 career homers and is OPS+-ing a cool 142.

It’s pretty amazing how a player can decline for a decade and suddenly find it agin. It’s weird how there’s been all the kvetching about Barry Bonds, Mark McGuire, and Sammy Sosa but no discussion of Albert’s miraculous comeback. Not saying it’s not legit, just saying be consistent if you’re going to complain.

Brett Favre

Not baseball, but he’s a piece of shit. Not that this was a surprise.

  1. Or 42. Allegedly.  ↩

Weekend Sports Notes

July 18, 2022 /

Some sports happenings over the past few days.

Royals

As if being shitty wasn’t bad enough, ten Royals players “did their own research” and decided not to get vaccinated against Covid, preventing them from traveling to Canada for the series with the Blue Jays over the weekend.

Just an exhausting moment. As I am barely interested in the team or sport right now, this does not make me want to come back.

Let’s move on…

Pacers Go Big…Almost

The Pacers have never been big players in the free agent market. Good players who are healthy generally don’t want to come to Indianapolis, and the Pacers have generally run a tight financial ship and refused to overpay to get talent to come to town.

That nearly changed last week. They signed restricted free agent Deandre Ayton to a massive offer sheet. Ayton had a strained relationship with the Phoenix Suns who seemed lukewarm on bringing him back on a max contract. There had been rumors for weeks the Suns and Pacers were talking about a deal that revolved around Ayton and the Pacers’ Myles Turner. If those talks were serious, though, they never resulted in a trade agreement.

So the Pacers sent out only the second offer sheet they’ve ever tendered, the biggest in league history, for Ayton. For about three hours Pacers fans were debating whether to be excited about the prospect of Ayton joining a young roster or to worry about Ayton getting hurt or just sucking and turning the deal into a disaster that sunk the franchise for the 2020s.

That debate only lasted a few hours because the Suns quickly matched the Pacers’ offer. Which could be a good thing. Offering $133 million for a big man in the current NBA seemed ultra aggressive, especially for one like Ayton, who is a good player but certainly not among the league’s elite.

It was cool the Pacers tried to make a splash, at least. Now I wonder where they go. They seem set up to remain on the outside of the eastern conference playoff picture next year, but also not bad enough to enter the Victor Wembanyama sweepstakes. They have a ton of cap room and a lot of picks stacked up for the next few years. Plus they still have to figure out what to do with Turner, an elite shot blocker and serviceable 3-point shooter whose total game does not match his ego or financial desires. Do they package Turner and some of their picks for a difference maker? Hang onto Turner until the trade deadline to see if he meshes with their new lineup (and can stay healthy)? Or do they move Turner now, take on a bad, expiring contract, and hope they are crappy enough to get deep into next year’s lottery and then make rapid improvement?

Kid Hoops

L’s team decided to get together for one more tournament. Saturday they played two teams they played two weeks ago, including the team that knocked them out of that tournament. They pounded that team pretty good, although they were playing without their best player. We were three players short, including a starter, but not sure that was an even trade. In game two they got a 14-point win over a team we have now beaten three times. This was our best performance against them.

In Sunday’s semifinal we had a five-point lead early in the second half but lost by 10. Our girls just got waxed in the last 10 minutes or so. The other team was too fast on both ends, our girls neglected to play any help defense, and we missed a ton of easy shots early that could have had us up by double digits early in the game.

L had a mixed weekend. She shot the ball like crap going 3–20 overall. Saturday she hit the top of the backboard with 3 pointers from behind the NBA line.[1] Apparently she’s been working out too much. In the second game she missed two wide open layups and another two contested ones. But she did score six in that game. And she turned the game around with her defense. We were down seven when she checked in. Five minutes later, when she checked out, we were up six. In that span she had two points, two rebounds, two assists, and three steals. She just shut down their point guard, getting steals on three of four possessions. We never looked back after that.

We’ve been doing some good shooting over at the YMCA, so I don’t know if she was just sped up, if her contacts weren’t locked in, or if it was the classic case of the improvement she’s making in practice not translating to games yet. Whatever the explanation, her shooting was gross. Afterwards I reminded her, though, that back in January if she ever took a 3-pointer, it was usually two feet short. Now she’s shooting them 3–4 feet long from behind the NBA line. So she has the range, she just needs to lock in the accuracy.

The Open

Jeeeeez what a let down. Rory McIlroy seemed like was finally going to break his eight-year major-less streak, playing beautiful golf all weekend. He was a little less stellar Sunday, missing six putts by a combined six inches, but still played well enough to win.

Except Cameron Smith went nuclear and hit every freaking putt on the back nine. Shooting 30 on the last nine of a major – six birdies and three pars – is pretty dope. Rory couldn’t even finish second as Cameron Young snuck by him with a final round 65.

There was no meltdown round this time. Rory played great all four days. Perhaps he was a little too cautious Sunday. Or the nerves caused shots that gave him short birdie looks the first three days to leave him much longer looks in Sunday. Whatever the cause, it felt like a massive letdown when he couldn’t close it out. Sometimes you just get unlucky and end up on the wrong side of a legendary closing round by another golfer.

It was really a magnificent tournament. St. Andrews is barely hanging on against modern players and technology, but it produced a terrific weekend of golf. Saturday, when six or seven players all seemed to be in the mix, was amazing to watch. It came at a perfect moment for professional golf, which has seen the 2022 season dominated by the break between the PGA and the Saudi-backed LIV tour. But you also have to wonder when we will see a tournament like this again. The 2023 major season could be drastically different as more players defect to the LIV, which could affect their ability to play in future majors. Perhaps it was that, more than Rory coming up short, that made the end feel a little extra somber.

  1. The tournament was at Jeff Teague’s gym, and we played both Saturday games on the NBA court, which is longer than the other two high school courts at the facility, and only has the college and NBA three point lines parked. Not sure why they had kids as young as fifth grade playing on it without the high school arc marked.  ↩

Sports Notes

June 9, 2022 /

KU Hoops

I still need to do an NIL post, and now that things finally seem to have calmed down a little on that front, I’ll move that up in the mental queue.

KU’s roster appears to be locked in for next year, so a few thoughts on how that has shaken out.

In general I think the transfer portal is a good thing, as it gives players more control of their careers. But I think it also gets misused as players bail on situations that are simply less-than-ideal instead of truly bad or jump at any opportunity to trade up in prestige of program. For fans, I think we expect too much from players who are transferring-in, expecting them to replicate what made them stars at their previous school while playing in different systems, with different teammates, often with very different roles.

I think the best move for KU this off-season would have been to keep the roster completely intact and not add any players. Even had some guys at the back end of the roster left, I would have been fine going forward with 11–12 scholarship players instead of trying to fill a bench player’s spot with a transfer who had started elsewhere.

There are just a whole lot of guys who will be fighting for playing time this year, and clearing out a spot wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

That said, replacing Christian Braun with Kevin McCullar, Jr was about the best move KU could have. They are different players, but since McCullar is complementary on offense and position-less on defense, he can slide right in and not be disruptive. I don’t think he will struggle to find his role the way pretty much every transfer last year did. While he adds to the roster crunch in the wings rotation, his presence also means that neither Gradey Dick nor MJ Rice will be expected to have an immediate impact for the team to win games in November and December.

Jalen Wilson coming back was the right move for him and potentially a huge move for KU. It’s unrealistic to expect him to take the jump Ochai Agbaji did last year, but after a solid NBA combine, it’s not unreasonable to see a leap in his game. I can see him having a tremendous statistical year, in the range of 15–16 ppg and 10+ rebounds per game.

Right now I think there are three players locked into starting roles: Wilson, McCullar, and DaJuan Harris. I would guess Zach Clemence is most likely to be the starting big man today. And then someone from the pool of Bobby Pettiford, Joe Yesufu, Dick, or Rice fill the remaining spot, depending whether Bill Self wants two small guards or a larger wing to join the other five. One of the freshmen bigs – Ernest Udeh or Zuby Ejiofor – should play a lot. I think Bill Self loves KJ Adams, so he will play.

I just named 11 players. Both Cam Martin and Kyle Cuffe are on scholarship, and most people think that Cuffe has a bright future. It’s hard to see either of them getting minutes, and I’m a little surprised Cuffe didn’t decide to jump somewhere that would give him a better opportunity to play.

Bottom line, the roster is deep, loaded with options, and seems pretty good here in June. They should be elite defensively if a big man can become a shot blocker. Offense may be a struggle at times, so I expect more games in the 60s than last year.

It’s a long way until practice begins, let alone the first games in early November. The defending national champs may not be in the true list of betting favorites (they are actually rated pretty high by Vegas at the moment, but that seems irrational) but they are going to run back a pretty good squad in ’22–23.

Professional Golf

I don’t know that it’s been on many of my reader’s radars, but men’s professional golf is in the midst of one of the most important weeks in its modern history. For a year or so there have been rumors of a league to rival the PGA, with rumors of multiple competing leagues at various times. The option that seemed the most serious and likely is backed by the government of Saudi Arabia, as part of their “sports washing” efforts to use their massive piles of cash to distract the world from the regime’s awful record on human rights. The LIV Golf tour begins this week and several notable PGA players have renounced their PGA Tour status and made the jump. Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson are rumored to be receiving between $100 and $200 million for joining the new tour. Others have received less but still more than they can make in many years on the PGA Tour. The weekly purses are also far beyond the already crazy money players are earning on the PGA Tour.

For obvious reasons, there has been a kerfuffle about all this. There is the fact these players are turning their backs on the tour than made them rich. The fact they are taking blood money from an oppressive government that had an American citizen murdered and chopped into pieces because he was publishing articles they didn’t like. The fact most of these golfers are trying to act like they are doing this for the “good of the game,” or in belief that golf can change the world. The idea that golf will somehow turn Saudi Arabia into a Jeffersonian Democracy with equal rights for all citizens is one of the dumbest things about this whole enterprise.

It’s all a little ridiculous. I think Dustin Johnson is the only person who has pretty much said he’s doing this for the money. Good for him. Be honest, take the heat, and know that it will fade. I disagree with his decision, but respect the fact he’s not hiding behind the BS most of his fellow LIV jumpers are spouting.

I’ve been more interested in the media/public reaction. Granted, my view is heavily skewed by the side of Golf Twitter that I follow, which is unusually progressive for golf in general and, likely, much more aware of all the details than the wider golf public. What has stuck me most is the heat these people are taking. A lot of the public is jumping on the side of the players, usually defending their taking the life-changing money. Which, again, I get.

I wondered how many people making this argument defend other professional athletes who chase money. Do they say, “Well, the Yankees offered him more, I don’t blame him,” when their favorite baseball player leaves their team for a bigger market? Or when the wide receiver their NFL team drafted and developed goes elsewhere when he is a free agent, are they as understanding? I can hazard a guess. I imagine terms like “greedy” and “disloyal” get thrown around.

What makes that question fascinating to me is that you can make a legitimate economic argument for why NFL/NBA/MLB players chase money. You may think that team X overpaid for your shooting guard, but his new contract was determined by market conditions, often based on offers from multiple teams. Nothing about what these golfers are getting paid makes sense from an economic standpoint. They weren’t sifting through a stack of offers similar to what the Saudis had on the table. Saudi Arabia is paying far beyond the true economic value of these golfers in an effort to legitimize their new league. Several golf writers have pointed out that these contracts make even less sense because LIV hasn’t offered any kind of business plan for how to grow and maintain their league. That won’t matter to the Mickelsons and Johnsons who are set for life based on their initial contracts and have PGA Tour status basically for life based on winning majors. But that’s a legit question for the lesser-known players who have joined LIV, and could have their careers wrecked if the league falls apart and they are banned from the PGA Tour.

This whole thing is just Saudi Arabia doing what they do: lighting cash on fire at a moment when oil is as expensive as it’s been in ages to try to get people to forget beyond their flashy architecture and lavish spending, most of country, from its leadership down, live lie it is still the 16th century.

Splitting sports leagues is pretty much never a good thing. The big names jumping to LIV are getting money that can literally set up their families for generations. While they have the right to make those decisions, I don’t think they realize the long-term damage this split is going to do to professional golf. In a decade or so, if TV contracts and exposure have shrunk and golf is even more niche than it is now, I’m not sure the next generation of players will be thanking the players who took the Saudi money and ran.

Royals

Good Lord the Royals suck. As of this morning, they are two games worse than Oakland and Cincinnati, two franchises that are trying to lose. I’m still not watching, listening, or paying much attention. But I still have several Royals commentators in my feeds and get enough of texts from friends who are still on board to have a sense of what a disaster this season has been.

For a long time it felt like the Royals were handling their post-title rebuild the right way and were poised to break back to respectability this year and possible contention next year. Especially with the new, expanded playoffs this year.

At the moment, it sure seems like they’ve bungled it all. And it seems like it’s time for new owner John Sherman to clear out the front office and coaching staff and start anew. Still won’t get me to re-up my MLB subscription this year.

Early July Sports Notes

July 7, 2021 /

KU Hoops

It would be nice to say a dizzying three months of roster flux at Kansas came to an end Tuesday when Ochai Agbaji and Remy Martin both announced they were pulling their names from the NBA draft list and would be playing as Jayhawks in the coming season. But given how crazy college hoops is at the moment, can we be sure anything is locked in?

For the sake of discussion, let’s assume there will be no more roster changes between now and when KU plays Michigan State in November’s Champions Classic.

I just surprised myself by being able to immediately name all 14 players who are currently under scholarship to play next season.[1] I figured I would forget someone along the way. Which, honestly, is probably the second biggest story for the coming year: some kids are going to get forgotten.

We’ll get to that in a moment. The biggest story, obviously, is that KU’s likely starting lineup is pretty sick. Martin, Agbaji, Joseph Yesufu, Jalen Wilson, and David McCormack is a terrific top five with Christian Braun as a super sixth man.

Beyond those top six, there’s a backup for every spot on the floor. There is athleticism and length and shooting and defensive ability.

KU might be the deepest team in the country. At least on July 7, which if I’m correct, has zero bearing on games next November through March.

Lots of folks are super excited about this ultra-stacked lineup and already arguing that KU should be ranked no lower than #2.

Which is fine, I get it, and I, too, am excited about what’s to come in the ’21–22 season.

There will be plenty of time to go over potential starting lineups, what bench players get the most minutes, etc.

For now, though, what fascinates me most about this team is how Bill Self is handling all these bodies. How has he communicated with the guys already on the roster the thinking behind adding players. I’m sure DaJuan Harris wasn’t thrilled when Self brought in not one, not two, but three point guards.[2]

What did he say to guys like Cam Martin and Yesufu, who committed in April/May when he brought in more transfers in June that added more competition to already limited playing time?

Most of all, how has worked with the incoming freshmen and their families to prevent a mass exodus by them next spring after they sit on the bench for an entire season? Baring a rash of serious injuries, Zach Clemence seems to be the only freshman who has any path to even limited minutes this year.

I’ve won about 800 fewer games than Self, but my advice to him would be to get guys like Ben McLemore and Travis Releford, who sat out seasons because of academics or choice and saw their games blossom during their year of practice but no play, talk to those young guys and explain how this year can greatly benefit them if they remain patient.

So here, in July, I’m far more interested in the psychological angle of how Self will keep an absolutely stacked KU roster together through six months together than how that group matches up with Michigan State, Kentucky, Missouri, Baylor, Texas, Alabama, and the other teams the Jayhawks will play during the 2021–22 season.

Euro Sports

This has been a glorious few weeks for European sports, if you’re into that kind of thing. Theoretically, I am. Although in practice I have not watched as much as I should have.

In the European soccer championship, I watched a ton of early games but checked out last week when we had company. I tuned in for the final 10 minutes of extra time and penalties of Tuesday’s Italy-Spain semifinal. A treeeemendous atmosphere at Wembley Stadium, which seemed to be dominated by Italian fans.

Long time readers may recall that I’ve long been a fan of the Azzurri, so you would expect that I was happy with the win. Well, things have changed. One of Italy’s most notable players has made several either borderline or overt racist statements in recent years. While it’s not fair to damn the entire team for one player’s actions, he is a veteran and leader of the national team, and hasn’t gotten a lot of pushback from other Italian players for his comments.

So I was rooting for Spain? Well, not exactly. Someone on Twitter, having a similar dilemma as me, pointed out the Spanish coach has also made blatantly racist comments.

Sad that these days if you are a neutral fan, it might come down to which team has the fewest racists on it.

I would imagine today’s game between England and Denmark will be spectacular, and an England-Italy final be truly over-the-top as English fans get to cheer on their perpetually disappointing squad in person. To win their first trophy since 1966 on home soil would be epic.

Once upon a time Wimbledon was appointment viewing for me. I can’t get into to it too much these days. Too few Americans, too many random players with Russian-sounding names that all kind of blend together to me.

I have been watching a bit of the Tour de France each day. But that, too, is difficult because I’m not sure who to pull for. It was easier when you just followed Lance Armstrong and slowly figured out the race by the coverage of his performance. Look at where that got me.

I’m sure I could still dive into the media surrounding the event and really get into it. It’s easier to just casually watch and enjoy the magnificent visuals.

Oh, and the British Open is next week. That I will be getting up early to watch.

Royals

Man, they suck. I watched a game a few weeks back, maybe the second week of June, which they pissed away in glorious fashion, and haven’t watched a game since. I didn’t expect them to contend this year, but I did expect better than what they’ve given us. The fact every young pitcher has either regressed or fallen on their face makes it hard to believe contention is a year or two away. Pitching coach Cal Eldred might need to go.

NBA Finals

L and I have been watching moments of the playoffs, but rarely get locked in. It doesn’t help that so many games start relatively late for us in the Eastern time zone. We made it to halftime last night, watched a few minutes of the third quarter, and as Phoenix pulled away both bailed for bed. She wants the Suns to win, which I get since they are more fun to watch and loaded with great stories. I’d kind of like to see Giannis get a ring, but don’t have strong feelings for either team. I’d say I’m rooting for a great series, but when you can’t stay up to watch the whole game, what’s the point of even saying that?

  1. The standard 13 plus super senior Mitch Lightfoot.  ↩
  2. Harris already redshirted once. Even under the new, super liberal roster rules, I don’t know if he can again.  ↩

Weekend Notes

November 4, 2019 /

As has become routine, a quick-ish rundown of what went down over the weekend.

Halloween

OK, not technically the weekend, but worth a few words about how the girls spent Halloween.

M went to a friend’s house to hang out and watch movies.

C, along with most of the girls in her grade, dressed as Dalmatians. They didn’t quite make it to 101 but you get the idea.

And L dressed as Robin from Stranger Things and joined two friends who were dressed as Dustin and Steve from the show.

The big thing was that this was the first year ever our girls did not trick or treat in our old neighborhood. Last year we were still trying to sell the old house so we went over to turn on lights, put a car in the driveway, and then hang out with the neighbors. This year C and L were in separate neighborhoods near St. P’s, hanging with school friends.

Although I missed the annual dad chili cook-off and sitting in the driveway and drinking, it was nice to drop the kids off, come home for a quiet evening, and then go pick them up when they were done. We only had one group of three trick or treaters at our house. That was mostly because it was snowing, the windchill was in the 20s, and kids were not spending a ton of time outside.

World Series

Again, not officially last weekend. But that was some game seven, with the Nationals coming back to win with a 2015 Royals-like, late-inning rally. I’m still in a little shock that the Nats were able to pull off the upset. It will be interesting to see if they’re any good next year, between having the oldest roster in the league and a number of free agents to be.

L Sports

Basketball on Saturday. A nice win by eight over a team that was a good match. She scored one basket.

Soccer on Sunday, a makeup of a game that she was supposed to miss. She was kind of reluctant to play, we think because of getting hurt in her last soccer game. But she ended up being very glad she went. They won 5–1 to clinch first place by two games. She had an assist and then, finally, a classic L goal. She had a defender on her heels, faked her both directions until the girl turned her hips, cut the ball inside, flicked it outside to get an angle on the goalie, and then finished. She raised her hands and threw her head back, as if she, too, was saying, “Finally!” This was her only goal that was from her work this season, rather than a tap-in or from the penalty spot. Think she was glad to know she still has it.

Royals Hire Mike Matheny

Not happy about this. At all. His one, glaring weakness in St. Louis was his inability to handle young players. That’s what the Royals need right now, someone similar to Ned Yost who can nurture the young prospects as they begin working their way to the majors.

But I also thought Ned was a bad hire and he clearly learned from his failures in Milwaukee, although he was still driving us crazy deep into 2014.

So I guess I’m open to being surprised if Matheny ends up working out. Doesn’t mean I have to like it right now.

High School Football

Friday was week two of sectional play. Cathedral had a bye in week one so it was their opener. On a cold, clear night they ran up a 38–0 lead before halftime, played the sophomores through a running-clock second half, and advanced 38–13. M and C really wanted to go, so I bundled up in my ski trip clothes and sat through it. Thank goodness for that running clock. This Friday they play the team that knocked them out of the playoffs last year. That team has won eight straight games so it should be a good game.

KU Football

One of the most reliable things in fall is KU coming off a big win, there being excitement around the program, and K-State kicking their ass and sending us Jayhawks back to reality. Bill Snyder may be gone but the math remains the same. For now.

Just an ugly loss. Pushed around on both sides of the ball, Carter Stanley playing his worst game of the year, and not converting when they had chances to keep the game close early.

I didn’t expect to win. I was hoping we could keep it competitive, though. There’s been progress, but still a long way to go.

Colts

I was at L’s game when I heard groans go up. I looked at my phone and saw that Adam Vinatieri had missed another field goal, this one that likely would have won the game. So two of the Colts’ losses are directly on him and his misses. He gets credit for winning last week’s game – although his misses in that game made the game-winner necessary – so he’s still trending to the bad side. It might be time, Adam. It might be time.

Of course, none of that matters if Jacoby Brissett is out long-term. Brian Hoyer was decent yesterday. But if the Colts have to rely on him for multiple games, I think winning my bet that the Colts will not win 10 games is back in play.

R’s: End of the Season Notes

September 30, 2019 /

This was a lost baseball season for me. The Royals were shitty. For the first time ever, the MLB apps performed erratically at best, occasionally not at all. It was hard enough to find motivation to watch/listen to a bad team. When the tools that provide that access don’t work, you stop making the effort. Which is a shame because putting in the time in the bad years makes the good years even better. I don’t know how far off the next good run is, but I’d like to have thought following the Royals this year would be somewhat akin to the attention I gave them back in 2010–2012, when it seemed hopeless in Kansas City but there were guys developing in the system that I hoped would be good one day.

Alas, I could not match the attention I gave the team nearly a decade ago.

With another 100-loss season in the books, I thought I’d check in with some end-of-the-season comments since there has been some news.

New Ownership

This was out-of-nowhere and happened real, real fast. I figured David Glass would transition the team to his son Dan when the time was right. But quietly selling them to KC-area native John Sherman was a complete surprise. Sherman was alleged to have been a big part of Cleveland becoming more aggressive with their payroll since he became a part of the Indians’ ownership group. The natural hope is he will continue to be willing to spend money now that he has his own team. He doesn’t have to compete with the Yankees, Red Sox, and Dodgers in payroll. I do hope he is more willing than the Glass family generally was to spend money. Sherman got pretty good reviews from those in the know. I hope he is both a good owner and can hang around for 20 or so years to keep the Royals stable.

New Stadium?

There was immediate talk that the Royals were already quietly scouting areas in downtown KC for a new stadium. Word was this was very preliminary, with the idea being to have a downtown stadium ready to go when the current lease at the Truman Sports Complex runs out in 2031. I like the idea, though. The K is a wonderful park. But with downtown redeveloping over the past decade, a centrally-located stadium makes sense. Of course, I’ll be about 60 if/when this happens, which kind of sucks.

Ned

It wasn’t a huge surprise when Ned Yost announced that he would be retiring after the season ended. I didn’t expect him to hang on until the Royals were ready to compete again. But I did wonder if he would stick out a few more years, since his strength is dealing with young, developing players.

But I give him props for walking out on his terms, while he is still healthy, and while he can still do pretty much whatever he wants with his life.

I, like I think most Royals fans, came a long way with Ned. I didn’t love his tactical moves, his adherence to old school baseball, or the way he often dealt with criticism. I wanted him fired multiple times in 2014, as late as mid-way though the Wild Card game in fact. Check my Facebook feed for proof! But all that Royals Devil Magic of the 2014 and 2015 postseasons stemmed from his support for his players. He empowered guys to find their strength and do their thing. For that, they out-performed what most ever expected of them. By 2015 we had learned to love Ned despite his faults, understood some of his crustiness with the media was pure act, and adopted him as our oddball manager who got results. Winning the 2015 World Series meant we loved him forever and just chuckled and rolled our eyes when he did something crazy.

The biggest compliment I have for Ned is that he learned from his mistakes. Outwardly he comes across as very stubborn and sensitive to criticism. But it’s clear he learned from his failures in his first job in Milwaukee. He actually adjusted his style to adopt some modern analytics, although he would probably never admit it.

Despite his overall record and those maddening early years, he retires as a beloved franchise icon.

Alex

There are plenty of offseason questions the team needs to address as they approach the 2020 season, which should be the beginning of the climb from the bottom of the rebuild. I’m not sure if any of them are huge, given that winning is, at very best, one year in the future.

Thus figuring out what to do with Alex Gordon becomes the default most important decision of the winter.

It sounds like the Royals would like to have Alex back for another year, leaving the decision all up to Alex on whether he walks away or spends one last summer playing professional baseball.

I’d love it if he came back. His importance to the organization far outweighs his career stats, and it would be great for him to spend one more year helping transition to the next group of young guys. Even if that is in a reduced role.

But I keep thinking he will retire. He’s always done things quietly and on his own terms. Coming back would make it obvious that was the last run. I think playing out this season of uncertainty and walking off the diamond Sunday to a standing ovation is the way he really wants to go out rather than with a six-month farewell tour.

As I said, his importance outweighs his stats, or at least his offensive ones. The slow start to his career and then his wild swings between three weeks of being red hot and five weeks of being ice cold prevented him from ever being the offensive player he was expected to be.

But he was so good on defense. And, more importantly, the way he reclaimed his career by going to the minors and learning a new position without complaining, and his tireless work ethic are what we will remember about him. Honestly it’s a little difficult not to be disappointed by his career. He could have been a superstar. But that work ethic, his quiet demeanor, and the standard he set for every other player outweigh the slight disappointment you feel when you look at his numbers.

Oh, and then there was the biggest home run in franchise history.

Soler!

Speaking of home runs, a quick shout out to Jorge Soler who not only set the franchise home run record, but became the first Royal to ever lead the league in home runs. Even in a juiced ball year, that’s amazing. You figure some Yankee would hit 60 in their bandbox. Or this season it would be someone from Minnesota. But Soler seems to be developing into the player the Royals thought he could be when they traded Wade Davis for him. Now hopefully he can actually be part of a winning team before he departs for a team with more money.

I’m hopeful over the winter MLB gets their shit together so their apps work right again in 2020. Because I think that’s when it will start to be both interesting and rewarding to start listening to the Royals on warm summer nights again.

KC Trip Notes

July 16, 2019 /

A belated and brief wrap up of my weekend in Kansas City.

Thanks to Southwest’s always morphing flight schedule, I believe for the first time ever on one of these trips I flew over late in the afternoon, landing at 4:00. That certainly shortened the weekend up a bit. But, to be honest, often when I came over in the morning, after meeting people for lunch weariness would set in and I would seriously contemplate going to a library or bookstore and taking a quick nap. No need for that when you get in late in the day!

Friday evening I dined with friends at Char Bar. I had been there once before and it was another very solid meal. From there we went to the Westport Ale House for some drinks. We rolled in around 8:30 and thought it odd there were only a few other folks there. Turns out the kids don’t go out until later, because the joint started hopping right around 10-10:30. Which was about the time we were leaving. I noticed that there seemed to be more diversity in the bar than everywhere I went combined 20 years ago. Good to see Kansas City is changing.

Saturday I met some folks for lunch at Planet Sub. That seemed appropriate since we are about a month away from the 30th anniversary of my first visit to Yello Sub in Lawrence. To celebrate, I got the sandwich I’ve been ordering for three decades: Planet (Yello) Sub, no dijon. The best, Jerry, the best.

It was then off to Lee’s Summit to hang with friends before the Royals game. On our way to the K, we stopped and had Gates for dinner. Can’t go wrong, although I missed the more in-your-face Gates experience you get further into the city.

The Royals game was hot – HOT – for about the first 20 minutes until the shadows hit our seats. After we were able to cool off, it was a solid game. The Royals played well and wrapped up their win in a brisk 2.5 hours.

We were left needing something to fill the extra hour we planned on being at the K, so headed to a bar in my old stomping grounds of Raytown called The Dirty Bird. It was a surprisingly solid establishment. There certainly weren’t any bars like this in the RYT back in my day there.

Sunday I met friends for brunch at Port Fonda, a place that is new to me but has apparently been in Westport several years. It was tremendous, would definitely eat there again.

Then it was back to Indy.

I also got in my obligatory walk around the Plaza, drove by a couple of my old apartments, and did some other brief exploring. I got the girls some gear, although when I was moving some items around at KCI to make more room, I apparently misplaced the shirt I bought M. It was not in my bag when I got home. Fortunately she’s out of town for a week so I ordered a new one that should be here before she returns.

Several people asked how KC feels to me now. I recently realized that being gone 16 years is a long ass time.1 So when I go back, I’m not always sure what is new and what’s been there for five years but I haven’t stamped into my memory yet. While I don’t always remember the best way to get from point A to point B, there are also lots of little shortcuts that I can recall the moment I get to an intersection. The city is still in my DNA, but those traces get a little fainter each year.

It was great seeing all of you who made time to meet me one place or another. The food, baseball, and other things are all great. But spending time with my friends is always the best part about these trips.

  1. I’ve now lived a third of my life in Indianapolis. No, I’m still not a Hoosier. ↩
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