So, so, so far behind on sharing links. So I\u2019ll break them into two sets. We\u2019ll begin with articles related to YOUR WORLD CHAMPION KANSAS CITY ROYALS!<\/p>\n
A rather significant sports journalism event took place during the baseball playoffs: ESPN shut down the wonderful Grantland sports\/pop-culture site. Many took that as a sign that there isn\u2019t room in the modern, hot-takes-centric media world.<\/p>\n
Turns out, though, there\u2019s actually a ton of great sports writing out there. Despite the collapse of print media and struggles boutique sites like Grantland have gone through, we are living in an era when an amazing amount of fantastic sports writing still manages to get published.<\/p>\n
There were a ton of great articles about the Royals over the past month. Here are a few of my favorites.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ll begin with two wrap-up pieces posted after game five of the World Series.<\/p>\n
Our old pal Joe Posnanski (who we\u2019ll hear from again) was predictably great.<\/p>\n
Long May They Reign<\/a><\/p>\n And Jeff Passan, Yahoo\u2019s national baseball writer who just happens to live in KC, isn\u2019t quite on Posnanski\u2019s level. But this is pretty good.<\/p>\n The epic story of the 2015 Royals and their World Series championship<\/a><\/p>\n Rather predictably, a number of old school (or at least old thinking) voices shouted that the Royals were the \u201canti-Moneyball team\u201d after they won the world series. Which if you have half a brain, and understand that Moneyball was about more than the Oakland A\u2019s love of on base percentage and slow first basemen, you immediately know is a stupid take.<\/p>\n Fortunately there are a couple excellent pieces that point out how dumb that argument is.<\/p>\n First, Posnanski.<\/p>\n \nHere were are, a dozen years later, and the market has shifted. Everybody\u2019s read \u201cMoneyball.\u201d Everybody is pushing the limits of their analytics. Every team has brilliant, open-minded analysts and economists and psychiatrists reading code and studying trends and looking for secrets. Bucksense<\/a><\/p>\n At Hardball Times, Alex Skillin points out that many sabermetrically-inclined analysts may be selling the Royals short because of their past.<\/p>\n \nA closer look at how the Royals are run and the manner in which they\u2019ve built their current roster reveals an organization that is smarter and more progressive than it\u2019s given credit for. In fact, if Kansas City had a better reputation within the sabermetrics community, the Royals would be receiving far more praise from analysts and statheads alike for their play this season.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The Royals Are A Sabermetrics Team<\/a><\/p>\n I really enjoyed two non-Kansas City writers\u2019 works over the past month.<\/p>\n At Sports On Earth, Will Leitch offered up daily columns. Here are three of my favorites.<\/p>\n First, he point out how the mood around both the Royals and the city had changed from last October.<\/p>\n This Year, A Different Feeling In KC<\/a><\/p>\n Following the Mets\u2019 meltdown in game four, he wrote about how the national media was missing the big, true story of the World Series.<\/p>\n Royals Are Changing The Narrative<\/a><\/p>\n And finally, he tapped into some Nick Hornby, Fever Pitch<\/a><\/em> [1]<\/a> territory by suggesting that the Royals had the ideal postseason.<\/p>\n The Royals Postseason Was Perfect<\/a><\/p>\n Grant Brisbee wrote some wonderful stuff at SB Nation.<\/p>\n Here, he addressed the strange blend of feelings amongst Royals fans both excited about potentially winning a World Series and being worried that Lucy would once again pull the football away before the moment of triumph.<\/p>\n \nThe Royals are caught between waiting for the other shoe to drop and beating other teams to death with the shoe. They’re heading to New York with their best shot to win a title in 30 years, unless it’s not quite as good as the shot they had last season, not yet. The Royals are at the doorstep of a World Series championship, and nobody’s sure how to act, other than fans cheering wildly because any team that’s gotten this far by doing that deserves it.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Royals fans are caught between the impossible and entirely possible<\/a><\/p>\n His Series wrap-up covered a lot of ground but I loved every word.<\/p>\n \nThe Royals were the team without a clock. They lived the entire postseason like they figured out the loophole of baseball, that it never ends if the last out isn’t recorded. The Royals won the 2015 World Series because of devil magic and pure talent<\/a><\/p>\n There were a number of fine pieces during the ALCS that I could share as well. I\u2019ll pick only Brisbee\u2019s, though, which points out how a few key calls went the Royals way in game six and uses that as a jumping off point for how any number of small decisions are often the biggest factors in a team winning or losing.<\/p>\n \nTeams aren’t supposed to face insurmountable odds in two straight postseasons and come up with miracle comebacks. In the Wild Card Game last year, the Royals were down to about a 3 percent chance of winning after Mike Moustakas lined out to end the seventh. In the ALDS this year, the Royals were down to less than a 2 percent chance of winning the must-win Game 4. According to my English major math skills, that means less than a .006 percent chance of winning back-to-back pennants. The Royals Are Going Back To The World Series<\/a><\/p>\n Oh, and Jeff Sullivan kind of hit on that Nick Hornby angle as well at Fangraphs. I love his lead, comparing the Seattle Seahawks consecutive Super Bowls to the Royals\u2019 back-to-back pennants. He argues if you\u2019re going to go 1–1, you do it how the Royals did it, not the Seahawks.<\/p>\n \nIt\u2019s not that there was no way to come to accept the crushing defeat. There was one way. There was one way to achieve perfect closure, and the Royals just found it. The demons of uncertainty have been vanquished. The angels of certainty dance in their stead. There\u2019s no more opponent for the Royals to rally past \u2014 they\u2019ve accomplished the last of the accomplishments.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The 2015 Royals: A Baseball Team For Baseball Fans<\/a><\/p>\n
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\nBut \u2026 are they all looking in the same places?
\nOr, to put it in riddle form: If every team is playing Moneyball, which one is the Moneyball team? Holy barbecue Batman, could it be: The Kansas City Royals?\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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\nCongratulations, Royals. Congratulations, Royals fans. I’ve watched a lot of championship runs over the last couple decades, but I don’t remember anything quite like that.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nThe Royals like to eat math. They like to do it in front of you, looking you in the eye the entire time. Know this about them.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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