-J.R.R. Tolkien
I'm ashamed to admit it now, but I lost faith in the Royals during Game 4 of the ALDS against the Astros. I had given up, and I conceded the game. If I had merely thought it, then I could've kept it to myself and probably would have. But as faithlessness was not enough, I felt compelled to add foolishness to my rap sheet by sending out a public capitulation to two of my friends. Whelp. 2015 was fun. The Astros were the better team this series. Looking forward to 2016! Not one of my finer moments as a fan, but I think it's the perfect backdrop to frame what these Royals accomplished this postseason - the improbable, if not the impossible.
Up two games to one in the best-of-five series, the Astros had just ameliorated their lead to 6-2, as Colby Rasmus, who looks more like a stereotypical grunge rocker than he does a baseball player, hit yet another homerun for the Astros. I didn't want to watch anymore. I didn't want to see my team that had put together such a wonderful season walk into the dugout with heads hung low, while the city of Houston rejoiced in a euphoric fever pitch. I shut off the game feed that had been streaming on my phone, and I started reading the very first thing that popped up on my Facebook feed - a letter about the Church's response to homosexuality. Just what I needed...a little light reading. It was, however, a terrific departure from anything baseball-related, and truth be told, it seemed like a joyous respite compared with having to watch that ugly man with his greasy hair trot around the bases to a jubilant red-neck cacophony. So I read on...
At that point, the Royals had a 3% probability of winning the game. Math was trying to tell me that if the Royals played out those two innings 100 times, they would win the game only 3 times. I of course didn't know the math in that moment. I didn't need math to tell me that we were screwed. A four-run deficit in the eleventh hour told me that. The frivolity of Houston's players and the pandemonium of its crowd told me that. Our seventh inning pitcher Ryan Madson's pathetic, demoralized face told me that. The countless hours I have spent watching and dissecting baseball told me that.
There aren't too many entities in the world that are able to stand in the face of math and deride it. We live in a physical world governed by laws, and math almost always wins the day. In no sport has this been more true or evident than in baseball. Baseball has always been a game of stats, but in the last fifteen years it's gotten damn near out of control. Baseball has birthed its own statistical vocabulary for crying out loud! With the advent of sabermetrics, we now rely more heavily upon statistics in baseball than ever when it comes to valuing and appraising performance. We used to just have batting average, RBI's (runs batted in), and homeruns for batters and wins and ERA (earned run average) for pitchers. Life was so much simpler back then. Now we have convoluted statistics such as OBP (on-base% plus slugging%) for batters, xFIP (expected fielding independent pitching) for pitchers, and WAR (wins above replacement). I mean, seriously, DOES ANYBODY HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT THE HELL WAR IS??!
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| wtf... |
This is all to say that baseball and math go together like peas and carrots. But in STATS 101, we all learn that with a stream of correlated data, there can exist a statistical outlier - a number that deviates from the norm. On a graph, an outlier falls clearly outside of where the rest of the points are associated. Well in the thirty teams that comprise Major League Baseball, there exists a big blue outlier that does not conform with the rest, beautiful and terrible to behold. That would be the Kansas City Royals.
Let's go back to me choosing to read over watching the Royals play postseason baseball - an offense that I have been repeatedly apologizing to God for. All of a sudden, I received a knowing text from one of the very same friends who I had sent my ill-advised white flag to. His text insinuated that something interesting was happening in the game that I had so recently abandoned. Now curious, I brought the game back up on my phone. The first thing I saw upon returning to the coverage was Ben Zobrist hitting a bloop single to center field to load the bases with no outs. Now I've witnessed plenty of occasions in which a team finds itself in that very situation only to experience futility in scoring no runs. So I tempered my enthusiasm. After all, the next several batters still need to execute hitting that little white ball, traveling at speeds close to 100 miles an hour, with those thin wooden sticks, to an area of the field suitable for scoring said runners. It's a hard thing to do. Still, with my interest now piqued, I allowed a few seedlings of hope to begin to sprout in my deadened heart.
In these types of game situations, everyone is looking for a "big hit" - a double or better yet, a homerun, that can clear the bases all in one swing of the bat. It's easier. It's quicker. We live in an age of information. We can access whatever we want with a quick press of the "return" button. Hell, we can just ask Siri or Google to retrieve the information for us. Of course you'd want the big hit. It's instant gratification. But this is the Royals. Remember the outlier motif...
After loading the bases with three humble singles, Lorenzo Cain did not get a big hit. He hit another single - a very unimpressive ground ball through the left side of the infield. Everybody moved up a base. 6-3. Eric Hosmer did not get a big hit. He hit another single - the fifth in a row - right over the second baseman Jose Altuve. Everybody moved up a base. 6-4. Then something remarkable happened. The Royals' designated hitter - big switch-hitting Kendrys Morales - hit a hard ground ball just past the pitcher Tony Sipp. Sipp reached out to attempt to field the ball, but the ball went skirting just off his glove, taking a slight detour towards shortstop Carlos Correa. Carlos Correa at this point in the game was an absolute hero. He had hit two homeruns and a double - responsible for four of Houston's six RBI's. The American League's Rookie of the Year had been a one-man wrecking crew. And in this moment, the baseball approached his glove for a tailor-made double-play, which would've allowed one more run to score, but ultimately could've halted Kansas City's rally just before they would've been able to tie the game. It's a play Correa probably makes 97 in 100 tries. But in this instant of cruel irony, the ball skirted past his glove also. Error. Two more runs scored, and no outs were recorded. 6-6. Three more batters after that, after Mike Moustakas had a ten-pitch strikeout, and Drew Butera drew one of the most heroic ten-pitch walks I've ever seen, Alex Gordon finally hit the go-ahead run in with a sacrifice grounder to Jose Altuve. After the inning was over, the Astros had used three pitchers who had thrown a robust 55 pitches. That pitching staff wanted nothing more to do with the Royals. They wouldn't be the last team that felt that way. The Royals would go on to win the game 9-6.
I was stunned. I had never seen anything like this before. There was quite simply no precedent for this kind of thing...
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| Oh yeah... |
...damn it. Just one year earlier, Kansas City trailed the Oakland Athletics in the American League Wild Card Game by four runs in the eighth inning. At the end of the seventh inning, the Royals' win probability was a mere 2.9%. They would go on to tie the game in the ninth, fall down a run again in the twelfth, finding their win probability at just 10.9%, and finally score two runs in the bottom of the twelfth to win the game. That was probably the single craziest postseason game in Major League Baseball history. Game Four against Houston is in the running for runner-up.
In each of their first two wins over the Astros, the Royals found themselves down by two or more runs. When Game 5 came back to Kansas City, Johnny Cueto promptly gave up a 2-run dinger to Luis Valbuena in the second inning to put the Royals behind 0-2. They would come back to win that game 7-2. Noticing a pattern here?
They would go on to win five more games when trailing - eight of their eleven postseason wins. Seven of those were when trailing by two or more runs. The next highest mark by another postseason team in Major League history is four. And if what we had seen prior to the World Series was magic, then it was just a rabbit out of the hat. They were about to saw the girl in half. The Royals came from behind against the Mets in all four of their World Series wins en route to winning the championship. In three of their four wins, they trailed in the eighth inning. In two of them, they trailed in the ninth. It was quite frankly bizarre. It was simultaneously a dominant performance by the Royals, while at the same time being a very close series. Mets fans still think they should've been up 3-2 heading back to Kansas City.
This quite simply doesn't happen in baseball. It's bloody difficult to play from behind. And yet the Royals made a mockery out of that reality. SportCenter tweeted out a graphic shortly after the Royals had won Game 5 against the Mets. It read:
Those are a lot of numbers. Allow me to put it in layman's: the Royals were in a tight spot, and then they were dead in the water. They were down, and they were out. They were screwed, and then they were between a rock and a hard place. But they won. Every time they won.
I still can't seem to wrap my mind around it, can you?? This was quite frankly the most exciting, tenacious, and resilient team ever. And I don't think I'm being hyperbolic in saying that. No team has ever come close to doing anything like this before. And I do put emphasis on the word team. No one or two players were responsible for these wins. Everyone, literally everyone, did something along the way that you could make a strong argument was pivotal in winning a game. Remember the eighth inning against the Astros? When Lorenzo Cain came up to bat with the bases loaded, the broadcaster said, and Lorenzo Cain can tie it now. Instead, they went through the entire lineup plus a batter on the way to something better than tying. By the end of that half inning they were leading. Sometimes the humble approach is better. Keep the line moving was the Royals' mantra all postseason long. It's exactly what they did. They are one of the strangest looking offensive juggernauts baseball has ever seen. My friend described getting beaten by the Royals as death by a thousand paper-cuts. Indeed. It's annoying, and it stings like hell.
Okay, I've been through some of the math ad nauseum in order to argue that this team is more than just an anomaly. They're not just different; they're special. You don't just come from behind against impossible odds, and then do it again, and then do it again, and then do it again...without garnering along the way some sort of support that there's a very good reason for it all. So what is that reason??
In order to be an effective leader, you have to model the very kind of behavior, ethic, and resolve you expect to receive from those beneath you. General manager Dayton Moore and manager Ned Yost are somewhat of an odd couple. You could not find a kinder, more accommodating person than Moore. Yost, on the other hand, has been known for his prickly demeanor. Both men are Atlanta imports. During their heyday, when they were winning their division every single season in the 90's, the Braves' organization built a culture brimming with professionalism, pride, and excellence. Their slogan was "the Brave way". It's catchy, but more so than that, when you add division title after division title to your resume, "the Brave way" starts to have profound meaning. It ceases being just a platitude and begins being a way of life. It means being the best, and it means carrying yourself in a way that is worthy of the jersey you wear. That may sound cheesy, but it's not cheesy to those who wear uniforms to work.
Though the Royals truly are on the cutting edge of baseball in many respects (to expound upon that would mean writing another blog), there is a lot about them - namely Moore and Yost - that is very traditional, almost antiquated. In the first eight innings of Game 5 of the World Series, the Royals' offense looked anemic. More than that, Mets' starter Matt Harvey looked unhittable. He had all of his pitches working, and he was spotting them wherever he wanted. He had recorded nine strikeouts against a team known for not striking out. So when he returned to the mound in the top of the ninth to finish the gem he had started, there was no earthly reason why any Royal affiliate should've been optimistic. But Dayton Moore, up in his executive suite, with apparently a different, omniscient vantage point than the rest of us, turned calmly to the person he was sitting next to and softly stated, Pay attention now. We're about to find a way to win the World Series. WHO SAYS THAT KIND OF THING?? If I were the man sitting next to him, I probably would have politely chuckled and said something really White, such as, Well, that would really be something, wouldn't it?...when really, in my head I'm thinking, BITCH, PLEASE!!
The days of "hunches" and "gut-feelings" have long been going the way of the dodo in baseball, replaced by sabermetrics and analytics. But Saint Moore and Father Ned are returning to their patristics and the age-old practice of baseball mysticism. With Ned, it's not uncommon to hear that he, just knew we were gonna win that game, or, in the case of Game 4 against Houston, I felt real confident that we were going to make a game out of it. I just felt that the bats were going to come alive... After hearing Yost say things like this for years now, you start to get the impression that the man is, or thinks he is a clairvoyant. But before I go poking fun at Ned, I need to remove the plank in my own eye. I knew that the Royals were going to lose that game against Houston. I was operating out of an understanding of probability when I should've been operating out of belief. Fool me once, shame on the Royals. Fool me twice, shame on me!
Let's call the hunches and gut-feelings what it is. It's belief. Moore and Yost have a profound belief in their players and in the Kansas City Royals team, and it has had quite the trickle-down effect. You can tell that the players also believe in the collective aura of their team's character. After that ALDS Game 4, Eric Hosmer said, We always feel that we're still in games, and we still have a chance. That's the mentality of this whole entire team. It's never quit, and the character we showed today, that's what a championship ball club does. Mike Moustakas, who began rallying the offense in the dugout with a speech shortly before the 5-run onslaught, said in his post-game interview, I just knew we were gonna win that game today. I knew we weren't going to lose...that at some point we were going to be able to find a way to come back and win. Sound familiar at all?? If that isn't the adopted lingo of Ned Yost, then I don't know what is!
Some people are faster to believe than others, but eventually if you witness enough evidence, even the most skeptical of us will be convicted. I tend to be a pretty skeptical person when it comes to the mystical. That's probably why I shut off the feed in the seventh inning of that game. But there is something mystical about this team. Nothing about this postseason run seemed earthly. All the come-from-behind wins, Alex Gordon's iconic homerun in the bottom of the ninth in Game 1 of the World Series (when I legitimately worried that neighbors would tip off the police in regards to a domestic violence case on account of my yelling), and Hosmer's ballsy dash home to tie Game 5 of the World Series...none of it should have happened, but it did.
Let me bring it all a little closer to home. A lot of you know that my dad passed away this April, on Opening Day. He was a life-long Royals fan and was able to impart that love to both of his sons. It's silly, but some of my favorite memories are of being at Kauffman with him, or calling him on my way to work to talk about the Royals, or sitting out on our deck, drinking beers and...talking about the Royals. We could always, always chat about this team. During the height of their days mirroring a little league team, my dad would lament to me about how I had never seen the days of Brett, White, Wilson, and Saberhagen. Yet he always remained optimistic when it came to the future. And while last season represented such sweetness for all of us who had been waiting for 29 years just to make the playoffs, it also left us with a feeling of unfinished business. We fell just short of the pinnacle, just 90 feet away. How long might it take to get back there again?
I can't quite explain it, but I've felt my dad's presence during this season. I felt him on Opening Day, when the Royals dominated the White Sox 10-1. I felt him when my brother and I went to Kauffman for the second game of the season to witness a late-inning victory. I felt him when I had the pleasure of going back home during the summer, and my family attended a 4-3 walk-off victory over the Angels in ten innings. And during all of the magic of this postseason, I couldn't help but feel that my dad was in heaven, lobbying with his Savior to give a couple more gifts to his family back home. My dad passed away at 12:34 am on Opening Day. The Royals won the World Series at 12:34 am. I went to bed that night listening to Kansas City sports radio, which was being broadcast throughout the night. One of the hosts shared a sentimental story - that he had taken his two boys to Game 7 of the World Series last year, and after the loss, his youngest walked back to the car with a jacket over his head, tears running down his eyes. Now, a year later, in the wake of the celebration of a Royals championship fulfilled, he hugged both his boys tightly in a moment he'll never forget. It was emotional for me not because my brother and I couldn't enjoy that same moment with dad last year, but because I knew that in this moment dad was hugging us tightly also.
J.R.R. Tolkien is my favorite author. When asked why he wrote his fiction from a historical, rather than allegorical perspective, he remarked that allegory limits the reader to one message, while history opens numerous doorways of meaning. What the Royals just accomplished was historic, not allegorical. It's significant to me for a multitude of reasons - one of which is knowing what this means in light of my dad's passing. To me, this was another hug from my dad. But what is so special is also knowing that there are countless other lives of Kansas City fans that this story has touched in a profound, yet personal way...so many other hugs that were given.
Royal dogma is about belief - belief in the collective unit, belief in "us", belief in the person who hits before you, and belief in the person that hits after you. You don't try to hit singles when the bases are loaded and you're down four runs unless you believe in the people around you and their ability to continue moving the line. Baseball has always been a game essentially featuring a matchup between two people. There's a pitcher and a batter, and then there's a whole lot of guys standing around. Not so with this Royals team. There's a pitcher and a batter, and then another batter, and then another batter, and then another batter. And all of them are going to be relentless in their approach to make sure the next man gets up to bat. Perhaps a humble approach is more beneficial to the group than a heroic one. It's not the culture we live in, but it's the culture in that Royals clubhouse. Outlier.
And so how fitting that this should all end with the most epic collective group celebration of a sports championship I would argue ever. Our city literally came out to celebrate a team that it feels so closely connected to, and that all of us have been inspired by.
I imagined what this would feel like in one of my first blog posts. I likened a fan who has wandered the desert for years and years and who finally gets to taste a championship to a slumdog millionaire. I wrote that in theory, not knowing what it felt like to cheer for a playoff team, let alone a world championship team. I wrote that not knowing that the oasis for my parched fandom was actually just around the corner. Indeed, I can confirm that we all feel like royalty. So in the immortal words of Freddy Mercury and Queen - words that seem as though they were penned with this Royals team in mind, we sing together, We are the champions, my friend! And we'll keep on fighting till the end. That's damn right.
