So I just bought tickets to the Kansas City Royals hosting a THIRD game of the ALDS.
I’ll pause while you laugh.
Okay, there.
If you WEREN’T laughing, you probably don’t get baseball playoff seeding, or why my purchase was so ridiculous, and that’s okay.
It’s basically like this—in order for there to be a THIRD American League Division Series game played IN Kansas City, the Royals must:
1) Win the division. (Which they haven’t yet done.)
2) Finish with a better record than the Baltimore Orioles , thereby securing home-field advantage. (Likely impossible.)
3) Make it to a FIFTH game in the series. (I might as well just cash out my 401K to buy Powerball tickets.)
The odds of this happening are very unlikely. In fact, I have a better chance of receiving sweet oral sex from Kate Upton than I do getting to use my playoff ticket. But like Alfred Einstein once said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take, Kyle. Now hand me that fucking Jager, bro.”
I waited too long, trying to justify my love of the Royals against the costs associated with a new baby, a new furnace control module and the gutter work I just had done. Ultimately, I balked. I didn’t buy tickets when they went on sale, and so here we are, me stuck with a charge that will be reimbursed to my credit card and a couple of pieces of paper I printed that I can later file away in a folder and be confused about when I’m old and senile. (DID I go to see the Royals in the playoffs? God, I don’t know. My brain is applesauce! I’ll say to no one in particular or maybe my night-nurse who is always stealing my change from the nightstand, goddamnit.)
So, while I may live to regret it—you know, if they make the playoffs this year and don’t for another 30, maybe—it’s the bed I made. The fact that this is even a thing is pretty fucking awesome, though.
For the first time in what amounts to an actual lifetime (for those who lived in Victorian England, or the Wild West era, maybe) Kansas City’s baseball team has a very real shot at making the postseason. It’s crazy. It’s nuts. It’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced.
I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH MY HANDS.
But it’s still not a “done deal,” as mobsters and regular people like to say. They are, as I write this, a half-of-a-game out in the central division, trailing the Detroit Tigers. (Oh, did you know that they play the Tigers for three straight games beginning Friday night? Because they do.) They are the current leader in the Wild Card standings, and, were it to stand, they’d play Oakland in a one-game playoff to see who advances to the ALDS. (Oakland is 1.5 games up on the Seattle Mariners because, holy shit, the AL West is all kinds of freaky good.)
Because I’m an eternal pessimist—thanks in large part to this very baseball team—I’m not counting on the Wild Card. I don’t like the variables (the Angels are playing the Mariners right now and “resting their starters,” those assholes), and I don’t like that it’s a win-and-you’re-in scenario. I just don’t trust this anemic offense in a one-game playoff.
Therefore, I think they need to win this division.
And it starts on Friday against the Tigers.
If they sweep Detroit, I think they’ve got a great shot at taking the central. If they win two, I’m still pretty optimistic. If they lose two out of three, I think their goose is cooked. If they get swept, the goose is not only cooked, but it has been eaten, picked from teeth, and shat out. Furthermore, I will jump off of the tallest building in Overland Park, which may or may not lead to my death.
In short, this is a big series. It kicks off tomorrow with Justin Verlander against Jason Vargas. There are still 1,500 tickets available, so you have a much better chance of seeing it live than I do of seeing them in the playoffs, in person.
But you know what? I’d be pretty cool watching them in the ALDS from my couch, too.
As per usual, go Royals.
To be a game where the home team moves ahead in the playoffs is a rare thing to see. Mine was a game 4, Phillies vs Dodgers, 700-level of the Vet. First row, center field and the guy next to me almost goes over trying to catch a home run ball.
Chase the pitcher off the mound with Hey, Hey, Hey Goodbye.
Hoping for a Blue October but probably end up with a Yost invection.
Orphan, “Yost Infection”.
LMAO
Funny stuff Lefty.
chuck, can’t remember where I heard or read it.
Still a victim of being a Royals fan in 1980 Philadelphia.
Sarge caught Al Cowen’s ball off of the wall.
We were hosed.
You sound like an 85 Cardinals fan
“If they sweep Detroit, I think they’ve got a great shot at taking the central.”
– if the Titanic misses that iceberg, I think they’ve got a great chance at arriving in New York… Tigers 3-0 after one inning says the Royals too are sunk.
What about 10-0 in the 6th, though?
That would equate Marianas Trench deep/sunk…
the royals system of offense is not designed for todays game.
With the type of park they play in…with the pitchers that they face not
only in their own division but in big games….with the different sets of
pitchs used against them….with their dependence on defense in a changing
game….they have not changed the way of the team that played in
the 80s.
They are playing an outdated form of baseball. But in the tough
games we see that they have been designed wrong.
football teams and their strategy has changed dramatically since the 80’s.
hockey and basketball has changed dramatically in their strategies and
play since the 80’s.
Depending on left handed hitters to be your power hitters is just
not going to cut it. when will they learn.
Went to game last night. Hopefully they win a playoff spot…but
things must change.
Cliffs notes version of harlinator rambling- YOST SUCKS.