Hello, baseball blogging world,
Welcome to the Kauffman Diaries, a blog that focuses on the Kansas City Royals first and foremost, and the AL Central as a whole secondly. For the most part, this blog focuses on posts that cover everything regarding the Royals organization: the big league club, the farm system, transactions, history, fan experience. etc. However, because the Royals play in the AL Central, I felt it was also important to write about what's going on in the AL Central. Every Sunday Night, I hope to do an AL Central Power Rankings of sorts, with my own review of each and every AL Central team for that week and point in the season thus far. The Royals, members of the AL Central, will, of course, be included in those rankings.
I did not grow up a Royals fan, but rather grew into one after moving to Kansas City in my mid-20's for grad school and thus work. As a baseball fan, I grew up in Northern California, and thus, grew up a Giants fan. While the Giants are close to my heart, my distance away made it tough to follow them full time. So over the past six years, I have grown to be a Royals fan, since the Royals dominate the media and airwaves in this area (unsurprisingly of course).
But to be honest, even before I moved to Kansas City, I have always had a soft spot for the Royals. When I played MLB video games (MLB '99 and High Heat Baseball 2004 were my jams), I usually played as the Royals when I wasn't playing as the Giants (and typically, I had more season modes with the Royals than Giants if I took stats). In my eyes, they were the lovable losers of sorts (at least more lovable than the damn Cubs...can't be lovable losers when you have a damn national network showing games), a perennial underdog often dwarfed in the major sports scene by their NFL Counterparts (the Chiefs). While many of my transplant friends have grown to love the Chiefs more, I still stick to the Royals as my favorite KC-area team (mostly because I hate the NFL), and right now, as it seems like I will be in KC for the long haul, I would say my appreciation and fandom of the Royals is up there with my childhood team (the Giants). I know people say "You should stick with the team you grew up with" and I agree in some ways. I am not throwing the Giants to the curb in any fashion, and I still follow them when I can (can't say I love the direction of the team). But dang. Following baseball teams is a hard job, even harder when the team of your childhood starts games at 9 p.m. your time. So forgive me for missing games in favor of getting sleep so I don't suck at my job in the morning.
I also feel like the Royals fanbase needs more bloggers. If you look on Reddit, there are nearly twice as many Giants fans on their Reddit than the Royals Reddit home. While there was a brief boom following the 2014 World Series appearance (and following 2015 World Series title), it seems like fandom for the Royals on the web has cooled: Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs have soaked up all the KC Sports attention and probably rightfully so. That being said, baseball season rules, and the K rules, and the Royals are worth cheering for, especially with this roster, especially with their status again as "lovable underdogs bordering losers." They probably will finish around the cellar of the Central again. They won't make the playoffs for a while. Dayton Moore should probably be focusing more on the roster and less on his crusade against internet porn. But there are a lot of storylines to follow this year with the Royals, storylines worth exploring as well as sharing on the blogosphere. Yes, I may not be a KC native, but I am a transplant who enjoys the Royals and digging deep into their whole organization as a whole. I may not be the most qualified, or talented, or able (my time is limited, okay?). But when I do write about the Royals, I will try to write with my head, my spreadsheets of data, and my heart. (Or at least head and spreadsheets of data...this is the 21st century, right?)
Here's to the 2019 Royals season. They are 7-12, which is better than the Red Sox as of this moment...maybe this year won't be so bad, right Royals fans?
Sorry...I didn't mean to interrupt you watching Mahomes highlight videos.
