A Royal Nightmare

To steal a sentiment from Gerald Ford, our national nightmare continues. Sure, the current Royals’ losing streak may not qualify as national since I’m pretty sure much of the country has forgotten that the Royals actually play major league baseball. However, Wednesday’s loss to the Mariners was so atrocious, it actually led the 10 p.m. SportsCenter. The low-light? Mariners on all the bases in the eighth, Mike MacDougal on the mound, a ground ball back pitcher. With the runner on third racing home and MacDougal a mere 45 feet from the plate, it seems like an easy force. Except that the Royals were involved. MacDougal launches the ball 15 feet over the catcher’s head, and another run scores. Granted, the game had been decided much earlier on an Adrian Beltre grand slam. But, it just goes to prove that even when the wheels have fallen off and the engine is on fire, the muffler can still fall off. The losing streak now stands at 18 losses. That is as amazing as it is horrific. With six and a half weeks left in the season, I really can’t see them winning more than about 10 more games. To finish out August, they’ve got the wild card leading Oakland A’s, the world champion Red Sox, the $200 Million Yankees and the division rival Minnesota Twins. All four of those clubs have something to play for – besides their own pride, which the Royals apparently jettisoned several weeks ago.

So, hypothetically, if the Royals are able to grab ten wins between now and October 2 – the end of the regular season, their final record will be 48-114, barely enough wins to avoid being the worst team in American League history – the 2003 Detroit Tigers managed by Mr. Buddy Bell. That team lost 119 games. I’ve played on and coached some really bad teams in my life. I don’t mean to brag, but I once coached a team of 14 year-olds in Utah that were so unmotivated, we went four straight games while only able to put eight kids on the field. Amazingly, we went 1-3 over those four games – even with the automatic out in the 9th spot of our batting order. My point is, it takes some doing to develop this level of futility over a two and a half week period. We’re like the smallest kid in the kickball game. When you see the Royals on the schedule, you bring in the infield and start yelling, “Easy out!”

So, what’s the problem here in Kansas City? What vile forces have united to crush this group of ball players? Has a devastating fungus spread through the clubhouse buffet? Are the players all home sick and ready for their six months off? Did someone put Icy Hot in their jock straps making it too difficult to concentrate? Nope. In my humble opinion, it comes down to one evil word that is all too common in sports today: apathy. For the most part, no one around here cares anymore. No one. The ownership? Not on your life. With one of the lowest payrolls in all of baseball, the Glass family is not worried about a thing. Management? I don’t think so. Allard Baird will get another job in a heartbeat simply by saying he couldn’t do anything in Kansas City because the ownership wouldn’t spend any money. And, no one really expected Buddy Bell to be able to make things right this year. He gets a do-over in 2006. The players care, right? It doesn’t seem that way. Don’t they even want to try and sell their skills to another team in some upcoming free agent market? Of course not. You save that kind of effort for a walk year, not with three years of major league service left before arbitration. Most of these guys know that there aren’t any better players behind them in the minor leagues anyway, so what’s the point. They aren’t going anywhere. And, so, we watch the losses mount up and pray for a merciful end to the season – like a freak Jackson County monsoon wiping Kaufman Stadium off the map, but leaving Arrowhead intact.

The 2005 Royals have taken the drama of losing to an all-time team sport low. They are pathetic to watch. They find amazing ways to lose games, committing blunders and errors that boggle the mind. They don’t run out ground balls, they don’t back up the play, and they don’t seem all that upset when the game is over. With a couple of exceptions, most notably David DeJesus, they seem to be watching to see who will be the next to throw the ball into the stands, to miss the cut-off man, to tap meekly to second on a 3-0 pitch out of the zone. It’s like they know the loss is coming, they just don’t have any willingness, motivation or ability to stop it. They’ve resigned themselves to going down as the worst Royals team in history and, if they’re not careful, the worst American League team of all time. They’re like Tea Leoni and her dad standing on the beach at the end of Deep Impact, waiting for the massive tidal wave to wash over them. And all of this makes me want to throw up.

See, I watch the Royals whenever I can. I stay up for the SportsCenter highlights, invariably squeezed between the Devil Rays and Rockies games – which come right after clips from the World’s Strongest Man competition. I check the box score each morning. I would actually watch more games if not for the fact that I can count on one hand the number of times their games have actually been televised. I would go to the park more, except I have three young kids and a mid-range salary that make gas, parking, tickets and snacks a little more than I can bear. But, I’m a fan. I haven’t given them up for dead and turned all of my attention to the Chiefs – hoping to hear what Dick Vermeil says about who will be the back-up long-snapper (My money is on Jared Allen). I still want the Royals to win, but I think the apathy is rubbing off and most of the fans just don’t care anymore.

This past weekend was a great opportunity to turn around the final two months of the season. Members of the 1985 World Championship team were here to celebrate that awesome achievement. Bret Saberhagen was inducted into the Royals’ Hall of Fame. Sports Radio 810 held a big bash for the former players and fans could go to the tent and chat it up with George Brett or Mark Gubicza. The elements were all there. Let’s rally this thing and go into 2006 with a little momentum. The problem? There’s that word again – apathy. The current players, the management, the ownership – even the fans – just didn’t seem to care. It must kill the great former-Royals like Brett, Frank White and Hal McRae to see what has happened here in Kansas City. They are powerless to stop it, but it must just gnaw at them to see this group of players that are beaten before they step on the field. From the late 70s to the mid 90s, Kansas City was all about baseball. You can still see the remnants of that at Kaufman stadium, with statues and banners of the greats all around the ballpark. When I was eight, I tried to implement the submarine delivery like The Quiz. I always wanted to play with a toothpick in my mouth like U.L. Washington. When uniforms were handed out, it was a fight to see who would wear Brett’s number 5. We wanted to run like Wilson, field like White, crush the ball like Balboni. When Bo Jackson came to the plate in the 90s, it seemed the entire city stopped to watch.

Don’t today’s players want that? Don’t they want to be revered in a city where they’ve spent their entire career? Don’t they want the statues around the ball park and the retro jerseys with their names on them? It appears the answer from today’s players is one collective shrug. It seems that each of these guys would simply prefer to get that check in the bank, get the season over with, get another year of service, play hard in the final year of the contract, and get the “you’re set for life” contract from one of the high roller teams looking for a fourth outfielder or utility infielder. Even at the major league minimum, these guys make six times the annual salary of the average worker here in Kansas City. I don’t want to get into all the injustices of the pay scale. We’ve put a price on our entertainment in this country and it is obviously lucrative. What bugs me is this: When you’re making ten times more a day than I am, don’t you feel even slightly obligated to try? Where’s the accountability here?

What if I worked for David Glass, not as a Royal, but as a manager of one of his Wal-Mart stores. But, here’s the thing. I stink at my job. I put up the wrong “Roll Back” price and have to sell a brand new HDTV flat screen television for $299 instead of $2999. I routinely yell at customers, turn my back on them, step in front of them and close my register just as they get to the front of the line. I pitch in with automotive, except, of the five oil changes I am asked to do, I forget to actually put new oil in four of the cars. How long could I possibly last? But, as a Kansas City Royal working for David Glass, if I put out a similar effort, I’m rewarded with another paycheck, another start, another chance to see my name in lights. And, if I even show a glimmer of hope (like the Wal-Mart manager remembering to put oil in all the cars for a month), I’m rewarded with a four-year, $11 Million guaranteed contract. I’m set for life. Now there’s no motivation for me to get oil in those cars because, no matter what, that money’s going to be in my account.

So what are the options? Do we send the entire team down to the minors? Do we pack it in and just forfeit the rest of the season? Do we cut everyone and bring up the guys in Triple A? Probably not. But, how about at least acting like you want to win? How about running out a ground ball, using two hands to catch a pop fly, laying off the 3-0 pitch? How about not so many smiles after a loss? How about a little anger when the bullpen breaks down? How about a little gratitude for the fact that some fans are still interested in what you’re doing? As for the guys running this catastrophe, it’s time for you to level with us. What’s your objective here in Kansas City – as much as you are considered here when you spend 95% of your time in Bentonville? Are you preparing to sell? Are you keeping the payroll low so that you can get the most profit when team changes hands? Are you just toying with us and have a master plan to be able to compete? Are you banking on structural changes to the league itself that will level the playing field? Or, do you just not care? Because that’s what it feels like. This once proud franchise has been tossed to the backseat of the car like an old cheeseburger wrapper. But the injustice of it all is this: Kansas City will support baseball – even low budget baseball – if the team were only slightly competitive. If we were a .500 ball club right now, The K would be nearly full every night. It would sell out every weekend. The city would be covered in powder blue. There’s still time to do it. Make a commitment to a quality product. Let the fans know what the plan is. Give us a reason to hope. But, if the Glass family can’t commit to that, then maybe it’s time for a parting of ways. Does that mean the Royals might move to Portland or Nashville or Las Vegas? Yep. But at this point, would anyone really notice?