Kansas City Royals

Note: This article is not meant to provoke, I simply want to hear the opinions/views of the other side. In addition, I wasn't a Royals fan in 1985, so I don't have that experience in my emotional memory, so I'm almost a neutral party in this case

A friend of mine (a Royals' fan) just attended the Royals-Cardinals game at Busch Stadium and received a lot of fairly derisive remarks.

All Times CDT (eat it, East and West Coasters)

7:05 pm—Well, I'm going to try this out to see how it goes. Seeing as though my DVR makes me a demigod, I'll be able to rewind anything I miss while typing. This by no means will be an everyday thing. An undertaking of that enormity would be my undoing. The Royals have taken over my life enough as it stands.

7:09 pm—I've gotta say, Brian Bannister's goatee is getting more and more formidable. If that goatee were an actor from yore, it'd be Lee Marvin.

2006 – Trey Hillman leads the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters to their first Pacific League Championship in 25 years.

2010 – Try Hillman leads the Kansas City Royals to their first World Series Championship in 25 years.

…it could happen.

Raise your hand if you had Toronto, Texas, and Kansas City as your American League Division Leaders as of May 13th. 

Anyone?

That's what I thought.  We're on the same page, because neither did I. 

Granted, it's only May, and there is a lot of baseball left to be played.  Teams have roughly 125-plus games left on their 2009 schedules. 

But I am already looking ahead to October baseball (is there anything better?) 

The National League has most of the favorites on top.

Zack Greinke is one heck of a story. He has experienced the highest of highs and the lowest of lows.

Greinke was drafted by the Kansas City Royals in the first round (second overall) in the 2002 amateur draft.

All seemed well for Zack especially after the 2003 season when he went 15-4 with a 2.83 ERA between class A+ and AA.

The next season after starting in class AAA Omaha he made his Major League debut at the age of 19. In that season he went 8-11 with a 3.97 ERA and was named the teams pitcher of the year.

When Jose Morales made the club out of spring training as Joe Mauer's replacement, the assumption was that Morales would fill in until Mauer was ready to return. It was a fair assumption because, after all, with a tight bench to begin with, making room for three catchers would be a difficult task.

Much in the same manner as the Twins did with their 11-man pitching staff idea, the team has rethought the plan to ship Morales to triple-A when their All-Star catcher returns to the lineup Friday, in the Metrodome against the Kansas City Royals.

"Vintage Lester dominates Orioles" read the headline after Sunday's 2-1 Red Sox victory over Baltimore.  While headlines are known for hyperbole, by definition, Jon Lester's third and best start of 2009 was vintage.

The emergence of the MLB Network over the past few months has been outstanding.  Truth be told, any network that provides a reasonable alternative to John Kruk bumbling and stumbling is probably going to get a fair chance, even if said network contains a healthy dosage of Harold Reynolds.

The Yankees were essentially one out away from a huge come-from-behind victory in the eighth inning, but it just wasn’t meant to be. The Yankees three-game winning streak was snapped by the Royals on Sunday in an exciting back-and-forth game.

Quick ‘Cap

The Yankees got on the board early behind the wheels of Brett Gardner, as he singled, stole second, advanced to third on a groundout, and scored on a wild pitch.