Kansas City, here we come
There will be a steady flock of Cardinals fans traveling west on I-70 this weekend for the series against the Kansas City Royals, and most are still smarting from the 1985 World Series.
Game Six.
Don Denkinger.
The call at first base.
The 11-0 humiliation in Game Seven.
It all is as clear in this Cardinals fan’s mind as it was 20 years ago.
The Royals plan to honor that 1985 World Series championship team this weekend with the Cardinals in town. Proof of the different directions the two franchises have gone in the last two decades is the fact that there will be as many or more Redbirds fans as Royals fans in the stands to see it.
What’s funny is that, as much as I now loathe the Royals, I used to be a fan. When in college at Kansas, I found out that many of my black friends were HUGE Royals fans. They lived and died with every game, every pitch, the way I did for the Cardinals.
I watched them suffer as their beloved Royals would fall to the mighty New York Yankees in the American League Championship series, and I was envious.
The Cardinals had not been in postseason play since 1968, a decade before my freshman year. At the time, the Royals were a contender while the Cardinals flat-out stank.
So, I rooted for the Royals. They had an abundance of black players, including Frank White, Amos Otis, Darrin Motley and U.L. Washington. They also had a crafty manager named Whitey Herzog, who had his team play National League-style baseball.
In 1980, the Royals finally overcame the Yankees and reached the World Series, where Pete Rose and the Philadelphia Phillies awaited as National League champions.
Seeing that I was never a Rose fan, and seeing that the Phillies were never one of my favorite teams, I found myself wanting the Royals to bring the title back to Kansas City. If it wasn’t headed for St. Louis, why not?
Now, let’s fast forward to fall 1985. The Royals came back from a 3-1 deficit to defeat the Toronto Blue Jays and reach the World Series. They would face the best team in baseball, the Cardinals.
Well, it was the best team until Vince Coleman somehow was run over by the automatic rolling tarp at Busch Stadium during the NLCS against the L.A. Dodgers. By the time Denkinger blew the call on a chilly Saturday evening, the Cardinals were already hanging on by their fingernails and this entire city knew what was going to transpire the next night.
So, now most St. Louis fans are reveling at the plight of the pitiful Royals. They are baseball’s worst team, with no hope in sight.
Former skipper Tony Pena, who I think is a tremendous manager, got tired of losing and walked away last week. Pena didn’t have the commitment of the front office, the fans or his team, so why stick around? It isn’t his fault the Royals stink.
The team thinks a new downtown stadium will help, and the Royals and misguided state legislators think you and I should have to help pay for this new stadium. Yeah, right.
When Royals Stadium opened, it was a cool experience driving by on I-70.
Now, it is simply in the shadow of the real Kansas City show – Arrowhead Stadium, home of the Kansas City Chiefs.
However, Royals Stadium is still a great place to watch a game. As the saying goes, there are no bad seats in the house.
Tickets and concessions are far less expensive than at Busch Stadium, and the people who work there seem to genuinely care for the fans that bother to support this sorry excuse for a franchise.
By the way, if you think that there are a lot of Cardinals fans at Royals Stadium this year, just wait until 2006. With tickets skyrocketing in price and every game a sell-out, the new Busch Stadium will force even more Cardinals fans to travel to K.C. for the annual series. It will be the only chance for many Cardinals fans to see a game next year.
In the meantime, if the Cardinals sweep the Royals in this weekend’s three-game set and the home team doesn’t score a run, that’s fine with me.
Yes, I’m still bitter. And I’ll stay that way until the Cardinals win another World Series title. That will take the hurt away from 1985.
Then, I can start working in the disappointment that still haunts me from 1987.
