Like most young people that call Kansas City home, Mike Morin has never seen the Royals in the playoffs.
The Angels' right-handed reliever grew up just a stones throw from Kauffman Stadium in Overland Park, a suburb on the Kansas side. With each year, his baseball career would grow more and more successful while the team he rooted for went in an opposite direction.
Even Albert Pujols, who used to watch the Royals as a high schooler on the Missouri side in Independence, has never seen the team play in October. Pujols was still living in the Dominican Republic when the team beat the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1985 World Series.
That once-great geographic rivalry wasn't much of one when Pujols was Redbird.
But the kid in Morin wanted to jump up and down and cheer while Pujols was happy to deal with the myriad of ticket requests that came along with the Royals Tuesday night win in the AL Wild Card game. Finally, they get to experience playoff baseball in Kansas City.
"I can't even imagine what it will be like going back there for Game 3 and 4," Morin said. "Just seeing all of my friends posts, the thousands of people that went to that practice, the Chiefs played on Monday Night Football and they share the parking lot. The focus these last 24 hours or 48 hours has been on Kansas City and that's something that's really cool to see."
Kansas City might be the forgotten sports city. Fans found disappointment in their two pro teams and the NBA team promised after their gorgeous downtown arena was built never materialized. Fans found solace in the Kansas basketball team and the Missouri and Kansas State football teams but what were baseball fans like Morin left with?
Not much. But the way locals yell 'Chiefs' instead of the word 'brave' during the national anthem shows how hard they hung on to hope.
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"A lot of my friends have become Chiefs fans but would just badmouth the Royals on a constant basis," said former Royals third baseman George Brett. "But all of the sudden, they're texting me or I'm playing golf with them and they're saying, 'I watched the game last night on TV. They look pretty good.'
"It just put a shot in the arm for that city."
But Morin would like them to keep holding out hope for a repeat of 1985 for a little longer. Yes, he's happy to go back home and play at the K, but he's a Halo now.
"I don't want it to look like I'm rooting for the Royals. It's cool to see because it's been so long - it's been my whole life," he said. "But it kind of turns into business and it doesn't matter who we're playing, we're going to do what we can to win."
