Major League Baseball

Still reveling in the greatest 48 hours in KC sports history

Published Oct. 1, 2014 8:25 p.m. ET

foxsports

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- As if the last 48 hours weren't surreal and awesome enough -- the Guinness world record returning to Arrowhead Stadium, the Chiefs pounding Bill Belichick into Silly Putty, the Royals hosting a postseason baseball game, the Royals scratching and clawing like the cat that's always being chased by Pepe Le Pew in order to win said postseason baseball game -- Kathy Nelson tells us she spent Tuesday evening at Kauffman Stadium with her father.

We also should note that her father passed away a year ago.

"I took his ashes to the game (Tuesday) night," Nelson, president and CEO of the Greater Kansas City Sports Commission & Foundation, tells FOXSportsKansasCity.com. "Twenty-nine years later, my dad is here with me, watching the game. And it's really creepy. Way too much information about me."

With that, she laughs.

Been that kind of week, and it's only Wednesday.

Welcome to Kansas City, the epicenter of the North American sporting universe -- if only for a week -- where everybody, living or cheering from the great beyond, is getting in on the action. The Chiefs matching their biggest margin of victory ever on Monday Night Football. The loudest outdoor sporting venue on the freaking planet, affirmed (again). A 12-inning American League Wild Card Game victory, tied for the longest single winner-take-all/deciding game in the history of the Major League Baseball postseason.

In a span of 48 hours, the two most popular, iconic sports franchises in Kansas City took a tire iron straight to the knees of the Brady/Belichick dynasty one night and to Moneyball the next. It's like a montage from the movie "Major League," played out, frame by frame, in real life.

"To hear and see people walking down the streets in front of our office building, high-fiving each other, and they don't know each other," Nelson says. "That's crazy, right? But that's how it should be."

Darn straight. And funny how winning makes best friends of us all. Kansas and Missouri, Republicans and Democrats, Jayhawks and Tigers, when the Chiefs and Royals rock the casbah, Kansas City, a city known for its sporting divisions, huddles up for one giant group hug.

So: Great 48 hours? Or the greatest 48 hours for pro sports since the city became a major-league market in 1955?

"It definitely feels that way," Nelson says.

Context? The two days that featured Games 6 and 7 of the 1985 World Series, Oct. 26-27, probably come closest in terms of in-town goodness on back-to-back days. On Oct. 20, before Game 2 at The K, George Brett and then-Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog went to Arrowhead Stadium to watch the Chiefs lose, 16-0, to the then-Los Angeles Rams. They headed back across the street to go back to work; the Royals wound up losing that night, 4-2, to take an 0-2 hole in the Series.

The Chiefs hosted the Broncos before Game 7, and Brett and Herzog reportedly watched that game together, too, in a suite that belonged to a Chiefs executive. The boys in red were crushed, 30-10, but the boys in blue turned around and rocked St. Louis, 11-0, to clinch the championship.

In 1980, the Royals clinched their first World Series berth on the road, on a Friday (Oct. 10); two days after that, the Chiefs hosted and beat the Oilers, 21-20. On the weekend of Oct. 17-19, the Royals hosted Games 3-5 of the Series against the Phillies, winning two of the three, but the Chiefs were out of town on Sunday the 19th, winning 23-17 at Denver. Some four years before that, Yankee-killer Paul Splittorff pitched the Royals to a 7-3 home win in Game 2 of the ALCS on Sunday, Oct. 10, evening that series at 1-apiece, but the Chiefs were out of town then, too -- winning at Washington, 33-30.

So not much, in terms of proximity and immediacy, feels exactly like this. Nelson has a pretty good grip on the history end of it, having grown up in the metro; she even played flute in the old Kansas City Kings pep band. In the '80s, her father worked for TWA, so he made sure his kids got to all seven of the 1985 I-70 Series games. She remembers watching the ticker-tape parade for the World Series champs from the Western Auto building.

Watch the Boulevard Royals Live postgame show on FOX Sports Kansas City after every Kansas City Royals postseason game.

At any rate, Nelson tried to repay the favor to her dad by taking a piece of him with her to Tuesday night's nutty wild-card victory. Literally. Nelson notes that his remains were split four ways, in four small urns, divided up among family members.

Even better: her phone and email have been buzzing nonstop with comments from peers at other sports commissions across the country, after watching the metro shine on North America's biggest sporting stages. Grown men and women, including those in her office, are checking to make sure they're wearing the right outfit to celebrate the right team on the right day.

"(We're going), 'What color are you wearing tomorrow?'" Nelson says. "That cracks me up."

Monday, Chiefs red. Tuesday, Royals blue. Wednesday, Sporting KC sky blue, in honor of President Obama hosting the champions of Major League Soccer at the White House.

"So, clearly, something is going on in Kansas City," the President told reporters.

Several somethings, in fact. The World Series of Barbecue gets underway this weekend at the American Royal Complex. And Sunday? The Chiefs, flying high, are shooting to hop over .500 with a trip to San Francisco. Locally, Kansas Speedway is hosting NASCAR's finest, culminating in Sunday's Hollywood Casino 400, while to the east, a few hours after that, the Royals are back in town for Game 3 of the American League Division Series against the Angels.

"How much fun can we have?" Nelson asks.

Short answer: A lot. And there's more where that came from, kids.

You can follow Sean Keeler on Twitter at @SeanKeeler or email him at seanmkeeler@gmail.com.