With Cardinals in KC, Royals can make believers of rest of America
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- It has a little bit of a Super Bowl feel. And if you don't believe us, ask the brokers.
Kansas City's The Pitch magazine reported this week that, as of Wednesday, the average cost for a ticket on the secondary market for the Royals-Cardinals series at Kauffman Stadium this weekend checked in at a hefty $124.10 -- 58 percent above the usual mark of $78.58. Friday night's average: $117.34 ($32 low as of late Thursday morning); Saturday: $129.72 ($42 low); Sunday: $124.90 ($27 low).
Welcome to the Truman Sports Complex, where our grills now come with gravitas.
Peas in a pod, these two, peas dipped in gold. Royals: First in the American League in team batting average, first in team ERA, despite key injuries. Cards: Third in the National League in team batting average, first in team ERA, also in spite of key injuries. Royals bullpen: 9-2, with an American League-best 1.61 ERA. Cards bullpen: 10-5 with a National League-best 2.28 ERA.
Team Blue (Kansas City) and Team Red (St. Louis) head into this weekend with a combined record of 53-28, a collective winning percentage of .654, the best a Show-Me series has seen since it became an annual fixture in 1997. Both Missouri franchises enter an intrastate showdown first in their respective divisions, which has happened only one other time in the 28 previous regular-season series -- June 27, 2003. St. Louis has brought a first-place club to this particular shindig at least eight times prior; the Royals, just that once.
So if you want to call it the biggest I-70 showdown since the 1985 World Series, we sure as hell won't stop you.
The Cardinals (27-14) are to baseball what Kansas basketball is to the rest of the Big 12: A relentless, disciplined, driven, talented machine; institutional pride bordering on hubris; a culture and expectation of success buoyed by a passionate fan base that demands nothing less. Most teams are satisfied to chase the bar. They are satisfied only to set it. The Birds on the Bat have nothing to prove to anyone.
The Royals (26-14), conversely, have everything. By most objective and subjective measures, they have come out of the gate in 2015 where they finished 2014, as the best team -- certainly, the most fundamentally sound -- in the Junior Circuit. They are a throwback, in the purest sense, to baseball before steroids and Billy Beane took hold of the wheel, a beast built on uncanny athleticism, situational hitting, scouting, smarts, aggression, shutdown relief and leather. They have made speed a weapon and wall-crashing cool. Ironically, in many ways, they are as much a tribute to "Whiteyball," the style that defined St. Louis baseball for a generation, as the Redbirds of the present.
But they are also new money, as baseball perceptions go, and the cognoscenti treat new money as a novelty until the rate of return becomes too consistent to dismiss any longer. The Royals have been a winner since 2013. The Cardinals have been a winner since Grover Cleveland was president.
But the Fighting Yosts are also 12-7 against clubs with winning records, have a leg up on the season series with Detroit, swept the Angels in Anaheim and just took two out of three from the division-leading New York Yankees at The K. To this point, the Royals have weathered nearly every storm and neatly handled almost everything thrown at their heads. Including, it should be noted, baseballs.
This means something. It means something because there are legions upon legions of Cardinals fans in western and central and southern Missouri, too, and they have so long turned Kauffman (and locals) crimson, made Kansas City a home away from home. It means something because after this weekend, the Royals play 14 of the next 20 contests on the road.
It means something because when you beat the White Sox and the Twins, America shrugs and mumbles that she was busy doing something else.
When you beat the Cardinals, America notices.
It means something because a quarter of the way into the party, Royals fans believe. It means something because this is the weekend that could get the rest of the world to start believing, too.
You can follow Sean Keeler on Twitter at @SeanKeeler or email him at seanmkeeler@gmail.com.
