Major League Baseball

You can take the boy out of the country ...

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 12:22 p.m. ET

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A long time ago in an Emerald City moderately far away, a friend gave me some great advice. By my lights, an undeserving team had just finished beating a deserving team, and that made me unhappy. Not terribly unhappy. Just a bit dissatisfied in the moment, and at that point in my career it was all about the moment.

This would have been in 1996 or ’97, and this might have been the ’96 Division Series in which the underwhelming Orioles beat the overwhelming Indians. Or it might have been the ’97 American League Championship Series in which the underwhelming Indians beat the overwhelming Orioles. Or it might have been another series in which I thought the better team deserved to win. Which is sort of the point: This happens all the time, and I don’t believe I’d yet come to terms with that. I also hadn’t internalized most sportswriters’ impulse to root for the story rather than anything else.

Anyway, my friend – who also was at least semi-responsible for my continuing employment – told me as nicely as possible to cut it the hell out.

Which I think I did. Because I was wrong. Oh, I’m not saying my feelings were wrong. How could my feelings be wrong? But I don’t have to write about all my feelings, and in fact I never have. I’ve been more open than most baseball writers, but of course I’ve held things back, too. And those feelings should have been held back, because they just weren’t all that interesting, or relatable.

Does that mean I’ve stopped rooting for the better teams? Not necessarily. But my interests these days tend to be complicated, not unlike Emma Span’s playoffs flowchart. But while I certainly do employ all of her criteria, I also include beards (negatively), uniforms, and the attractiveness of potential World Series match-ups. Along with a half-dozen other things, including my relatives’ affections for the St. Louis Cardinals.

There’s another thing ... some people get angry when you say you’re rooting for a team (or teams) … because that necessarily means you’re essentially rooting against a team (or teams). Most professional writers will flat-out deny they’ve got a rooting interest unless it’s for the story. Which I think is largely true, except it’s funny how writers do seem to grouse when the team they cover doesn’t play well, or how giddy they become when their favorite team growing up is winning in October. In my experience, very few writers don’t actually care who wins. Even if they won’t admit that in print.

For years, I wasn’t shy about my affection for the Kansas City Royals. I came by that affection honestly; without the Royals, I would have a completely different sort of life. When they were at their best, from 1976 through ’80, I was at the perfect ages to become wildly obsessed. And so I did.

This obsession lasted until ... Well, I don’t remember when I stopped watching most of their games. Maybe ten years ago? Eight? Maybe it was even later, during the Kyle Davies Era. As the losses just kept piling up, season after season after season, it just wasn’t much fun any more. Now, I have little doubt that if I still lived in the Midwest and didn’t have this job, I would have remained a rabid fan. Because what else would I have done with myself?

Instead, I’m now in a sort of baseball Purgatory. I still follow the Royals more than any other team, still get mildly annoyed when they lose and mildly pleased when they win. But I also feel compelled to be honest about the Royals. And since I do still follow them in some detail, I’m honest about them more often than I’m honest about any of the other teams. And when I’m being honest, I’m usually pointing out what I perceive as shortcomings. Because you can write about Greg Holland’s greatness only so many times.

Of course, some fans don’t want to read anything negative about their favorite teams at all. Some fans also have little patience with an apostate who’s writing negative things.

But I can’t help who I am. I suppose my friend might tell me to simply stop writing about the Royals. But the Royals are in my baseball DNA. I’ve got a Cookie Rojas bobblehead, for God’s sake. A Freddie Patek bobblehead, too. And the truth is that I do want them to win the World Series again. Yes, I was torn when they played against the A’s last week. Because I’d like to see Billy Beane’s team win a World Series. Even if Derek Norris’s beard has to be involved. I would be torn if the Royals were playing the Mariners. Because the Mariners have never won a World Series, and because I have so many friends who have loved the Mariners just as much as I’ve loved the Royals, and because the Mariners have treated me so well over the years, as both a professional writer and a season-ticket holder (for a few years).

I don’t believe I’ll ever love another baseball team. But depending on so many factors, I can root for all sorts of teams.

By the way, I also tend to root for teams that seem well-run; or, to be more honest about this, I tend to root for teams that seem well-run by my lights, teams that do things I think I would do, were I them.

Which of course is the last little piece of this: The Kansas City Royals, for almost exactly as long as I’ve had any sort of opinion about how baseball teams should be run, have been run in almost exactly the opposite way. And the unhappy (for me) truth is that if the Royals win the World Series, it will be taken as absolute proof in some quarters that the Royals were exactly right about building a winning baseball franchise, and I was exactly wrong.

I can live with that. I miss being a fan. I miss the highs a lot, and I even miss the lows a little bit. These days, my emotions aren’t inflamed nearly as often as they were, when I hung on every game as if the fate of the world depended on which set of laundry touched that five-edged hunk of rubber more often.

That wasn’t a better state, or worse. It was just different.

Back then, I didn’t have a flowchart. Didn’t need one. These days, I’ve got one. It’s a funny thing, though. Now all the arrows lead to the same team.

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