Crowned Royals

   If you'd have asked anyone at the beginning of the season who would be representing the American League in the 2014 World Series, how many would have picked the Kansas City Royals?   Even in the eighth inning of the AL Wild Card game they looked like a long shot, down 7-3 to the A's with Lester on the mound.   Something happened in that eighth inning, however, that flipped on a switch that has yet to be flipped off.   The Royals wreaked havoc on the basepaths, rallied to tie the game, and won it in extra innings.  This set off a chain of events that had the A's, Angels, and Orioles dazed, their mouths hanging open as if to say "Wha happened?"  The Orioles, coming straight off their dismantling of the Detroit Tigers, looked poised to make the ALCS a hard-fought series, but the Royals stunned them too.  

   For fans of Kansas City's blue man baseball group, this playoff appearance, let alone World Series appearance, is long overdue.  In 1985, when much of the young roster wasn't yet born, the Royals defeated the Cardinals in the Fall Classic 4 games to 3.   If the Cards can extricate themselves from the Giants' October magic, The Missouri Series would have a long-awaited sequel.   However, the Giants in the 2010s have been an extremely dangerous team in October, with two previous postseasons of unreal playoff mojo.   Can they match the special post-season [barbecue] sauce that Kansas City is cooking up?  

  If it is indeed the Giants meeting the Royals for the 2014 Fall Classic, it will be the first time in a non-shortened season (of at least 154 games) that neither of the two teams meeting in the World Series won at least 90 games in the regular season.  The Royals went 89-73; the Giants went 88-74.   Even in the strike-shortened 1995 season (144 games), the Braves won 90 and the Indians won 100.   In the Wild Card era, two Wild Card teams have met in the World Series only once before, in 2002, when the Angels beat the Giants 4 games to 3. 

  Five years ago, the Royals and Orioles were at the bottom of the AL heap.  To see those two teams in this year's ALCS is a testament to greater parity in baseball.   Player development is in and big spending on free agents on the back nine of their careers is out.  That's not to say that teams in transition such as the Red Sox should rely exclusively on youngsters and prospects.   That makes for a long rebuilding process, which would send ticket sales, merchandise sales, and NESN ratings plummeting.   It just doesn't play in the New England sports market.   The Red Sox need a balance of pricey vets and talented youngsters and therein lies the challenge.