This next batch of photos is from my Kansas City trip.
( year of photos: day 96 to 103 )

Sometime in the last two years I became a baseball fan, specifically a Kansas City Royals fan. My mom and my sister got there a year or two before I did as hardcore. In our family baseball isn't a father/son thing as much as it is a mother/daughter thing. I went to a lot of games this year (my mom got an awesome coupon pack and was very generous). I know the players, have my favorites and least favorites (I'm looking at you Emil Brown). I set the Royals Webpage as my homepage and would check scores and such. I don't watch too much on tv, but I do occasionally. There is something just magical about going to a baseball game, particularly when it is your team.

( in which I become a fan )

We lost last night's game. We lose a lot. We're in the basement, again. It looked like perhaps we'd beat one team (Chicago White Sox) and not be in the basement, but it wasn't to be, not this year. Last night was the last game for our manager, Buddy Bell. He started his career when he was drafted by the Cleveland Indians, so it is fitting that he ended by managing against them.

And last night was (probably) Mike Sweeney's last game. He has played his entire career (13 years) in Kansas City, he lives here, and is a huge part of the city and of our baseball. He's our team captain. He's been a great powerhouse, but he's been injured too much lately. We have great hitters coming up like Billy Butler, so he can't be the DH. And we're not sure if he is well enough to play first base again. And we have a surplus of first base people. His contract is up and he says he is willing to come back and play for the league minimum just to keep playing. But who knows what will happen? Is there a spot for him? Last night felt like a good bye. Sweeney took out a full page ad thanking the fans and Kansas City. Every time he came out, he got huge cheers. Lots of the video montages they normally do (Royals clips and what not) were tributes to him. And when they pulled him in the 7th (in what apparently was a planned move) he got an amazing standing ovation. He took a bow, was hugging people in the dugout, and then came back out on the field to bow and say thank you to the still applauding, still on their feet, fans. We were sitting close enough that you could see he was (barely) holding back tears.

It got good media coverage. I actually watched the local news to see it, and of course inthe print/web media there is a great Kansas City Star story and a very nice story on the Royals website.

Also last night, in the last inning, my favorite player, Alex Gordon (see my icon), got hit on the nose by a ball that bounced into his face. You could see the blood just pouring from his face and (we were using the binoculars) see how swollen his face got immediately. He flopped on the ground and was twitchy - very scary. They took him to St. Lukes for xrays for what was probably a broken nose. And of course the second half of the game, they let lots of new people play. Seeing the Royals in September is a little like t-ball, everyone gets to play. They've called up so many people from the minors that you're watching a lot of brand new people get their first crack in the minors.

All in all it wasn't a great season, but we didn't lose 100 games (that is what we call progress in Kansas City). And we have some great talent coming up that promises that if they continue to grow, we'll be better in 2008. The trick is not to get a player good/halfway decent and trade them away. (Fun drinking game: watch any other baseball teams and identify all their good players who are former Royals.) We've got Alex Gordon, Billy Buckner, Billy Butler (I love how alike those names are), John Buck, Ross Gload, and a bunch more I'm not thinking of right now. I am even beginning to be impressed with Jason Smith despite the mean things I said about him on the halfway-to-St. Patrick's-night. Mom and I sat there for much of the game and speculated on what the line up would be for next year. (Usually by mid-August or early September the majority of the Royals website is devoted to hopeful predictions for the next year and little about the finishing of this year.) It's fun, a lot more fun than the Chiefs football, and I'll miss them this winter. Next year they're doing a lot of stadium renovations, getting rid of the jumbotron and crown scoreboard and combining to one huge scoreboard, putting in outfield seating, so on and so forth. It should be neat, but our park is so beautiful right now I hope they keep that. They're keeping the fountains for sure at least.

( my 2007 season with the Royals )

It's Opening Day! This is true in many cities around the country, but especially in my home town of Kansas City. That means it is also Greater Kansas City Day! (Since KC is comprised of two Kansas Cities in different states, North Kansas City, and a host of other cities and suburb, we say the greater metro area.) There is stuff going on (I forget what) and if you buy the newspaper it benefits charity. There were people on all the major intersections selling the paper. I love opening day. My family (well my mom and sister) are big Royals fans. This year, I feel myself getting drawn into it too. I love the excitement of going to a game. We tried so hard to get tickets for opening day, but it was not to be. Royals often can't give away the tickets (they have done really awful for like the last seven years) but they sell out opening day, cardinals games, and yankee games (guess which other games I'm going to?) Last night I was reading the Royals website about what all is going on. This may be the year! (Royals fans find that we have to be optimistic.) The radio was talking about it this morning and decided to "party like it was 1985". For you non-Kansas Citians, that is the last year we won the World Series. (Also the year before my family moved to Kansas City.) All the signs are up all over town with the "True Blue" motto which I guess is this year's motto. Works for me.

All day long, I've been wishing people a "happy opening day". You know what? Anything can be a holiday, and everyone needs a little more holiday in their life. Just like Madonna once sang. If we took a holiday, took some some time to celebrate. Just one day out of life, it would be, it would be so nice... There is also Kansas Day (January 29th). That is the day that Kansas was granted statehood. In school we always celebrated it with cake and dressing up like pilgrims and essays and what not. Great fun. Growing up I always assumed that every state did this. A friend and I were talking about this recently and she too has fond memories and made the same assumption. Even in college, I would (and I know this friend and my sister too) take time to wish people a Happy Kansas Day. Even if our only celebration was an away message on AIM. It was with great disappointment that I realized that the rest of the country didn't do this, they didn't know when their states achieved statehood. Perhaps Kansans just take more pride in being Kansans. I don't know.

But we need every holiday we can get. So Happy Opening Day! And as of this writing (middle of the 4th), Royals are winning!