Time to Pick A Hat

I'm back baby! They tried to shut me down, they tried to muzzle my right to free speech. I bleed blue and white and those colors don't run, they dribble like liberty down the side of a freedom cone. With no further ado...

In honor of the election I will be sorting the hats into divisions based on the candidates and YOU the voter will decide! If you'd like to peruse all the hats I'm looking through go here.

The Ralph Nader No Chance In Hell Division:

These hats are horrible! Who would wear such a hat! Did we lose a war? Fucking hideous! Can I say fuck on this thing? Maybe that will set my blog apart, cursing. Bright colors, ugh, giant letters, blargh, camouflage, ridiculous, and my favorite the calligraphy hat.

-Elliott

Return to KC Royals SuperFan Purity

After receiving several hateful emails that made me worry for my safety and the safety of my family I have decided to revert back to a purely KC Royals Blog. I will start other blogs to satisfy my other interests.

Please stop flinging bags of flaming animal excrement at my house.

-Elliott

Awesome New Blog Features

I added some sweet new features to the blog. If you will look to the right you will notice these changes.

- Jon made me a really cool logo that will surely launch this blog into the big time. Thanks Jon!
- I added a section for links to important Royals Resources. It turns out there are quite a few people who blog about the Royals!
- Below that is links to other blogs/websites that I am a supporter of.
- Further down is the freaking awesome ESPN.com widget with a KC Royals newsfeed amongst other info.

Thank you for your loyal support.

-Elliott

Amusing video of Royals manager Hal McCrae (1991-1994) going crazy.

According to Wikipedia...
"While managing the Royals, McRae was involved in an infamous incident after a game on April 26, 1993 (a 5-3 loss against the Detroit Tigers) in which he lost his temper with reporters and trashed his entire office, throwing things off of his desk including a phone, which cut a reporter on impact, and yelling profanities at reporters."

How I Picked The Royals

There were only a few good choices, but for fun, here is a rundown of every possibility.

AL EAST
Toronto Blue Jays - True they are not contenders but they have had 3 straight winning seasons,
2 championships, and hope for the future.
Baltimore Orioles - They have been putrid for a decade. Bad... but they have had a history of winning, 3 championships and 7 pennants. Too good.
Tampa Bay Rays - Bandwagon's full.

AL CENTRAL
Chicago White Sox - Playoff contender, recent champ. Out.
Cleveland Indians - Another playoff contender, I would look like a jackass with Chief Wahoo hat.
Detroit Tigers - Have been awful until recently but now have a huge payroll. Bummer, I really like the D.
Minnesota Twins - Competitive, storied history, horrible stadium.
Kansas City Royals - A finalist which delivers. Great logo, pleasing colors, nice ballpark. Have existed for 40 years. Some history and heartbreak (3 straight losses to the Yankees in the 1970s playoffs) and success punctuated with a 1985 Championship. A once viable team on a 23 year playoff drought, 2nd only to the Expos/Nationals. Four 100 loss seasons in the last seven years. Low payroll, lower hope levels. (.486 All-time winning %)

AL WEST
LA Angels - Huge payroll, best record in baseball this year. Keep looking.
Oakland A's - Low payroll, but a consistent contender due to the genius of Billy Beane. Out.
Seattle Mariners - Haven't been very good of late with a 7 year playoff drought. No World Series wins, that's a plus. But they are not too far removed from their 116 win season. Horrible mascot.
Texas Rangers - I hate Texas. Juan Gonzalez is a jerk.

NL EAST
New York Mets - True, they have a storied history of losing, but were in the World Series not too long ago, and have become perennial playoff contenders.
Washington Nationals - Another strong finalist, but also a sticky wicket. If you discount their time as the Expos then they are a four year old team. But if you allow in the full weight of the Montreal years they become very attractive. An astounding and horrifying 27 year playoff drought. The high point of their existence is the 1981 East division title. Ouch.
Philadelphia Phillies - Quite possibly the most futile franchise in baseball history. But they are in the World Series, that's a disqualifier.
Florida Marlins - Two evil championships. Florida sucks.
Atlanta Braves - Made the playoffs 73 consecutive times. Out.

NL CENTRAL
Milwaukee Brewers - The Brewers have had a seriously lackluster existence, no championships, and they have giant sausages who run around. But they made the playoffs this year and have good young talent, no good.
Chicago Cubs - The Cubs have tons of fans who love them no matter how bad they suck. Which is a lot.
Pittsburgh Pirates - A very strong competitor to become my team. The Pirates are riding a 16-year streak of losing seasons. Brutal. They have one of the lowest payrolls in the league with little hope for the future. But they have been around a LONG time, since the late 1800s. While they are on a bad run now, they have 5 championships in their history, 9 pennants, and a ballpark widely regarded as the best in the league.
Cincinnati Reds - Here is a another team that has seen better days. Haven't made the playoffs since 1996. 18th in payroll. Ugly uniforms. But they have had great success in the past with 5 championships and the great run of the Big Red Machine in the 1970s.
St. Louis Cardinals - The Cards are baseball's 2nd most successful franchise behind the Yankees, no good.

NL WEST
Los Angeles Dodgers - Have a zillion dollar payroll. Walter O'Malley is evil.
San Diego Padres - San Diego has a baseball team?
San Francisco Giants - Too many people love the Giants and Barry Bonds is the anti-Christ.
Arizona Diamondbacks - Expansion team, won a championship. Stupid logo.

The Finalists
Kansas City Royals
Pittsburgh Pirates
Washington Nationals

The Winner
Of course, my team, the Royals. Any of these teams could have been a good choice but I had to make a decision. The Pirates were out because I didn't think I could ever be a legit fan of a team so old and so linked to a place I have no connection to. I have a feeling you can't know the Pirates unless you know Pittsburgh. However, if I ever pick a futile NL team to root for I might have to go for it. As for the Nationals, well, I just don't think you can count the Expos years when they made such a blatant effort to make a break from their horrendous past.

-Elliott

My First Day As Kansas City Royals Super Fan

Welcome to the KC Royals Super Fan Blog! This is the first day of the rest of my life being one of the biggest Royals fans on the planet. I will be posting all of my thoughts and analysis about my new favorite team here.

How did a I reach this point?

I grew up a Yankees fan watching games with my grandfather. I loved the great teams from 1995 - 2001. Crazy Paul O'Neil, Precocious Scott Brosius, Big Fat David Wells, and the rest. When I went to college in Boston I became a very reluctant Red Sox fan who at crucial moments such as Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS would crack and secretly hoped the Yankees would put the Sox away and continue their misery. In the years since I left Boston my loyalties have been adrift. The Yankees collected souless free agents and lost any sense of team chemistry. The Red Sox have become another team with a bloated payroll.

This has all led up to the Rays-Red Sox series. I was rooting for the Rays because I loved that they came out of nowhere from their eternal AL East basement purgatory. This support led to scorn and ridicule from my friends which could be summarized in these points:

- I am a bandwagon fan of the worst kind, jumping on the dangerously packed wagon at a ridiculously late date
- The Rays do not deserve to go to win the World Series because they have only existed 10 years and have not suffered enough yet.
- The people at the Rays games are not real fans as evidenced by their new style jerseys and the fact that they need piped in clapping to tell them when to clap.

My responses to these accusations. True. True. True.

So I decided I needed a fresh start as a fan. I needed a team that I could suffer with and agonize over, a team that has been down and out for a long time, a team that really needs fans. This team needed to be an underdog with a vanishingly small chance of success. A team that for a long time has approached each season with a sense of resigned futility. A team with incompetent management unwilling or unable to spend enough money to field a decent team. A team to root for that if somehow it ever were to become a contender it would be a highly satisfying experience. The other important criteria were that I needed to like the logo and colors, they needed to have had some history, and I had to like their ballpark. Tomorrow I'll have a run down of the methodology and decision making process.

-Elliott