Royals Final 2010 Record: 67-95, .414, last place, 28 GB Twinkies.

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Before we get started: It's been 25 years since the Royals won the 1985 World Series. I was there, at Game Seven, with my father. I never thought it would be 25 years without another World Series for KC. Baseball is damaged. The Royals have been a hopeless joke for many of those 25 years. I've decided this year that my free time has too great a value to waste on following the Royals day by day. So, with that in mind, I will not track the daily win/loss pattern here on my site, as I don't want to have to update the site ever day or every other day. Like last year, I'll write occasional thoughts and rants during the season. Don't look for daily or even weekly updates. I'm way too lazy to do that, and sometimes the season just makes me speechless. That said, let's hope for marked improvement. Since we tied for last with Cleveland in 2009, as I usually end up saying on opening day, "Nowhere to go but up." Good Luck Boys in Blue. As usual, you'll need it!

October 3rd: Royals ended the year today losing 3-2 in 12 innings to the playoff bound Tampa Bay Rays. Last night Mrs. Blowfish and I went to "Fan Appreciation Night" where the Royals gave us a snuggie. Then they laid an egg, losing 4-0. This year the team only improved over last year's miserable dog shit season by two wins. Two....freakin' wins. Sam Mellinger wrote a great year end column in today's KC Star that summed it all up pretty well:

Despite a lifetime of losing, a lost era of Royals fans still cheer:

The men and women in the lost generation of baseball fans are in their mid-20s now. Has it really been that long? They are grown adults who’ve seen nothing to cheer for. But do it anyway. They come with blind pride, unreturned loyalty and hope for better days but no real explanation for continuing to care about a team they’ve never seen win. The whole thing defies both logic and the short attention spans of the MTV generation. How to explain a Royals fan who can’t even call on 1985 as a memory? "This is a marriage,” says Adam Hance, born in December 1985. “You don’t leave just because your wife let herself go.”

You could point out here that the country’s divorce rate is near 50 percent, but that would be pointless and maybe even rude. This is a lasting partnership built on eternal faith and not much else. This month makes 25 years since the Royals won their only World Series championship, and the team has young fans anyway, a generation that knows winning baseball only through old stories and grainy video. Their fathers’ heroes are George Brett and Frank White and other men with championship rings. Their own heroes are Mike Sweeney and Zack Greinke and other men who’ve played on 100-loss disasters. These are graduate students and young professionals, some with marriages and mortgages, who’ve only seen the Royals as perennial losers and national punchlines. Yet they still cheer. "Do I get my therapy paid for?” says Brandon Henderson, born in November 1985.

Frank White sits in the Royals dugout, preparing for another broadcast and talking about what Kansas City will be like if its baseball team turns into a winner. This is personal for White. He grew up in Kansas City, and the story has been told many times how he worked on the construction crew that built Kauffman Stadium and made the big leagues through the old Royals Academy. White’s No. 20 is retired now, and he’s inducted in the team’s Hall of Fame. The Royals named one of their spring training fields after him. He is an enormous part of the Royals’ proud past. Someone mentions to him that one sign of the Royals’ progress will be once the focus is no longer on the minor-league prospects.
“I’ll take that one step further,” White says. “Not talking about 1985. You want to get these guys to develop their own winning attitude, and set standards for the young fans to have a chance to see them play now, and not have to Google guys on the internet. That’s being a little too honest, probably.” Actually, it’s a pretty good description of this lost generation of fans.

They are a self-deprecating group, mostly out of necessity. The fat guy at the beach knows where he stands, right? So they make jokes about their parents’ unfortunate timing or the line in their 2003 high school yearbooks about the Royals being winners or that Stockholm Syndrome is the only way to explain their continued love of a team that’s lost more than 90 games in all but four of the last 14 seasons. Their memories are not George Brett off Goose Gossage or Bret Saberhagen in ’85 but Mike Sweeney’s back giving out again or Carlos Beltran being traded to Houston. Two friends have a $10,000 bet on whether the Royals will win a World Series in their lifetimes. If one dies, the wager is to be placed in their will. Mario Cancilla was born in June 1987 and his first Royals memory is Brett kissing home plate after his last game in Kansas City. It’s been all downhill since, but this is a resilient bunch, and Cancilla found himself listening to the June draft at work. Nick Blevins, born November 1985, is @SorryRoyalsFan on Twitter. Stephen Peel, 21, lists his religious views on Facebook as “Zack Greinke.” Dylan Tucker was born in June 1986 and says he won’t ever give up on the Royals, but “at some point I will have to seriously evaluate my investment in them.” They all love the Royals for different reasons. Some of it is geography and family and some of the same memories their fathers may have had, like sitting in the old G.A. and getting sprayed by the groundskeepers on a hot day or trying to get a beer with a fake I.D. So maybe Hance is right. The relationship of fan and team is like a marriage, only the bond can’t be broken just with paperwork. "Even though I hate almost every player on the team and I hate watching us lose, I continue to watch,” writes one fan. He signs his e-mail: "Kill Me Please,-- Spencer.” Spencer Moore was born in December 1987.

Lauren Cage owes the Royals for her relationship with her father. Teenage years are always tough, and she didn’t talk much with her dad back then. Except they always had baseball. They always had the Royals. He taught her the difference between a curveball and a slider, when to steal a base, and told her stories of when the Royals were good.
She was born in December 1986 and sometimes asks her father why the heck he had to raise her a Royals fan, but she knows she wouldn’t trade it for anything. When she calls home during a game, mom hands the phone straight to dad. "I just think you should root for the team that’s closest to where you grow up,” she says.

The oldest in the group were 8 years old when the 1994 strike killed a Royals season that many thought would end in the playoffs. They were 18, graduating high school seniors, during that 2003 season that felt magical at the time but looks so flukey in hindsight. The rest of their memories are mostly losses. They remember Beltran running down balls in the gap, but also Kerry Robinson climbing the wall for a ball that bounced in front of him. They remember Johnny Damon stealing bases, but also Desi Relaford being picked off after losing his balance and falling off first. Their hope remains, their passion sticks, even at the end of another miserable season like this one — and that’s the whole point.
You don’t need championships and star players for hope. The smell of freshly cut grass and the crack of a wood bat and all the other clichés can wipe out Ken Harvey taking a relay throw off his back and a routine fly dropping between two outfielders jogging toward the dugout and all the rest of the embarrassing list every Royals fan has on instant recall.
Sports, and maybe even baseball in particular, can be such a cool thing this way. The Royals’ last moment of real glory came 25 years ago this month, in a time these fans can only read about or watch on technology that didn’t exist back then. They want their own memories, their own celebrations, and maybe those better times are coming. But even young in life, they’ve been disappointed before. They feel certain to be let down again, and certain that it won’t stop them from cheering for another 25 years."It isn’t so much that I am ever hopeful about the Royals becoming a winner again,” says Barry Grass, born in September 1986. “It is that I would hate myself if I slip away and they become a winner later on. Fear of betrayal and fear of being a fraud compel me to stay passionate.”

August 15th: Today the Royals earned a split with the Yanks. Actually a nice story today. Bryan Bullington got his first Major League Win today. He beat the Yanks 1-0 with a little help from the Mexicutioner in the ninth. He was the very first pick in the 2002 MLB draft by Pittsburgh. Today, eight years later, he finally wins a MLB game. Good for him. Hopefully at age 29 he'll figure it out. He could be a guy for the rotation next year, maybe replacing Bannister. Jose Guillen was traded to the Giants this week for cash considerations and the infamous "player to be named later." The Giants haven't been to the playoffs since 2003. Guillen will most likely just be a pinch hitter coming off the bench. The Giants will be Guillen's 10th major league team in 14 seasons. The Royals designated Guillen for assignment last Thursday. Guillen signed a $36 million, three-year contract three years ago that made him the Royals' highest-paid player per year in team history. He's 36 years old now, and needed to be moved out to allow Kila Ka'aihue a chance to play every day, Royals are tied with Cleveland for last in the AL Central, 19 games back of the Twinks. Cleveland comes in next for the toilet bowl series at Kauffman Stadium. Who's going to suck less?

August 2nd: Royals win three of four from an absolutely pitiful Baltimore Orioles team. Alice Gordon manages to hit a couple HRs, including a walk off HR on Friday night. The trading deadline spam hit the fan, as Dayton Moore has now dealt off Callaspo, Podsednik, Ankiel and Farnsworthless, all to NL teams. Nobody apparently would give up squat for "Mr Contract Year" Jose Guillen. Ned Yost was given a two year contract extension as manager, allegedly to keep Atlanta from hiring him away as replacement for the retiring Bobby Cox. That may be a stretch. The rest of the season is now just a big audition for next year as the team is 15 games under .500, and 14.5 games back of Chicago in the AL Central. We may not lose 100 this year, but 90 is not out of the question.

July 28th: Stick a fork in them. They're done. Royals slide into last place all by their lonesome, a half game behind the Tribe. The team has lost 10 of their 13 games since the All Star Break, being swept at home twice, once by Oakland and once by the Twinkies. Also, Royals pitching gave up 48 runs in the last four games. Team ERA is 5.18. Greinke has 10 losses and an ERA over four, after getting waxed 19-1 in his last start. Here's the "highlights" of the week: Tonight, the Royals traded Scott Podsednik to the Dodgers: in exchange for minor leaguers Lucas May, a catcher, and Elisaul Pimentel, a right-handed pitcher. Podsednik was hitting .310 with a .353 on-base percentage. And we won't get to see his hot wife around KC anymore. BUMMER. Gil Meche is done for the year. He's having "exploratory shoulder surgery" that he refused to have last off season. He won zero games this year (0-4 with a 6.66 ERA in nine starts) for $11 million. He has one more year on his guaranteed contract for another $11 million. David DeJesus is out for the year with a torn thumb ligament. He crashed into a fence in Yankee Stadium chasing an eventual inside the park homer by Jeter. The Royals current starting rotation: Greinke, Chen, Bannister, Davies, O'Sullivan. Billy Butler is on pace to challenge the MLB season record for hitting into double plays. He's hit into 24 so far this year. The record is 36 by Jim Rice of the Red Sox. Alex Gordon was brought up from Omaha to play outfield. First ball he touched, he booted for an error. Every home game in the sixth inning, the Royals PR wanks have a sing along with Garth Brooks on the big TV scoreboard doing "I've got friends in low places." Now, there's a self esteem builder. Thank GOD Chiefs training camp starts tomorrow.

July 18th: Today was my 51st birthday. And to celebrate the occasion, the Royals got swept for the second straight series, today losing 9-6 to the Oakland A's at home. Previously, they got swept by the greasy Chisox in Chicago right before the All Star break.Last night I went to the game. The Royals PR pukes had "KC A's Appreciation Night" which totally pissed me off. Does nobody in this organization have any sense of perspective? The A's franchise is NOTHING for Kansas City to salute. They were run by a total asshole, Charlie Finley. They abandoned KC right before they got good, and then the Royals had to battle with them from 1970 to 1975 for the AL West. Their Oakland success came at KC's expense. Yet, last night, we were saluting the very players that kept KC down. Players like Bando, Rudi, Campanaris, Hunter and Jackson. These guys were ENEMIES. I'm going to rant here for a minute. The Royals organization for a long time has seen the Royals game day experience as entertainment, and entertainment only. They have completely lost any sense of how to compete. The expectation of losing has so permeated this culture, that there is NO distaste for losing. They've totally and completely accepted the stench. They may have well just let the A's wear their home white uniforms and switched dugouts last night.Hell, if we rooted for them all weekend, we would have enjoyed a sweep! The whole "A's Appreciation" thing was sad and pathetic and a total slap in the face to all the Royals players who battled the A's in the 1970s. Recently Willie Wilson was asked how he felt about the current Royals team and organization. He said "They are an embarrassment." Thank you, Willie. THANK YOU. Yes, they are. And completely rotten from the head down. As of today the team has lost six straight and are just two games ahead of Cleveland for their comfortable home in the AL Central Cellar. Same old Royals.

July 5th: Royals pissed themselves on national TV last night, getting totally punked 11-0 in front of an ESPN prime time audience. Typical. Pathetic. Sack-Less. Soria was chosen as the only Royals player for the 2010 All Star Game.

July 4th: It's the fourth of July, and the Royals are on ESPN national game tonight vs. Angels in Anaheim. It's the first time in a long time KC has been on national TV. At this point the team is just eight games back of the Twins and Tigers, and the Chisox are just two games out. So the whole division is pretty tight. Yankee manager Joe Girardi has to pick one Royal for the All Star game. Those under consideration are Butler, DeJesus and Soria. My money is on Soria. He would have the most impact in helping the AL win. Trade rumors abound, with just about everybody being mentioned: Guillen, Podsednik, Bloomquist, DeJesus, Callaspo, Aviles, Farnsworth and Davies have been in rumors over the past three weeks. I'll bet Guillen will be gone after the All Star Break for sure. Royals are batting .282 as a team, which is in the top three in the AL. Biggest surprise over the past month has been Wilson Betemit, who has been raking. He's hitting .389 and just seems to always be on base. He's been what Ankiel should have been. Ankiel meanwhile, continues to languish in Omaha, trying to overcome injury. Ankiel and Gordon have been total non-factors this year. Aviles has been money. Butler has continued to show warning track power. He hits a lot of doubles, but also is on pace to shatter the AL record for hitting into double plays in one year. The Royals have used 21 different pitchers this year. The bullpen was total crap the first month of the season, but they've started to come around over the past month. Farnsworth has actually pitched decent since Yost became manager. Tejeda and Marte have been good, and Soria has been Soria. Weird thing is, Zack Nebraska leads the team in losses with eight, although his ERA is a very respectable 3.94. Bannister has the most wins with seven, and Bruce Chen -who had a very good start against the Angels last night- is 5-2 at this point. So there's been some surprises with the pitching staff, although team ERA is still high at just below five. I look for Gordon and Kila Ka'aihue to come up sometime this summer, and look for at least two or three current Royals to be dealt for the 2011 build up. Realistically, since the Royals actual winning percentage is .444, and has fluctuated between .430 and .460 most of the season, nobody seriously thinks they'll contend. So, deal like a used car lot and keep on building for that ever elusive "future" that never comes. Same as it ever was.....same as it ever was.....same as it.....ever....was!

June 13th: Zack won his second game today vs. the Reds in Cincy. He pitched a complete game for a 7-3 win with 12 Ks. Sad thing is, he's still 2-8. Terrible record for a guy coming off a Cy Young year. Yesterday Bud "The Tool" Selig announced KC would get the 2012 All Star Game. Wonder which Royal will be the mandatory addition to the squad? Royals are 1/2 game ahead of Cleveland in the race for the cellar. New year, same old crap.

May 23th: Zack got blasted by Colorado today, his first really bad start giving up seven runs in three and a third inning. Manager Ned has been doing OK, going six and four in this first ten games. Royals have the third highest team batting average in the AL going into today's game at .273, trailing only the Yanks and Twinks. When you consider that, it makes our relief pitching look that much worse. Royals have managed to nose ahead of Cleveland by a half game, and trail the Greasy Chisox by one game. Still, this has been a very disappointing season. Greinke has had four blown saves behind him. Ankiel has been on the 15 day DL for three weeks now. Soria has blown a couple saves. Betancourt's defense at short is awful. On the plus side, Davies and Bannister have pitched pretty well as starters, and Aviles is returning to his 2008 form and should stick at second base for the whole year. He's hitting .347. Today 15-year vet Jason Kendall tied Tony "Chico Esquela" Peña for fifth all time starts for a catcher. That's a lotta squattin. Some sad news today that Jose "Lima Time" Lima died of a heart attack at age 37 this morning in Los Angeles. All the news today has been people telling stories about what a happy and fun loving guy Lima was. And although he was very flamboyant and a bit of a bragger, he was a genuinely good guy and went way too soon. RIP Lima Time.

May 13th: Royals win behind Zack for the first time this year in an afternoon game vs Cleveland attended by maybe 500 adults and 20.000 grade school kids(It was school day at the K). Then right after the win, the Royals hold a press conference and WHACK manager Trey Hillman. Oh, excuse me, they "Dismiss Him," as it said officially on the Royals web site. At the time of today's ceremonial goat slaughtering, the Royals are 12-23, 11 games back of Minnesota, in last place in the AL Central. Only team worse is Baltimore, who is 11-24 and yet to play the Royals. Moore said this through the man-tears as he officially gassed Hillman: "Trey Hillman is an incredible leader and a very special leader who's touched the lives of many people in this Kansas City community and throughout baseball. The recent struggles of our baseball team, however, require a change." In other words, "I play GM Whack a Mole to Save my OWN A-HOLE!" Of course, the local sports media wanks kicked into hyper drive on the news, and immediately had sportswriters from Milwaukee on air talking about what a boob interim manager Ned Yost is. Yost's last manager gig was with the Brewers, and according to the Milwaukee Sports press, they all hate him. Royals had to do something, somehow, and plug in somebody to drive this garbage truck. They'll probably bring in another manager next season. Yost is just a babysitter this year. Same as it ever was, same as it ever was. Same as it, ever....was.

May 4th: Royals win behind Ho-Shaver tonight 7-2 over the greasy Chisox. Yesterday the Royals sent Alice Gordon to Omaha, called up Mike Aviles, who homers tonight in a win. Long time Detroit Tigers play by play man Ernie Harwell died of cancer tonight, he was 92, and one of the all time greats. Royals start May seven games behind the Twinkies, and have a .500 record on the road. Now if we could just win in that big shiny amusement park we call Kauffman Stadium.

April 25th: It's Sunday Afternoon. I've been lounging around the house after a very busy week. In the little spare time I've had this week, I've been watching the Chiefs draft. No biggie. The Royals have spent the week losing ground to the division leading Twinkies, and sliding comfortably into their normal position of last place and 5.5 games back after only playing 18 games. How is that possible? Only the truly hapless Baltimore Browns (Orioles) have fewer wins than our boys in blue. Last night the Royals dropped their second straight to Twins at home, blowing two four run leads to lose in the 12th inning. Worse, final out was on a play where Pods was called out on a force at second. Yeah, he's clearly out. The Good News: Six Royal players are currently hitting .300 or better: Pods, Kendall, Betancourt, DeJesus, Butler and "Mr. Contract Year" himself, Hosey Guillen. Luke Ho-Shaver has two wins. Soria has saved five of the seven wins so far. The Bad News: We're in last place on April 25th. Besides that, clean-up hitter Rick "Hole in My Swing" Ankiel is hitting a smoking .217 with three dingers and nine RBI. In his sixty ABs he has Ked twenty times. So he whiffs one out of every three ABs. Can you say second coming of Mike Jacobs? Phenom Alice Gordon has one RBI on one dinger. That homer actually won a game to prevent a sweep in Toronto; but still, this was supposed to be his breakout year. Now he is in serious danger of being sent down in favor of Chris Getz to "work on his game." Great, just great. Zack Nebraska has no wins. He's 0-2 in four starts. That's not exactly Cy Young material. Sure, the bullpen blew a couple wins for him. The killer stat is as of today, of the sixteen pitchers the Royals have had on the roster thus far, four have (or had before being whacked) ERAs over ten, including your number two starter Gil "Whatta" Meche at 0-2 with a 11.37 ERA. Dayton Moore cut Juan Cruz who pitched in five games with a 3.38 ERA and no record, and DFA'ed 0-1 Luis Mendoza who pitched in four games with a 22.50 ERA.The Royals lead the American League in team batting average and team on-base percentage, but have the second worst record in the league. Cleveland batting .223 as a team and the Chisox, batting .224 as a team, both lead the Royals in the AL Central. Conversely, Royals are last in the AL in team ERA at 5.55 per game. Even the lowly Orioles team ERA is 4.69, almost a full run per game better. The Royals staff has issued the most walks in the AL, and given up eleven more runs than any other team in the AL. Now, how does your pitching coach keep his job again? I'm going to the game tomorrow vs. Seattle. Why? Free ticket. I don't think I'll be paying for a seat again this year. I've also noticed lots of other Royal fan bloggers not writing on their blogs very often. Why? No reason for hope. Once hope is lost, only apathy and despair sets in. It's now in full bloom before May First. Congratulations Mr. Glass, a new low, even for your organization. We're gonna need a bigger boat!

April 11th: Royals dropped both home opening series one game to two to Detroit and Boston. Gil Meche sucked in his first start, only made it into the fourth inning, gave up seven earned runs. Starting pitching has been good, bull pen terrible, offense fairly anemic. The two best players in spring training were Mitch Maier and Mike Aviles. Maier saw his first start today, Aviles was sent down to Omaha today without a single start. We're playing .333 baseball. We usually are about a .425 to .430 winning percentage (or in our case losing percentage) so this is about what I figured. Maybe someday we'll win a series at home. The Royals are 0-2 in Greinke's first two starts. Royals lead the AL in stolen bases. Guillen hit two homers in an 8-6 loss to the Bosox today, and Ankiel is starting to hit a bit. He had a four hit night a couple nights ago. Looks like we'll lose lots of games 8-3 this year, compared to 4-1 last year. Still, a loss is a loss is a loss. That hasn't changed a bit from last year. Another rant: The way the Royals market themselves: Slogan this year is "It All Happens Here." On their promos, the Royals talk about the "amusement part environment" they've created at Kauffman Stadium. OK, but if I want to go to an amusement park, I'll spend the day at Worlds of Fun. I want baseball. I want to watch the Royals winning baseball. The Royals know they can't supply that, so they've tried to offer up as many shiny objects as possible to distract fans from the fact that the team sucks. Young fans don't know any better. They've never seen this team compete, ever. They've sucked for more than twenty straight years. People here don't even know baseball that matters is played into September and October. We get one All-Star player per year, our best players leave when they get Scott Boras as a agent, and we're mathematically eliminated by August 5th. It's sad, and it used to piss me off that our fans would take losing in stride year after year after year. Now I realize that I just have to quit caring. It is what it is. Kauffman Stadium is kiddie land with a baseball team as a side show. The team wants you to know, you're just lucky to have MLB in a city the size of KC. So come visit, especially you out of town fans, spend a lot of money, and enjoy baseball. Don't worry, your team will win about 60% of the time.

April 5th: I went to opening day today with my good pal Gary. We've gone to probably 20 or more opening days together, we even ended up in Sports Illustrated one year a long time ago. The first inning, the Royals drop a routine infield fly (which would have been a third out) to let a run score. Zack Greinke started, gave up two runs over six full innings, struck out four, walked one, left the Royals with a two run lead and a 4-2 score going into the seventh. A lead which was....immediately BLOWN by the KC bull pen, giving up six runs to lose 8-4. Rick Ankiel went zero for four in the clean up spot, failing to get a ball out of the infield. Bloomquist dropped the previously mentioned routine pop up in the first, then struck out three times. Same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was. Other Things: The stadium is now completely done, and is very nice. One complaint: The food menus are very confusing. I stood in line for almost two full innings (I know, opening day, very crowded) then when I get to place my order, ask for a Bratwurst (which was on the menu board) and they said, oh no, you have to be over in THAT line (to the left) to get a Brat. Huh? Says who? Says where? I'll have to figure out which line to get in to get what.