432 replies to this topic

[nathanKent]

The Royals beat the Cards. I'm officially a Royals fan right now.

[arrowhead terror]

im so fucking sick of david dejesus and our inability to do anything right

[Coach]

5th complete game tossed by Greinke, and the Royals get a rare win.

[HG]

Coach, on May 27 2009, 07:52 AM, said:

5th complete game tossed by Greinke, and the Royals get a rare win.

Yeah they are 3 back. A little while ago they had a three game lead

[Coach]

HG, on May 27 2009, 08:01 AM, said:

Yeah they are 3 back. A little while ago they had a three game lead

It would have been nice to get a sweep against the Tiggers to get back 1 game, but if KC can take 2 out of 3, I'd consider it a good series. Really, if they are within 5 games of first place by ASB, they have a good shot as anybody does in the AL Central.

I just hope they can get some bullpen help and a big bat in the middle of the lineup by July....

[warthog]

Coach, on May 27 2009, 08:13 AM, said:

It would have been nice to get a sweep against the Tiggers to get back 1 game, but if KC can take 2 out of 3, I'd consider it a good series. Really, if they are within 5 games of first place by ASB, they have a good shot as anybody does in the AL Central.

I just hope they can get some bullpen help and a big bat in the middle of the lineup by July....

If the Royals are still within 5 games of first place after this stretch of playing Detroit, Chicago, Tampa, and Toronto, I'll give them a shot of doing well this year.

[warthog]

Not looking good.

[HG]

Whens the last time the Royals weren't out of it at the beginning of June?

[Los Pollos Hermanos]

HG, on May 27 2009, 04:41 PM, said:

Whens the last time the Royals weren't out of it at the beginning of June?

2003

[nathanKent]

DallasChief, on May 27 2009, 04:42 PM, said:

2003

That recent?

[Coach]

Son of a bitch!

[arrowhead terror]

wow were just offensive power houses of late and damn our pitching and defense is amazing were just studs overall

[warthog]

even an article in USA Today about how bad the AL Central is doesn't even mention them. How could that happen. The team playing the worst not mentioned in an article about suckiness?


AL Central: Middle of a bad road for division
By Jorge L. Ortiz, USA TODAY
First it was beaten up by the economy. Now other teams are taking their licks.

The American League Central has been battered this season, sporting a 77-94 record against non-division opponents and featuring one team — the Detroit Tigers — with a winning mark.

Every other division has at least two clubs playing better than .500. The National League Central has four.

"Other than Detroit, no one's really happy with their performance," Cleveland Indians general manager Mark Shapiro said.

With the country's economic downturn hitting rust belt cities like Detroit and Cleveland especially hard, attendance has suffered.

Despite leading the division since May 10, the Tigers are averaging 10,086 fewer fans than last season, the biggest drop in the league. The Chicago White Sox (1,808) and Indians (654) are also seeing declines.

The Minnesota Twins have the fourth-worst road mark (9-19) in the majors, for now rendering moot their 21-12 home record and catcher Joe Mauer's return from a back injury.

Since returning May 1, Mauer is hitting .415 with 12 home runs and 36 RBI, but the Twins have gone 19-20.

"It's pretty crazy that as good as he's been, unfortunately, our record has been worse," closer Joe Nathan said. "It shows how much a team game this is."

The division's futility has kept every team alive in the race. The last-place Indians (26-35) have seven players on the disabled list, including All-Star Grady Sizemore, but are eight games out of first place.

SIZEMORE: Scheduled for MRI on Monday

"The way the rest of the division's played," Shapiro said, "I keep feeling like if we can just hang in there and not completely succumb to the magnitude of our injuries, getting those guys back alone may be enough to make a surge in our division."

[nathanKent]

Tonight's loss proves that God hates the Royals.

[Coach]

Well, at least some good news in this aborted of a season....

http://www.kansascit...ry/1322906.html

Quote

ST. LOUIS | First thing you see is a giant baseball, 12 feet in diameter, signed by Derek Jeter and Ted Williams and Hank Aaron. It’s in Guinness World Records, and sort of an unofficial welcoming here at baseball’s All-Star FanFest.

It’s also a heck of a metaphor for what’s coming to Kansas City.

Before the end of the season — most likely next month — baseball commissioner Bud Selig will confirm that Kansas City will play host to the All-Star Game in 2012, according to sources.

It will be our first national sporting event since the Final Four in 1988, and it very well could be our last for decades.

Everything that’s happening this week in St. Louis will happen three years from now in Kansas City. The planning, at least in the abstract, has already begun. Cities like ours don’t get many chances at making a national impression.

It is a whirlwind of craziness, and with President Barack Obama throwing out the first pitch, the joke around St. Louis is that you’ll be in line at a security checkpoint with rapper Nelly behind you and a Clydesdale in front of you.

This is the show that’s coming to Kansas City.

“There’s so many things we could do,” said Kevin Uhlich, the Royals executive in charge of the plans. “We have so much real estate out here. We could develop a village in the parking lot. You know, sort of like for the Super Bowl.”

•••

The advice out of St. Louis is to have fun with it. That’s what they’re trying to do. The best baseball players in the world are coming to town. A concert by Sheryl Crow and Elvis Costello raised a reported $1 million for cancer research.

This modest market in Missouri will have the attention of a supposed 100 million people worldwide on television. This should mean excitement, and sometimes it does.

Too often it means paranoia.

“I’m chuckling at it sometimes,” said Cardinals president Bill Dewitt. “It’s like, ‘Did you see that corner a block from the stadium that’s got a broken curb? We need that fixed. This is the All-Star Game!’ It’s definitely a heightened sense of ‘We’ve gotta put on a show.’ ”

Everything is being magnified here, from the greatness of the Cardinals’ Albert Pujols and the city’s Italian restaurants to St. Louis fans’ self-promotion as the best in baseball.

It’ll be that way in Kansas City, too — 2,500 media representatives and tens of thousands of people traveling in to eat our barbecue and talk about Zack Greinke.

The Chamber of Commerce will love this, of course, but it also means that Kansas Citians may need to thicken their skin.

Whenever a big-time event like this is held outside places like Miami or San Diego or Phoenix, it’s become an almost expected side-sport for people to blast the economy in Detroit (Super Bowl XL), the traffic in Houston (2006 NBA All-Star Game) or, well, just about everything in Jacksonville (Super Bowl XXXIX).

“I’ll tell you how Jacksonville looked at it, and I’m sure Kansas City will do the same thing,” said Gene Frenette, a longtime sports columnist for the Florida Times-Union. “If you have to take a few potshots along the way to host a major sporting event like that, then whatever barbs get thrown your way, all the businesses that get people to stay in their hotel rooms or eat at their restaurants will be more than quick to take that in exchange.”

Ron Watermon, the Cardinals executive and point man for this week’s plans, says when the event is in St. Louis now and Kansas City later, it will turn the Show-Me State into the Watch-Me State.

It’s been said that if pessimism were a product, it would be Missouri’s No. 1 export.

And here might be a good place to mention the potential challenges.

•••

Kansas City’s FanFest will almost certainly be at the Convention Center. The headquarters hotel will probably be somewhere on the Plaza. There will need to be a free and frequent shuttle system.

Throw in the eternally threatening local weather — Kansas City’s forecast for today, for instance, is temperatures in the upper 90s with possible thunderstorms — and there will be a great deal of planning and finger crossing.

“Every city has logistical issues,” said Bob DuPuy, president of Major League Baseball. “I actually think it’s an advantage to have the All-Star Game in smaller cities. New York (in 2008) was a wonderful place, but New York continues to be New York. You walk around St. Louis this weekend and the All-Star Game is everywhere. It’ll be like that in Kansas City, too.”

DuPuy was talking at the opening of a youth baseball field in St. Louis’ urban core, which was paid for with the expected revenue from Monday’s Home Run Derby. It’s been reported that the “leave behind” from this week’s festivities will be about $2 million in charitable work.

That number can be backed up with Saturday night’s concert and other events, but be skeptical when you start to hear about the All-Star Game’s supposed $70 million boost to local economies. Independent studies have shown that while the game may produce tens of millions of dollars in revenue, there is actually very little or no impact on local economies.

First, not all the money spent in Kansas City will stay here. Some of it goes to shareholders in New York.

Second, not all of the revenue is new spending money. Some of it is being spent only on All-Star events instead of at other businesses.

And third, many other economic activities get crowded out by All-Star visitors.

“Cities do a pretty good job of adding and multiplying the numbers, but they don’t do a good job of subtracting,” said Victor Matheson, an economics professor at College of the Holy Cross who has done multiple studies on this. “It’s absolutely possible that these things can make you happy, but you shouldn’t expect them to make you rich.”

•••

Kansas City voters in effect turned down a Super Bowl and potential Final Fours when they rejected giving money to put a rolling roof over Arrowhead Stadium. But they did receive assurances from Selig two years ago that an All-Star Game would accompany the approved renovations to Kauffman Stadium.

That means that unless and until the Royals make the World Series — insert joke here — the 2012 All-Star Game could be Kansas City’s last truly national sporting event for a generation.

The last All-Star Game in Kansas City was 1973, the first year of then-Royals Stadium. It was something of a coming-out party for Kansas City.

In 1973, there were 450 reporters and 50 million people watching worldwide in 11 countries. It was a reported $500,000 boost to KC.

Now, there are 2,500 media members and 100 million people watching in more than 230 countries. There’s the reported $70 million boost — though, as Matheson says, that number can be deceiving.

Behind the scenes, that giant baseball is already tumbling toward our city.

“We can’t wait,” Uhlich said. “We’re not on that national level all that often. We want to show people what we have to offer.”

[Coach]

And finally, the Royals DFA'ed Tony Pena Jr.

[warthog]

Same old Royals. Cruz got too concerned about Crawford, he forgot about Longoria.

[Coach]

warthog, on 17 July 2009 - 10:57 PM, said:

Same old Royals. Cruz got too concerned about Crawford, he forgot about Longoria.

I was actually yelling at the TV (to Cruz) to pitch! And when Longoria made contact, I said "Of fucking course. What else would it be?"