Final Night of the Season
Kansas City is know for many things, home of Blues music from back in the day; fine steakhouses; the famous BBQ; Harry Truman, and Arrowhead Stadium.
Tonight it will host the 7th and final game of the World Series, as the Royals take on the Giants to end a wild Fall Classic.
It’s been explosive, entertaining, and unexplainable, this autumn of baseball between the two wildcard teams. The country has virtually ignored the Series,posting likely the lowest TV ratings in the history of baseball, an average of 12M viewers per night. The rival NFL, for example, had 23M watching the Chargers-Broncos game last Thursday night.
Across America, very few could name players on the Kansas City roster. They know the Giants used to have Barry Bonds, the most hated man in baseball, and had the ‘Freak’ Tim Lincecum, and now a 3rd baseman nicknamed Panda Bear, but for the most part, people aren’t watching and don’t care.
But in Kansas City they do. They are passionate. Royal Blue is the color of the day on the Midwest prairies. It’s been 29-years of pain, agony, disappointment, and cheap skate ownership under David Glass.
Now they are flourishing with a bunch of kids, who have grown up together thru the bad times, to experience this tonite. lst round picks like Mike Moustakas and Alex Gordon. A developing star in Eric Hosmer. A vibrant young arm in Yordano ‘Ace’ Ventura, and a bullpen loaded with blazing fastballs.
You just never know what is going to happen night to night, at least in this series. Five blowout games so far. In what was supposed to be a battle of the bullpens, the classic has become an war of big bats, launching hits everywhere.
Jake Peavy won 7-games down the stretch to help get the Giants here. He got blown out in 2-World Series starts, and might be the reason they lose.
Tim Hudson will start for San Francisco against journeyman Jeremy Guthrie. Neither is expected to be around long.
The big storyline will be how quickly Giants manager Bruce Bochy has to go to pitching ace Madison Bumgarner on 2-days rest, and how many innings he can last. The other big story will be how quickly Ned Yost waves to his tidal wave of relievers, and can they bounce back after getting beat up in other games.
America is indeed missing the electricity of this series. It’s not Yankees-Red Sox-Dodgers, but it has been fun to watch.
Kansas City, known for lots of things, might wind up known as the best team in baseball, World Series winners, and they might be serving steaks and barbecue into tomorrow morning if the Royals have their way.
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