Boys of Summer

I realize this will only be of interest to Kansas City Royals fans...and only of nominal interest to most of those. So, after dilligent market research and a great deal of polling, I've concluded that this one goes out to all 87 of us who really dig Royals baseball.

Me, a bunch of yahoos and Sweetness attended the final game of the Royals' baseball season on Sept. 30. Their season has (depressingly) ended with the start of meaningful baseball in October. This has been the case for OVER 20 YEARS now. That's right: The Kansas City Royals Baseball Club hasn't even tasted the postseason since winning it all in 1985. Man, I know the Bo Sox and the Cubbies (and others) went (or have gone) longer without a World Series...but that is one long-dong-daddy post-season drought!

To put this in perpective, consider:

* At the start of post-season in 1985, the number one song was Dire Straits' Money for Nothing. The week the Royals actually won the series, Stevie Wonder's Part-time Lover topped the charts.

* Best-selling books that year included: The Mammoth Hunters, Lake Wobegon Days, Cider House Rules and Iacocca: A Biography.

Those of us for whom the 80's are mostly a blur (and all the friggin kids born in the friggin 80's or later) probably don't remember this at all, but there were five separate terrorist attacks targeting Americans or American interests - just during the the 1985 baseball season. (And I guarantee the fear-mongering Repugs don't want you to remember this. "What? terrorism isn't a new kind of threat?" Without our collective American amnesia, all sorts of interesting questions with uncomfortable answers might pop up...) These incidents included car bombs, machine gun attacks, a hijacked plane and a hijacked cruiseliner. Scores of Americans died in these attacks. The only death in the hijacked cruiseship, however, was when the hijackers threw an elderly, wheelchair-bound American overboard. Nice guys, eh?

* On the cover of Time Magazine the week the Royals won the Series: "Turning the Tables: The U.S. Strikes Back at Terrorism." I guess the more your shit changes, the more it stinks just the same.

Wanna guess what I was doing the night they won the series? I drove around campus drunk as a coon in a moonshine vat. I mean, literally around campus...like where cars are not supposed to go. On sidewalks. I kind of remember these 10-foot high mounds of well-manicured earth that had wide sidewalks circling around them. Man, they were fun to squeel the tires around! Anyway, campus police chased me in their vehicle for awhile before I lost them.

Or so I thought. When I arrived home, Springfield, Missouri's finest were there - along with campus police - to arrest me. I spent the rest of that night screaming inside a jail cell. It being the first time I was ever arrested, I thought (because of watching TV), they HAD to let me make a phone call as soon as I demanded it. Little did I know they only have to do so within 24 hours of your incarceration. Hey, I was a rookie and I made a rookie mistake. I became a seasoned veteran rather quickly. Like I said, the more your shit changes...

The world keeps spinning and we've all gotten older, were born or died. It's also been a long time - since Brett retired after the '93 season - since the Royals kept a player for more than a decade. Following the strike-shortened '94 season, Mike Sweeney made his major league debut in a September call-up with the big team. He ended up being a stud with the bat...albeit an injury-prone stud-with-a-bat. Although the pickings were admittedly often slim, he made the All-Star team 5 times. He could have left the Royals for more fame and money (and a better team) but he didn't. He likes playing in Kansas City.

He played what is probably his last game as a Royal on Sunday. It tugged at my heart. I don't know what it is about me and baseball, but it's one of the things that can easily make me sappy and weepy. He obviously wasn't the best position player to don the Royal blue - but he is probably in the top 10. And he is a fundamentalist Christian. I'll be honest: most of the time, I have a problem with those people. But in this era of professional jock wife-beaters and murderers and roided-out jerks, having a fundie Christian on your team doesn't seem so bad.

We gave him 3 standing ovations during the game.

They also played a highlight reel on the video board of Sweeney's career...and that choked me up a little. But the real kicker came afterward, when they opened up the infield (as they do after very Sunday home game) for people to run the bases. Mike took the hand of his 3-year-old daughter and the hand of his 5-year-old son and ran the bases for the last time. They played "Good Vibrations" by the Beach Boys...and another summer officially ended.

It was friggin sweet and I don't mind admitting that tears welled in my eyes. Even if he is a fundie, and even if he was hurt a lot, he is a good guy. I'll miss seeing him at the stadium next April.

I guess not even Jesus can help this team get to the post-season...so next year, I will be praying to the Bowiesattva.