Amazing Kansas City Royals Playoff Run Ensures Happiness for Tortured Fanbase

By Doug LaCerte @DLaC on October 8, 2014

The Kansas City Royals are one of only four clubs remaining in the MLB playoffs this season. Game 1 of the American League Championship Series between the Royals and the Baltimore Orioles begins at 6 PM CT on Friday. Not even my most optimistic predictions included Kansas City playing a seven-game series for a chance at a World Series appearance in 2014.

The once-lowly Royals weren’t supposed to bring an end to Chapter 1 of the Herculean Mike Trout playoff saga. They weren’t supposed to strike Trout out to conclude sweeping the team with the best record in baseball as the rival Detroit Tigers were themselves swept by Kansas City’s next opponent. This list of amazing things the Royals weren’t supposed to accomplish could go on forever; if you took the experts’ words for it in August, the Royals weren’t even supposed to reach the playoffs. Despite all odds, Kansas City now finds themselves four wins away from the World Series.

What brings them to this point is an almost magical resiliency that has been shown over and over again this season, and most recently in the national postseason spotlight. In what was possibly the best playoff game ever, this team seemingly grew five seasons wiser and their fanbase grew nearly 50 states larger. In that game, and in what was easily the year’s most unexpected result in a playoff series, this franchise and those who care about it grew five times more confident in the Royals’ ability to succeed in the face of extreme adversity.

I remember the end of June, with Kansas City coming fresh off winning 10 straight and taking first place in the AL Central, and skeptical fans were still proclaiming that the Royals would just disappoint us again. Those same people came back and said the same thing in July, August and even in September, up until that unbelievable Wild Card game, warning us all about “the same old Royals.”

There was discussion about whether a hypothetical embarrassing loss in the AL Wild Card would have sated the starving fanbase or left them scarred and wanting. All of those discussions are now moot, and all of those fans are now alongside me as we choke back tears and try to build our lives around these moments.

There is still plenty of analysis of the upcoming series yet to come, but this much is already a proven truth: Nothing can possibly happen to make this a disappointing season for Royals fans.

Doug LaCerte is a writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @DLaC67, “Like” him on Facebook, and add him to your network on Google.