I am not a New York Mets fan and I’m definitely not a Kansas City Royals fan but baseball will always be my favorite sport so to say I was not watching the 2015 World Series would be a big understatement. My two teams (the Dodgers and the Twins) did not make it to the series; hopefully they will next year though.
Last year the Royals lost the World Series in Game 7 after their potential tying run against the San Francisco Giants was left stranded on third base after the final out. “Redemption themes are a staple of sports narratives. Usually they are overblown clichés. Not with Kansas City. What drove the Royals, indeed what united them, from spring training through the dog days of summer to this weekend’s victories at Citi Field, was an unshakable commitment to replacing the pain of last season’s defeat with a championship.”
The Royals kept that painful memory to drive them this season to overcome what transpired last year.
The lingering image of Alex Gordon stranded at third as the 2014 season ended had become a reoccurring nightmare. The nightmare ended Sunday.“I never got over the seventh game of last year’s World Series,” Glass said. “I really felt that the only way we could fix that was to win it all this year. I’ll let you guys know in a day or two whether it did.” And what more that’s exactly what David Glass, the owner of the Kansas City Royals did. He “stood outside the team’s crazy clubhouse Sunday night, savoring the pandemonium and drying off from the champagne showers by players celebrating their World Series championship.”
As outfielder Lorenzo Cain celebrated with teammates on the infield, he, too, talked about how the loss had ruined his off-season. “It was just so painful, coming that close,” Cain said. “It was something you think about every day, but it was also something that brought us together.” The Royals have no superstars to speak of, no player larger than the team itself. The bullpen works as a collective, with players taking pride in doing their jobs — no more, no less — when called upon. It is a common theme in the Kansas City clubhouse.
In a Series with twists and turns, with booted plays and clutch home runs, the 12th inning was the perfect way for the Royals — all the Royals — to add an exclamation point. “But it also highlighted Mets Manager Terry Collins’s decision to lead with his heart, to stick with his star, in the ninth. It was that decision — when Collins reversed himself and allowed the starting pitcher Matt Harvey to talk himself back into the game — that allowed Kansas City to force extra innings.”
“He was pitching a great game,” Cain said. “I wouldn’t expect anything less. He wanted to come out, and we wanted him to come back out. That was the guy we wanted to face after he pretty much dominated us the entire game.”
“Until that point, Harvey had suffocated the Royals. Had Harvey been a member of the Royals, he might have accepted a job well done and let the bullpen do its job. Instead, he pressed to finish himself, just as the Giants’ Madison Bumgarner had done to the Royals in the final game of last year’s Series. Except this time, the ending was different.”
And boy was it different! Glass said he remembered watching the Royals’ last World Series victory and feeling the same way. He could not have imagined in 1985 that three decades would pass before he would celebrate another one.
“The difference between Kansas City and the Mets is that these Royals are a complete team, a mature group that had focus, humility and purpose — and the defining collective memory of a devastating World Series loss.
The Mets will spend the winter talking about booted plays and wild throws and about the decision to let Harvey pitch. They will note the Royals’ aggressiveness on the base paths and their tenacity.”
See this is why I love baseball because you never ever ever ever know what will happen. Of course you can say that about anything but baseball is Americana- it’s a heartfelt sport that is practically engrained in every household across the country in some way or form.
“The source of that tenacity was a quality that could not be measured by numbers. From the owner to the last man on the roster, the most significant difference between the Royals and the Mets was an unwavering, season-long commitment to redemption.”
Hope you guys enjoyed this piece!
Talk to you soon!
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tessamariaa 