Man, I'm excited.
Whooodamn, yeah! Fo' real.
Royals. Yankees. Pine-tar tee-shirts. Denny Mathews and Cooperstown. Scott Elart...wait, what the hell? Scott Elarton? That Scott Elarton? No man, can't be.Well, it was. Life as a Royals fan, what a kick.
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The future Mrs.
Neuteboom and I went to KC last night (with the
Gaus') to catch the Royals game. We - I - had high hopes for a great night. Beautiful night, beautiful fiancee, what else could anybody want? Besides tickets...
Yep, you guessed it, the game sold out. SOLD OUT!
Let that sink in for a minute. The Royals sold out the game! On Tuesday night! In July!
I can't even remember the last time that anything even approaching that ever happened (save for the obvious, Opening Day). It was an amazing, electrifying, fevered and charged
atmosphere at the K last night, and everybody was feeling good. You could tell, there was something special in the air. That's part of the appeal of baseball to me. If you're lucky, maybe you'll see something special - a
tell your grand kids about it kind of special. Sometimes it's a gut feeling. Sometimes it's a more obvious sign (like an endless pursuit of 756). And still sometimes nothing happens at all.
Last night was one of those nights for me.
Royals fans, finally united with hope, were out. A BIG time, full force, "hey kid fuck you
Jeter sucks" kind of out. We were here together, we were ready to see something special.
And I didn't have tickets. Damn.
I didn't mind, actually. Sure I was disappointed. But...the game sold out. This is a good thing. This is foreign and new. I really didn't mind. But, just in case, pass me a beer...
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We ended up leaving the stadium (after some mild hassles by the parking people) and heading to the Isle of Capri casino. Why not, we thought, we were already in KC?
And there, at the casino, was where we heard:
7-0
Goddamnit!The Yankees knocked
Elarton around for 7 runs in 1 2/3 innings. I've spared myself from really looking at all the grisly details, otherwise I'd share them here.
I think the final ended up being 9-2 or
something like that, but after such an utterly deflating first two innings, any momentum the crowd had was
looong since gone. As the
SportsGuy would say, it was a stomach punch game.
UPDATE: I heard on the news today that the Royals gave Elarton his outright release, which was sadly overdue. I feel bad for Elarton; by all accounts he's a really decent, stand up guy. But he just throws 85 right down the middle. Not good.Anyway, it was a really depressing start to an otherwise promising game. Special things can happen in baseball (witness the amazing return of Jon Lester) and the stage was set last night for the Royals to win the game and give a gift to their fans. But they couldn't.
I guess this just means that when "it" happens, "it" will be all the sweeter.
But please Lord, don't let the Yankees make the playoffs.
It's the least you can do.