Recently I read a story written by a man who suffered a catastrophic fall in his home that left him paralyzed from the shoulders down. Fortunately, his wife was at home, heard the fall, and rushed to his aid, moving him so his airway was open. Had she not been home, he would have asphyxiated. He wrote that once he realized he was paralyzed and that his life was going to change, he faced three choices. Those choices were death, depression, or perseverance. Since he didn\u2019t want to die or be depressed, the only choice was to persevere. Since the injury, he reports that many of his days, and his life, have gotten markedly better since he no longer has any expectations. He is grateful for every moment and every day.<\/p>\n
I thought it was profound in describing how many of us go through life always in a state of disappointment due to our expectations. Don\u2019t all of us have expectations for our careers? Our children? Our relationships? Our expectations for the music we listen to and what we watch on television? How often do we let those expectations color our outlook on life?<\/p>\n
Elton John was the man in early 1970s music. His Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album, released in 1973, was a smash and still sounds great today. He then released the mostly forgettable Caribou in 1974 and desperately needed a hit to stay relevant.<\/p>\n
His PR machine went into overdrive promoting his next album, Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, which was scheduled to go on sale May 19, 1975. The expectations for Cowboy were huge. On May 19, I marched into the House of Sight and Sound in Salina, as did dozens of others, to buy our copies. The House of Sight and Sound was part record store, part head shop, and part cultural meeting space for Midwest Kansas. If you lived in that part of the world during those years, you know what I\u2019m talking about.<\/p>\n
I took the album home, full of expectations, and after a listen or two realized the album was a bit of a dud. Cowboy spawned one hit, the wonderful \u201cSomeone Saved My Life Tonight,\u201d but otherwise it was forgettable. Elton couldn\u2019t meet the expectations and fell out of relevance until he started making Disney hits.<\/p>\n
How is this related to sports and specifically the Royals?<\/p>\n
How often do we allow our expectations of the Royals to affect our enjoyment of baseball? I know I\u2019ve been guilty of it many times. Think about the 2025 season. Would you consider last season to be a joyful experience or a disappointment? Did you enjoy the season as it progressed, or were you tormented by close losses and missed opportunities? I was in the last camp, rehashing close losses, blaming Matt Quatraro for mismanaging the bullpen or the outfield\u2019s lack of firepower at the plate. I went into the season with the full belief that the Royals were going to make the playoffs, and that anything short of that would be a disappointment. And it was.<\/p>\n
Those expectations didn\u2019t allow me much space to enjoy the season.<\/p>\n
Yes, the outfield play was horrid. Yes, the pitching staff endured several season-altering injuries. Yes, Quatraro made some questionable decisions that may or may not have cost the Royals some games. You know what, that\u2019s an ordinary baseball season for most teams not named the Dodgers.<\/p>\n
Having those high expectations blinded me to the continued excellence of Bobby Witt Jr.<\/p>\n
It blinded me to enjoying the joyous final years of the Salvador Perez experience, and it never allowed me to appreciate what Noah Cameron was doing. That\u2019s on me and not the Royals.<\/p>\n
Think back on the seasons you enjoyed the most. I can immediately think of two that I truly enjoyed. The first was 1973. The Royals were still a young team, only in their fifth season, and not much was expected of them. They had a new manager in Jack McKeon and a sparkling new stadium. They also played in the same division as the powerful Oakland A\u2019s, so there wasn\u2019t much expectation of them dethroning the A\u2019s and making the playoffs.<\/p>\n
The Royals had been putting together a solid team. John Mayberry and Amos Otis were full-blown stars. Freddie Patek and Cookie Rojas formed arguably the best double-play combination in baseball. Lou Piniella, Paul Schaal, and Ed Kirkpatrick were steady contributors. Late in the season, new acquisition Hal McRae started to hit. The pitching staff was solid with guys like Paul Splittorff, Dick Drago, and Al Fitzmorris. Add in a couple of heralded rookies named Steve Busby and Doug Bird, and suddenly the Royals were winning regularly.<\/p>\n
In mid-August, the team called up some kid named Brett.<\/p>\n
Big crowds came out to see the surging team and the new stadium. They stayed near the top of the division all summer. On August 15, they beat Cleveland 5\u20131 to move to 70\u201351 and take a one-game lead in the West Division. Could it happen? Could the young Royals win the division?<\/p>\n
It was an exciting time to be a Royals fan. Unfortunately, the young team wasn\u2019t quite ready. They lost 13 of their next 19 games to fall 5\u00bd games back. They won 12 of their last 22 games, but it wasn\u2019t enough to catch Oakland. They finished at 88\u201374, good for second in the West. Today, that record would probably get them into the Wild Card game. Back then, they stayed home and prepped for the 1974 season.<\/p>\n
I went into the 1973 season with low expectations, and the Royals exceeded anything I thought possible. It was a fun summer.<\/p>\n
The last time I felt that kind of joy would have been the 2003 season. Who can forget that summer? The Royals were terrible in 2002, finishing with a 62\u2013100 record. They changed their Tonys, getting rid of Tony Muser and hiring Tony Pe\u00f1a. Going into 2003, the expectations were really, really low.<\/p>\n
Then something magical happened.<\/p>\n
Pe\u00f1a sprinkled some baseball fairy dust on this ragtag group and they started winning. Sure, they had a few guys. Mike Sweeney was a hitting machine. Joe Randa and Ra\u00fal Iba\u00f1ez were solid players. They got steady contributions from guys like Aaron Guiel and \u00c1ngel Berroa. They opened the season on a 16\u20133 heater, which put them 5.5 games up in the division. They lost the division lead in mid-May but hung around, surprising everyone. They played well in June and July, and on August 19 sat at 65\u201359 with a one-game division lead.<\/p>\n
The difference maker was Carlos Beltr\u00e1n. Beltr\u00e1n had a phenomenal season, hitting .307, scoring 102 runs while driving in 100. He stole 41 bases while playing Gold Glove defense in center.<\/p>\n
The season was a bit of a miracle, really.<\/p>\n
Look at that pitching staff. Darrell May, Chris George, Runelvys Hern\u00e1ndez, Kyle Snyder, and Jos\u00e9 Lima. Ah yes, Lima Time! Who can forget Lima Time! Who can forget Mrs. Lima. Hubba hubba. Royals GM Allard Baird found Lima toiling with the Newark Bears of the Independent League. Baird was always looking for players in the clearance aisle. Lima made his first start on June 15, and the Royals won the first eight games he started. Lima was credited with seven wins in that run. That\u2019s the kind of summer 2003 was.<\/p>\n
The Royals cycled through 29 pitchers that summer in a desperate attempt to win a few more games. The whole summer was bananas and crazy and wonderful and totally unexpected. Even though they didn\u2019t win the division, it was still one of the more enjoyable summers in recent memory, cheering for this crazy underdog team.<\/p>\n
My favorite game that summer came on September 4. It was a Thursday afternoon game, a makeup date against Arizona. The Royals came in at 71\u201367, just one game back. Over 20,000 fans came out that afternoon. Think about that for a moment. A 3:00 start on a Thursday in September drew over 20,000 to the stadium.<\/p>\n
The Royals went into the bottom of the 9th trailing 5\u20134. Arizona brought out their closer, Matt Mantei, who could throw some heat. Beltr\u00e1n drew a one-out walk. Then he stole second. Iba\u00f1ez drew a walk. The crowd started making some noise. Then the Royals got frisky. Beltr\u00e1n and Iba\u00f1ez pulled off a double steal. The crowd was going nuts.<\/p>\n
Ken Harvey then lofted a foul ball behind first base.<\/p>\n
Surely that\u2019s not deep enough for Beltr\u00e1n to tag and score, is it?<\/p>\n
In one of the more exciting and gutsy plays I\u2019ve ever seen, Carlos did tag, and his headfirst slide beat the throw from Danny Bautista. It was at that moment that I thought this kid Beltr\u00e1n could be a Hall of Fame player.<\/p>\n
The Royals eventually lost that game, 6\u20135. They stirred in the 10th with Aaron Guiel and Joe Randa getting on base before Mantei got Sweeney on a popup.<\/p>\n
For all intents and purposes, that was the end of the season.<\/p>\n
They played .500 ball over their last 24 games to end the season at 83\u201379, seven games back of the Twins.<\/p>\n
Even though they fell short, no expectations equaled a fun summer of baseball.<\/p>\n
Compare that to 2004. The Royals had raised the bar and people expected them to improve upon the 2003 miracle. They didn\u2019t. In fact, 2004 was a massive disappointment to many.<\/p>\n
2004 got off to a wonderful start. 41,575 came out on Opening Day to see if 2003 was a fluke or not. The Royals went into the bottom of the 9th trailing the White Sox 7\u20133.<\/p>\n
Randa and Harvey drew walks to lead off the inning.<\/p>\n
Benny Santiago doubled to left, scoring Randa.<\/p>\n
That brought Mendy L\u00f3pez to the plate. L\u00f3pez somehow got around on a D\u00e1maso Marte fastball and drove the ball over the center-field wall for a game-tying three-run jack. The crowd was deafening.<\/p>\n
L\u00f3pez had a seven-year major league career. He hit a total of six career home runs. This was the last of those six. If you were a Royals fan at the time, you remember this game.<\/p>\n
\u00c1ngel Berroa stroked a single, which brought Beltr\u00e1n to the plate. Carlos delivered, crushing a Marte pitch into the left-field stands to give the Royals an improbable 9\u20137 win.<\/p>\n
We didn\u2019t know it then, but this was the peak of the Tony Pe\u00f1a era.<\/p>\n
The Royals lost 21 of their next 28 games, and any magic left over from 2003 and from Opening Day was long gone. In June, management threw in the towel and traded Beltr\u00e1n. The Royals collapsed to a 58\u2013104 record. Pe\u00f1a somehow made it through the season, but he couldn\u2019t survive an 8\u201325 start to the 2005 season. It ushered in a sad era of Royals baseball. If there was a poster for that era, it would have a picture of Tony Pe\u00f1a, in full uniform, standing in the shower. No expectations in 2003. High expectations in 2004.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the point? I\u2019ve made a commitment to not having any expectations for the 2026 season. Let\u2019s see how this works. I\u2019m committed to enjoying Bobby Jr., Cole, and Salvy for what they are. I\u2019m going to enjoy watching Jac and Carter and hope they develop into formidable major leaguers, but I\u2019m giving up the expectation of the Royals making the playoffs. If the Royals do make the playoffs, and I hope they do, I\u2019ll enjoy that to the fullest.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m going to spend the summer just enjoying baseball for the wonderful sport that it is and marveling at the players\u2019 ability to hit a 95-mph slider and the pitcher\u2019s ability to throw one. My wife and I will make trips to several major league parks we\u2019ve yet to see. We\u2019ll sit in the sun, enjoy some nachos or a ballpark dog and a beer, and enjoy the game we love so much.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Recently I read a story written by a man who suffered a catastrophic fall in his home that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2387],"tags":[5,936,2123,55,78518,2596,2595,4,252],"class_list":{"0":"post-618625","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-kansas-city-royals","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-kansas","10":"tag-kansas-city","11":"tag-kansas-city-royals","12":"tag-kansas-city-royals-history","13":"tag-kansascity","14":"tag-kansascityroyals","15":"tag-mlb","16":"tag-royals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116211001899893578","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}