-- Dayton Moore
I think this quote says it all. It really epitomizes why I will not spend another dime this year on the Kansas City Royals. The specific words that really bother me are "the success that Allard Baird had." What success would that be, Dayton? You mean the one year where we finished over .500 in his seven years as GM? Or do you mean the 381-576 record we amassed in his time in Kansas City? Or perhaps it is the three 100-loss seasons.
What kind of crazy person would call any of the Allard Baird era a success? None other than the current GM of the Royals, who just got a 4 year contract extension from the team.
But it's not all the losing that has pushed me into boycotting my favorite team. It's much more. It's a philosophy. It's the teams refusal to pay attention to advanced stats, even though all of the winning teams in the league have embraced them. It's the refusal to even pay attention to the normal life cycle of a player's career based on years of data. It's the constant signing and trading for guys who can't take a ball. It's the constant pickups of lazy players who are universally hated by their teammates (Jose Guillen, anyone?). It's the years botched draft picks. It's the terrible defense and base running mistakes. And, most of all, it's the refusal of ownership to acknowledge that anything is wrong.
My boycott actually officially began on July 10th, 2009. I had been considering this boycott for about a month and a half at the time, but that's the day the Royals pushed me over the edge. On that day, the Royals traded for Yuniesky Betancourt. This is the point where anyone who knows anything about baseball in Kansas City collectively threw their hands in the air. According to the numbers, Betancourt is not just bad, he's the worst every day shortstop in baseball. Both offensively and defensively. But for some reason, the Royals
I think Joe Posnanski put it best in his blog post two days later:
"Either the Royals are right or the numbers (as I look at them here) are right. For years now, Kansas City fans have been stuck rooting for the Royals to beat the numbers. And, for years now, the numbers have been kicking the Royals butts."
Joe is exactly right. The numbers have been kicking the Royals butts for years. If Betancourt were an isolated incident, I would be ok with that. Every team makes a bad acquisition. But this was just most recent example of a series of blunders and missteps over the past 15 years. Jose Guillen, Mike Jacobs, and Kyle Farnsworth are just the recent examples. But you can go back to Juan Gonzalez, Neifi Perez, and Octavio Dotel are examples that show this has been going on for a long time. Basically as long as I can remember.
This is all so rough for me in part because of my age. I'm currently 25 and was raised in Kansas City. The last time the Royals played a postseason game was October 27, 1985--six days shy of my 2nd birthday. I literally do not remember seeing a Royals playoff game. But it still wasn't always this bad when I was young. I do remember some of the early 90's, the last days of George Brett. The Royals actually had a competitive team in 1994, the year of the strike. But that's the last thing close to a contending team I have seen (strong Aprils in 2003 and 2009 don't count).
But it wasn't until recently that I got pushed over the edge into complete boycott. It's the only thing I can think to do. I used to just joke with my friends about how bad the team was. I'd try to take it lightly, cause it's "only a game". But when a lot of my good friends are Cardinal fans, it's hard not to recognize how a good organization can be run. And that just makes it more obvious how bad of an organization the Royals currently are. This makes the Dayton Moore 4-year contract extension more baffling. I can't for the life of me figure out what he has done to warrant this extension. The Royals magic number to be officially eliminated from the playoffs is already down to 13, and it's not even September 1st. I just don't understand what they are doing. That's why I decided to start talking about my boycott on this blog. I'm hoping maybe someone else out there who feels my pain will join me.
I do this out of love for the team. Strange, right? Let me explain. I've thought about this a lot, and the only metaphor I can come up with is having a friend who is an alcoholic. That person is still your friend, and you want the best for them. However, you would be a bad friend to take them out to a bar to get drunk. Then, you would just be enabling them to continue on that same path of self-destruction. Instead, you would try to help your friend go down another path.
OK, stay with me. The Royals are clearly engaging in behavior that is destructive to their chances of winning. By giving them any of my money, I am enabling them to continue on this path. In fact, giving them money is encouraging them to do so. David Glass, the owner, is the former Wal-Mart CEO. He has been in the Royals for profit (his right) all along. So the only way to make a point to Glass is to hit him in the pocket book. Clearly my small boycott won't make a dent. But it's a start. I estimate the Royals have missed out on my money for about 5 to 7 games since the boycott start. I went to 5 this year before the boycott started.
So that's a little of the background of why I am doing this. The blog serves a couple purposes. One is for me to vent my frustrations. Also, I'd like to see who else out there is as frustrated as I am. So over the the next few weeks, I will be writing more in depth on the topics I have talked about on this first post. Tomorrow, I will go into the details what my whole boycott entails.
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