⚾ KC Royals Royals winning more championships
- Thread starter Steve Zissou
- Start date
Yeah, I'd say it's the one bright spot outside of Grienke this year.
11 games under .500 is unacceptable. They desperately need to start the second half on one of those 10 outta 12 streaks.
11 games under .500 is unacceptable. They desperately need to start the second half on one of those 10 outta 12 streaks.
Ex Royal??
Josh Romo wondered why his 2-year-old daughter sometimes dreaded going to her day care in Sealy. “Now we know,” he said Thursday after hearing news that state child welfare officials reported they found children stashed in a shed Wednesday at the Sealy in-home day care operation. His daughter was among the children in the shed.
“That lady’s going to hate me when she sees me,” the 31-year-old father said about one of the day care center’s owners. “Lock ’em up.”
The children ? locked in the storage shed with gasoline, lawn equipment and insecticides ? appear to be unharmed, Sealy police said.
Freddie Patek and his wife, Marietta Patek, both 65, who operate the facility, have been charged and are being held at the county jail, said Austin County District Attorney Travis Koehn.
Koehn said he is uncertain if keeping children in a shed and other areas of the house was common practice at the facility. However, Koehn added that the child welfare inspectors were not allowed immediate access to the home.
14 children found
Koehn said that Freddie Patek is charged with tampering with physical evidence because he hid the children and Marietta Patek is charged with six counts of endangering a child.
“It’s really, really frightening about what could have happened,” said Gwen Carter, spokeswoman for Texas Child Protective Services.
Officials said a concerned person Wednesday alerted the department that too many children were at the facility.
When department investigators visited the home, they found children inside a shed, in the backyard and several rooms in the home, Carter said.
Carter said that about 14 children ? toddlers to preteens ? were found at the facility, which is licensed to care for only three children at a time.
None injured
Paramedics examined the children and found them to be uninjured.
The children’s parents were called to pick them up, and the facility was shut down pending the outcome of an investigation, Carter said.
Parents told investigators that the Pateks did not let them look inside the home, Carter said.
The inquiry could take up to 30 days.
Carter said Marietta Patek once was registered to run a day care center at her home that could care for up to 12 children.
She closed that operation in 2001.
In 2003, she opened what was supposed to be a smaller-scale day care operation.
Neighbors defend them
Outside the large shuttered house in a leafy neighborhood, neighbors said that the Pateks have taken care of kids for decades.
Some called them foul-tempered, but others said they were pillars of the community.
“They’re model citizens,” said Lana Gregor, who said she’s known the family for more than 30 years. “They’re very hard workers and a credit to this place.”
Gregor and another neighbor, Sharla Bell, said they’ve let the Pateks take care of their children.
At the Twisted Willow Floral Shop a few miles away, owner Lynette Lee said stuffing children in a shed was a “poor choice.” But, she added, she wasn’t mad at the Pateks, despite the fact that her infant niece was one of those found in the shed.
“I’m sure she was just trying to protect her livelihood, hiding them from CPS’ eyes,” Lee said, “but they’re good people.”
Josh Romo wondered why his 2-year-old daughter sometimes dreaded going to her day care in Sealy. “Now we know,” he said Thursday after hearing news that state child welfare officials reported they found children stashed in a shed Wednesday at the Sealy in-home day care operation. His daughter was among the children in the shed.
“That lady’s going to hate me when she sees me,” the 31-year-old father said about one of the day care center’s owners. “Lock ’em up.”
The children ? locked in the storage shed with gasoline, lawn equipment and insecticides ? appear to be unharmed, Sealy police said.
Freddie Patek and his wife, Marietta Patek, both 65, who operate the facility, have been charged and are being held at the county jail, said Austin County District Attorney Travis Koehn.
Koehn said he is uncertain if keeping children in a shed and other areas of the house was common practice at the facility. However, Koehn added that the child welfare inspectors were not allowed immediate access to the home.
14 children found
Koehn said that Freddie Patek is charged with tampering with physical evidence because he hid the children and Marietta Patek is charged with six counts of endangering a child.
“It’s really, really frightening about what could have happened,” said Gwen Carter, spokeswoman for Texas Child Protective Services.
Officials said a concerned person Wednesday alerted the department that too many children were at the facility.
When department investigators visited the home, they found children inside a shed, in the backyard and several rooms in the home, Carter said.
Carter said that about 14 children ? toddlers to preteens ? were found at the facility, which is licensed to care for only three children at a time.
None injured
Paramedics examined the children and found them to be uninjured.
The children’s parents were called to pick them up, and the facility was shut down pending the outcome of an investigation, Carter said.
Parents told investigators that the Pateks did not let them look inside the home, Carter said.
The inquiry could take up to 30 days.
Carter said Marietta Patek once was registered to run a day care center at her home that could care for up to 12 children.
She closed that operation in 2001.
In 2003, she opened what was supposed to be a smaller-scale day care operation.
Neighbors defend them
Outside the large shuttered house in a leafy neighborhood, neighbors said that the Pateks have taken care of kids for decades.
Some called them foul-tempered, but others said they were pillars of the community.
“They’re model citizens,” said Lana Gregor, who said she’s known the family for more than 30 years. “They’re very hard workers and a credit to this place.”
Gregor and another neighbor, Sharla Bell, said they’ve let the Pateks take care of their children.
At the Twisted Willow Floral Shop a few miles away, owner Lynette Lee said stuffing children in a shed was a “poor choice.” But, she added, she wasn’t mad at the Pateks, despite the fact that her infant niece was one of those found in the shed.
“I’m sure she was just trying to protect her livelihood, hiding them from CPS’ eyes,” Lee said, “but they’re good people.”
LMAO! Anyone who attends a Royals game this late in this particular season deserves SOMETHING for free. What a disappointment this has been.
Posted on Wed, Aug. 12, 2009
Strike of '94 was 'strike three' for the winning Royals
By SAM MELLINGER
The Kansas City Star
You could hear the excitement a hundred yards away, and why not? Nobody could know this would be the day baseball died in Kansas City.
They lined up at the Kauffman Stadium gates, a dozen deep in some places, hours before the first pitch to watch another in a long line of winning home teams. The Seattle Mariners were in town this Saturday, part of an impromptu series in Kansas City because of falling concrete at the Kingdome.
More than 30,000 spontaneous souls dropped their plans and headed to the stadium, where the Royals stretched and talked and swung their bats with a swagger earned on a 14-game win streak.
They sat just one game behind the White Sox and Indians in the American League Central Division, no doubt in their minds that they’d make the playoffs. The gates opened and fans rushed toward the field to claim their first-come, first-serve seats. Shortstop Greg Gagne broke code and stopped his batting practice to take in the moment.
“Unbelievable,” he says now.
Relief pitcher Jeff Montgomery won’t ever forget it.
“Like a stampede,” he says now.
Designated hitter Bob Hamelin calls it one of the coolest moments of his life.
“Magical,” he says now.
This was August 1994, with Kansas City baseball fans still high off a history of winning but blind to the franchise’s growing foundation cracks and a brewing labor struggle that would help kill the team’s success for an entire generation.
The Royals lost that game to the Mariners, lost again the next day, and the day after that. And then that week ? 15 years ago Wednesday ? the players went on strike and didn’t come back until the next spring, wiping out the World Series. Playoff contenders before the strike, the Royals quickly turned into a joke.
“It knocked the heart out of a lot of people,” says Art Stewart, a longtime Royals executive.
Deposits for playoff tickets were returned. The owners lost their fight to institute a salary cap, and the Royals returned to a vastly different world from the one they left. Rich teams spent, while the rest struggled to keep up. Any momentum from that 1994 season died.
In the 25 years before the strike, the Royals were one of the sport’s model franchises with homegrown All-Stars. In many of the 15 years since, they’ve been a punch line and a last resort for players.
But here is where the noise of the strike distracts from the subtleties of the franchise’s collapse. The Royals were already wobbling from the death of owner Ewing Kauffman in 1993 and shaking from the losses of some of their brightest executives and scouts to Atlanta.
There are those who say the Royals were headed toward mediocrity anyway, that the strike is only part of the answer to why the franchise is still struggling to act like a real big-league ballclub again. Even now with more commitment from ownership to right the wrongs of the past, the Royals are 44-69 and on pace to finish in last place for the eighth time since the strike.
Pay gap widened
Hamelin stayed in Kansas City. He thought the strike might be short.
Outfielder Brian McRae knew better. Once the strike went past a week or so, he enrolled in broadcasting classes at the University of Kansas. He even stopped working out.
“I knew we weren’t playing,” he says. “So I found something else to do.”
The fight was particularly important to the people in Kansas City. The Royals had baseball’s highest payroll as late as 1990 and ranked fourth in spending in 1994. But the gap between baseball’s biggest and smallest payrolls grew from $14 million to $31 million in that time, and it was becoming apparent that the Royals ? without Kauffman’s competitive checkbook ? couldn’t keep up.
A salary cap would help. If rules kept spending even, the Royals could use their player development system ? instead of signing high-priced veteran players ? to maintain success. Owners in other places felt the same way. They dug in for a fight.
David Glass was the chairman of the Royals’ board of directors at the time and was among the most outspoken proponents for a salary cap. He did not return messages for this article.
The strike lasted through the winter and a spring training filled with replacement players.
The Royals were, literally, minutes from boarding a plane to open the season in Detroit with the replacements when the call came in. Big-leaguers were coming back to work, thanks to an injunction against the owners that put baseball back in business under the rules of the previous collective-bargaining agreement ? no salary cap.
The board of directors ? prepping for a sale of the team after Kauffman’s death ? slashed spending to the bone after the strike, equipped only with a $50 million reserve designed to bridge to a permanent owner.
Immediately, the Royals fired their manager, former Royals star Hal McRae, and cut payroll by more than 30 percent. Reigning Cy Young winner David Cone and Brian McRae, who was entering his prime offensively and defensively, were traded for minor-leaguers.
The Royals had 12 players making seven-figure salaries in 1994 and just four in 1995. The cutting was done more with a machete than scalpel, the payroll going from $40.5 million in 1994 to $27.6 million in 1995 and $18.5 million in 1996.
The board eventually sold the team to David Glass in 2000, but by then fans had only grainy memories of success. The Royals finished 30 games out of first place in 1995 and in last place the next two seasons.
“I was happy to go,” says Brian McRae, “because I didn’t think the organization was going to be worth a damn.”
Herk Robinson was the general manager in those days. He says he thinks all the time about that 1994 team.
“Who knows (what would have happened) if there’d been an owner who felt the emotion of what we were doing,” he says. “Maybe then it’s, ‘Hey, let’s bring everybody back.’ ”
It wasn’t just big-league payroll the Royals slashed. Minor-league teams struggled to get new uniforms or screens for batting practice. One year, the Royals ran out of money to sign draft picks after the sixth round. Other years, anybody taken after the fourth or fifth round was offered no more than $1,000.
Robinson’s biggest regret remains firing Hal McRae, Brian’s father. But when asked, he’s not sure whether anything could’ve saved the Royals from what amounted to a death sentence with the budget constraints.
By the time Glass hired Dayton Moore as general manager three years ago, the franchise had bottomed out to the point that multiple baseball officials described its talent as below expansion-team level.
Loss of Mr. K
This is where it gets tricky. The strike provides such a nice, clean dividing point between the Royals’ rich past and sorry present:
The 1985 World Series championship, two American League pennants, four division titles and 10 winning seasons in the 15 years leading up to the strike.
Four 100-loss seasons, seven last-place finishes and one winning team ? the 2003 Royals finished 83-79 ? in the 15 years since.
But blaming it all on the strike ignores some relevant facts.
The end may have actually begun four years earlier, when then-GM John Schuerholz left for Atlanta. Many of the Royals’ best scouts and executives followed, helping the Braves to an unprecedented 14 consecutive division titles.
Three years after Schuerholz left, Kauffman passed away. George Brett says that, more than the strike, was the cause of the Royals’ lost decade (and counting).
“Instead of looking up at the owner’s box and seeing Mr. K, all of a sudden he’s not there,” Brett says. “You’ve got this trust fund, these guys running the ballclub, some had an understanding of baseball and some didn’t.”
There’s no telling how things would’ve played out with Mr. K around.
“There wouldn’t have been a strike,” says Julia Irene Kauffman, still a member of the board of directors. “I really believe that. Daddy wouldn’t have let it happen. He had a way of bringing people together.”
Brett thinks Kauffman would’ve kept the Royals competitive, at least, spending whatever it took.
Robinson says Kauffman may have been “fed up” at a strike and pulled back spending. He loved the Royals, loved baseball, but the man had limits.
“One year he lost a million dollars and he just hated it,” Robinson says. “He was a man who wanted to spend money wisely. He didn’t feel spending it on a ballclub was a wise way to spend it. He’d rather spend a million dollars for a good cause than waste 50 cents.”
Events were too much
Perhaps the strike’s consequences just compounded the issues the Royals were facing.
Jan Kreamer, a board member during the strike, thinks it’s very possible that the work stoppage and changing financial climate and labor situation eliminated some potential interest from qualified buyers.
There’s a thought among many that without the strike, a buyer would have emerged sooner and that with Kauffman still around, the Royals would have better navigated the decade that followed. The combination of events was too much for a fragile foundation.
“The strike was strike three,” Brian McRae says. “Strike one was Schuerholz and people in the front office leaving. Strike two was Mr. K dying. Strike three was the strike and not playing.”
‘It’s getting better’
The problem with judging whether the Royals are clear of the problems of 15 years ago is that we are in the midst of perhaps the most disappointing season of them all.
The Royals have fielded worse teams (106 losses in 2005 ? this team, even after starting 18-11 is on pace to lose 99, with worse players (pitcher Mark Redman had a 5.27 ERA at the break in 2006 but was the Royals’ All-Star) and less hope (Zack Greinke, who has pitched like one of baseball’s best pitchers for most of this season, is signed for three more years).
But they’ve never done it with a 20 percent payroll increase in the first season of $250 million worth of stadium renovations in a season that began with playoff hopes.
So from ground level, the Royals look as bad as ever. But from 30,000 feet, the view is better.
“You probably don’t want to quote me on this because you’ll get a bunch of phone calls,” says an executive of a rival club, “but I’m telling you, baseball people know the Royals are finally getting past all that stuff from the past. I know the record is ugly, and I know the fans are mad. But the change in how they’ve operated the last few years is obvious.
“One of my scouts just told me the (Class A) Wilmington team is the best he’s ever seen. I’m not sure the fans there in Kansas City truly understand how bad it was.”
Even for several years after buying the team, Glass allowed the Royals to operate in much the same way they did under the board of directors.
Persistent losing appears to have changed that. He is now operating like successful team owners, by committing more money, by hiring the best people he can and letting them run the baseball team.
But the Royals are no longer viewed as an industrywide joke; the punchlines mostly stopping when Moore was hired and baseball insiders started noticing a renewed commitment to scouting and player development.
The Royals spent more on last year’s draft picks than any team in baseball history. This year’s big-league payroll, $70.6 million on opening day, was a club record.
Their focus on rebuilding the organization from the inside is a reflection of that, too. A record $11 million on last year’s draft picks is the clearest recognition that the Royals must get back to the days when their farm system produced Brett, Frank White, Bret Saberhagen, Cone, Willie Wilson, Dan Quisenberry and more.
In a lot of ways, it’s their only chance.
“It’s getting better,” Brett says. “We’re getting there. We’re on the way. It won’t be like it was anymore.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Royal highs and lows
1969: The team begins play in old Municipal Stadium.
1973: Royals move into new stadium and welcome a rookie named George Brett.
1976: The team makes the playoffs for the first time.
1985: Royals win the World Series.
1990: General Manager John Schuerholz leaves for the Atlanta Braves.
1993: Owner Ewing Kauffman dies.
1994: Baseball players go on strike, canceling the playoffs and World Series.
1995: Play resumes but the Royals look like a different team. The following years bring four 100-loss seasons and seven last-place finishes.
Strike of '94 was 'strike three' for the winning Royals
By SAM MELLINGER
The Kansas City Star
You could hear the excitement a hundred yards away, and why not? Nobody could know this would be the day baseball died in Kansas City.
They lined up at the Kauffman Stadium gates, a dozen deep in some places, hours before the first pitch to watch another in a long line of winning home teams. The Seattle Mariners were in town this Saturday, part of an impromptu series in Kansas City because of falling concrete at the Kingdome.
More than 30,000 spontaneous souls dropped their plans and headed to the stadium, where the Royals stretched and talked and swung their bats with a swagger earned on a 14-game win streak.
They sat just one game behind the White Sox and Indians in the American League Central Division, no doubt in their minds that they’d make the playoffs. The gates opened and fans rushed toward the field to claim their first-come, first-serve seats. Shortstop Greg Gagne broke code and stopped his batting practice to take in the moment.
“Unbelievable,” he says now.
Relief pitcher Jeff Montgomery won’t ever forget it.
“Like a stampede,” he says now.
Designated hitter Bob Hamelin calls it one of the coolest moments of his life.
“Magical,” he says now.
This was August 1994, with Kansas City baseball fans still high off a history of winning but blind to the franchise’s growing foundation cracks and a brewing labor struggle that would help kill the team’s success for an entire generation.
The Royals lost that game to the Mariners, lost again the next day, and the day after that. And then that week ? 15 years ago Wednesday ? the players went on strike and didn’t come back until the next spring, wiping out the World Series. Playoff contenders before the strike, the Royals quickly turned into a joke.
“It knocked the heart out of a lot of people,” says Art Stewart, a longtime Royals executive.
Deposits for playoff tickets were returned. The owners lost their fight to institute a salary cap, and the Royals returned to a vastly different world from the one they left. Rich teams spent, while the rest struggled to keep up. Any momentum from that 1994 season died.
In the 25 years before the strike, the Royals were one of the sport’s model franchises with homegrown All-Stars. In many of the 15 years since, they’ve been a punch line and a last resort for players.
But here is where the noise of the strike distracts from the subtleties of the franchise’s collapse. The Royals were already wobbling from the death of owner Ewing Kauffman in 1993 and shaking from the losses of some of their brightest executives and scouts to Atlanta.
There are those who say the Royals were headed toward mediocrity anyway, that the strike is only part of the answer to why the franchise is still struggling to act like a real big-league ballclub again. Even now with more commitment from ownership to right the wrongs of the past, the Royals are 44-69 and on pace to finish in last place for the eighth time since the strike.
Pay gap widened
Hamelin stayed in Kansas City. He thought the strike might be short.
Outfielder Brian McRae knew better. Once the strike went past a week or so, he enrolled in broadcasting classes at the University of Kansas. He even stopped working out.
“I knew we weren’t playing,” he says. “So I found something else to do.”
The fight was particularly important to the people in Kansas City. The Royals had baseball’s highest payroll as late as 1990 and ranked fourth in spending in 1994. But the gap between baseball’s biggest and smallest payrolls grew from $14 million to $31 million in that time, and it was becoming apparent that the Royals ? without Kauffman’s competitive checkbook ? couldn’t keep up.
A salary cap would help. If rules kept spending even, the Royals could use their player development system ? instead of signing high-priced veteran players ? to maintain success. Owners in other places felt the same way. They dug in for a fight.
David Glass was the chairman of the Royals’ board of directors at the time and was among the most outspoken proponents for a salary cap. He did not return messages for this article.
The strike lasted through the winter and a spring training filled with replacement players.
The Royals were, literally, minutes from boarding a plane to open the season in Detroit with the replacements when the call came in. Big-leaguers were coming back to work, thanks to an injunction against the owners that put baseball back in business under the rules of the previous collective-bargaining agreement ? no salary cap.
The board of directors ? prepping for a sale of the team after Kauffman’s death ? slashed spending to the bone after the strike, equipped only with a $50 million reserve designed to bridge to a permanent owner.
Immediately, the Royals fired their manager, former Royals star Hal McRae, and cut payroll by more than 30 percent. Reigning Cy Young winner David Cone and Brian McRae, who was entering his prime offensively and defensively, were traded for minor-leaguers.
The Royals had 12 players making seven-figure salaries in 1994 and just four in 1995. The cutting was done more with a machete than scalpel, the payroll going from $40.5 million in 1994 to $27.6 million in 1995 and $18.5 million in 1996.
The board eventually sold the team to David Glass in 2000, but by then fans had only grainy memories of success. The Royals finished 30 games out of first place in 1995 and in last place the next two seasons.
“I was happy to go,” says Brian McRae, “because I didn’t think the organization was going to be worth a damn.”
Herk Robinson was the general manager in those days. He says he thinks all the time about that 1994 team.
“Who knows (what would have happened) if there’d been an owner who felt the emotion of what we were doing,” he says. “Maybe then it’s, ‘Hey, let’s bring everybody back.’ ”
It wasn’t just big-league payroll the Royals slashed. Minor-league teams struggled to get new uniforms or screens for batting practice. One year, the Royals ran out of money to sign draft picks after the sixth round. Other years, anybody taken after the fourth or fifth round was offered no more than $1,000.
Robinson’s biggest regret remains firing Hal McRae, Brian’s father. But when asked, he’s not sure whether anything could’ve saved the Royals from what amounted to a death sentence with the budget constraints.
By the time Glass hired Dayton Moore as general manager three years ago, the franchise had bottomed out to the point that multiple baseball officials described its talent as below expansion-team level.
Loss of Mr. K
This is where it gets tricky. The strike provides such a nice, clean dividing point between the Royals’ rich past and sorry present:
The 1985 World Series championship, two American League pennants, four division titles and 10 winning seasons in the 15 years leading up to the strike.
Four 100-loss seasons, seven last-place finishes and one winning team ? the 2003 Royals finished 83-79 ? in the 15 years since.
But blaming it all on the strike ignores some relevant facts.
The end may have actually begun four years earlier, when then-GM John Schuerholz left for Atlanta. Many of the Royals’ best scouts and executives followed, helping the Braves to an unprecedented 14 consecutive division titles.
Three years after Schuerholz left, Kauffman passed away. George Brett says that, more than the strike, was the cause of the Royals’ lost decade (and counting).
“Instead of looking up at the owner’s box and seeing Mr. K, all of a sudden he’s not there,” Brett says. “You’ve got this trust fund, these guys running the ballclub, some had an understanding of baseball and some didn’t.”
There’s no telling how things would’ve played out with Mr. K around.
“There wouldn’t have been a strike,” says Julia Irene Kauffman, still a member of the board of directors. “I really believe that. Daddy wouldn’t have let it happen. He had a way of bringing people together.”
Brett thinks Kauffman would’ve kept the Royals competitive, at least, spending whatever it took.
Robinson says Kauffman may have been “fed up” at a strike and pulled back spending. He loved the Royals, loved baseball, but the man had limits.
“One year he lost a million dollars and he just hated it,” Robinson says. “He was a man who wanted to spend money wisely. He didn’t feel spending it on a ballclub was a wise way to spend it. He’d rather spend a million dollars for a good cause than waste 50 cents.”
Events were too much
Perhaps the strike’s consequences just compounded the issues the Royals were facing.
Jan Kreamer, a board member during the strike, thinks it’s very possible that the work stoppage and changing financial climate and labor situation eliminated some potential interest from qualified buyers.
There’s a thought among many that without the strike, a buyer would have emerged sooner and that with Kauffman still around, the Royals would have better navigated the decade that followed. The combination of events was too much for a fragile foundation.
“The strike was strike three,” Brian McRae says. “Strike one was Schuerholz and people in the front office leaving. Strike two was Mr. K dying. Strike three was the strike and not playing.”
‘It’s getting better’
The problem with judging whether the Royals are clear of the problems of 15 years ago is that we are in the midst of perhaps the most disappointing season of them all.
The Royals have fielded worse teams (106 losses in 2005 ? this team, even after starting 18-11 is on pace to lose 99, with worse players (pitcher Mark Redman had a 5.27 ERA at the break in 2006 but was the Royals’ All-Star) and less hope (Zack Greinke, who has pitched like one of baseball’s best pitchers for most of this season, is signed for three more years).
But they’ve never done it with a 20 percent payroll increase in the first season of $250 million worth of stadium renovations in a season that began with playoff hopes.
So from ground level, the Royals look as bad as ever. But from 30,000 feet, the view is better.
“You probably don’t want to quote me on this because you’ll get a bunch of phone calls,” says an executive of a rival club, “but I’m telling you, baseball people know the Royals are finally getting past all that stuff from the past. I know the record is ugly, and I know the fans are mad. But the change in how they’ve operated the last few years is obvious.
“One of my scouts just told me the (Class A) Wilmington team is the best he’s ever seen. I’m not sure the fans there in Kansas City truly understand how bad it was.”
Even for several years after buying the team, Glass allowed the Royals to operate in much the same way they did under the board of directors.
Persistent losing appears to have changed that. He is now operating like successful team owners, by committing more money, by hiring the best people he can and letting them run the baseball team.
But the Royals are no longer viewed as an industrywide joke; the punchlines mostly stopping when Moore was hired and baseball insiders started noticing a renewed commitment to scouting and player development.
The Royals spent more on last year’s draft picks than any team in baseball history. This year’s big-league payroll, $70.6 million on opening day, was a club record.
Their focus on rebuilding the organization from the inside is a reflection of that, too. A record $11 million on last year’s draft picks is the clearest recognition that the Royals must get back to the days when their farm system produced Brett, Frank White, Bret Saberhagen, Cone, Willie Wilson, Dan Quisenberry and more.
In a lot of ways, it’s their only chance.
“It’s getting better,” Brett says. “We’re getting there. We’re on the way. It won’t be like it was anymore.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Royal highs and lows
1969: The team begins play in old Municipal Stadium.
1973: Royals move into new stadium and welcome a rookie named George Brett.
1976: The team makes the playoffs for the first time.
1985: Royals win the World Series.
1990: General Manager John Schuerholz leaves for the Atlanta Braves.
1993: Owner Ewing Kauffman dies.
1994: Baseball players go on strike, canceling the playoffs and World Series.
1995: Play resumes but the Royals look like a different team. The following years bring four 100-loss seasons and seven last-place finishes.
No reason to giggle. I think Mellenger's story that MU posted makes alot of good points and says things that have needed to be said for quite a while.
I'll do my part to make the dream happen. I am not a Royals fan, but they've made me look like a fool. I put money down with a friend that they would win 80 games this year. I figured the pitching would be good, and the hitting might be decent. Oh well, maybe next year.
If you can change your bet to "They won't lose 100 games this year", you might have a chance, 2poor!
I just wanted to take back what I said about the better fielding part above. Otherwise, 2 years later, I'd like to pat myself on the back for yet another prescient observation.
I hear they are waiting on Getz to pass his physical. He had a sports hernia operated on this summer.
Nov 17th at 1:00pm
Greinke has KC thinking Cy Young
Gold Glove also a possibility for pitcher this awards season
By Dick Kaegel / MLB.com
KANSAS CITY -- Over the next 15 days, it's awards season, and there's no doubt about the Royals' top nominee: pitcher Zack Greinke.
Greinke's brilliant season puts him squarely in the running for the American League Cy Young Award. The results of that vote by 28 members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America will be announced at 1 p.m. CT on Nov. 17.
There could be another award, though, for Greinke as early as this Tuesday. That's when the AL Gold Glove Awards will be announced, and the Royals were promoting Greinke and left fielder David DeJesus as candidates for their outstanding fielding.
But it's the Cy Young Award, of course, that stirs the most notice, and the Royals have not had a winner since David Cone in the strike-shortened 1994 season. The club's only other winner was Bret Saberhagen in 1985 and 1989.
"When they say 'Cy Young,' " pitching coach Bob McClure said, "to me, Cy Young means who was the best pitcher -- not thrower. And when I look at the other guys, I think Zack was more of a pitcher -- even though he's a power guy -- more than anybody."
Greinke led the Majors with a 2.16 ERA and rang up 242 strikeouts, second most in the league. If there's a drawback, it's his 16-8 record. Six AL pitchers won more games than he did. The Mariners' Felix Hernandez, at 19-5 and a 2.49 ERA, figures to be his primary competition.
"Not to take anything away from Felix -- I played with him for a number of years and his stuff's electric as well," the Royals' Willie Bloomquist said. "And Roy Halladay and CC [Sabathia] are guys I'd like to have on my team any day of the week as well -- but from what I saw from Zack this year, his stuff is second to nobody."
Halladay, 17-9 for the Blue Jays, had the AL's third-best ERA at 2.79. The Yankees' Sabathia, 19-8 and 3.37, and the Tigers' Justin Verlander, 19-8 and 3.45, tied Hernandez for the most victories.
There's no doubt that Greinke's victory total could have grown with more run support and more help from a porous bullpen.
"He could've had 20 wins. He just pitched on the wrong day," McClure said.
Greinke's superb pitching undoubtedly cast more attention on his skills as a fielder as well. The Gold Glove voting is done by the league's managers and coaches.
He's quick and graceful and sharp at grabbing a bunt or a comeback grounder. His 35 assists were second in the AL among pitchers to the 41 by the White Sox's Mark Buehrle, who is probably his leading rival. Greinke made just one error this year and has only three in his career.
The AL pitching spot is open for a new winner because the last two picks are gone. Mike Mussina (2008) has retired, and Johan Santana (2007) has changed leagues.
DeJesus was just one of three Major League outfielders who played at least 140 games and did not commit an error. He tied for second in the AL with 13 assists and his diving and sliding catches could fill a highlight reel.
But he's a left fielder and the Gold Gloves most often go to center or right fielders. Torii Hunter and Ichiro Suzuki have won for eight straight years, and Grady Sizemore has won the past two years.
Odd isn't it that the team with the worst fielding record in the league should have two worthy Gold Glove candidates?
The Royals' last Gold Glove winner was Mark Grudzielanek in 2006 at second base, the same position at which Frank White won eight times. Saberhagen in 1989 was the only Royals pitcher to win one. The club has had four Gold Glove outfielders: Jermaine Dye in 2000, Willie Wilson in 1980, Al Cowens in 1977 and Amos Otis in 1971, '73 and '74.
Dick Kaegel
Greinke has KC thinking Cy Young
Gold Glove also a possibility for pitcher this awards season
By Dick Kaegel / MLB.com
KANSAS CITY -- Over the next 15 days, it's awards season, and there's no doubt about the Royals' top nominee: pitcher Zack Greinke.
Greinke's brilliant season puts him squarely in the running for the American League Cy Young Award. The results of that vote by 28 members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America will be announced at 1 p.m. CT on Nov. 17.
There could be another award, though, for Greinke as early as this Tuesday. That's when the AL Gold Glove Awards will be announced, and the Royals were promoting Greinke and left fielder David DeJesus as candidates for their outstanding fielding.
But it's the Cy Young Award, of course, that stirs the most notice, and the Royals have not had a winner since David Cone in the strike-shortened 1994 season. The club's only other winner was Bret Saberhagen in 1985 and 1989.
"When they say 'Cy Young,' " pitching coach Bob McClure said, "to me, Cy Young means who was the best pitcher -- not thrower. And when I look at the other guys, I think Zack was more of a pitcher -- even though he's a power guy -- more than anybody."
Greinke led the Majors with a 2.16 ERA and rang up 242 strikeouts, second most in the league. If there's a drawback, it's his 16-8 record. Six AL pitchers won more games than he did. The Mariners' Felix Hernandez, at 19-5 and a 2.49 ERA, figures to be his primary competition.
"Not to take anything away from Felix -- I played with him for a number of years and his stuff's electric as well," the Royals' Willie Bloomquist said. "And Roy Halladay and CC [Sabathia] are guys I'd like to have on my team any day of the week as well -- but from what I saw from Zack this year, his stuff is second to nobody."
Halladay, 17-9 for the Blue Jays, had the AL's third-best ERA at 2.79. The Yankees' Sabathia, 19-8 and 3.37, and the Tigers' Justin Verlander, 19-8 and 3.45, tied Hernandez for the most victories.
There's no doubt that Greinke's victory total could have grown with more run support and more help from a porous bullpen.
"He could've had 20 wins. He just pitched on the wrong day," McClure said.
Greinke's superb pitching undoubtedly cast more attention on his skills as a fielder as well. The Gold Glove voting is done by the league's managers and coaches.
He's quick and graceful and sharp at grabbing a bunt or a comeback grounder. His 35 assists were second in the AL among pitchers to the 41 by the White Sox's Mark Buehrle, who is probably his leading rival. Greinke made just one error this year and has only three in his career.
The AL pitching spot is open for a new winner because the last two picks are gone. Mike Mussina (2008) has retired, and Johan Santana (2007) has changed leagues.
DeJesus was just one of three Major League outfielders who played at least 140 games and did not commit an error. He tied for second in the AL with 13 assists and his diving and sliding catches could fill a highlight reel.
But he's a left fielder and the Gold Gloves most often go to center or right fielders. Torii Hunter and Ichiro Suzuki have won for eight straight years, and Grady Sizemore has won the past two years.
Odd isn't it that the team with the worst fielding record in the league should have two worthy Gold Glove candidates?
The Royals' last Gold Glove winner was Mark Grudzielanek in 2006 at second base, the same position at which Frank White won eight times. Saberhagen in 1989 was the only Royals pitcher to win one. The club has had four Gold Glove outfielders: Jermaine Dye in 2000, Willie Wilson in 1980, Al Cowens in 1977 and Amos Otis in 1971, '73 and '74.
Dick Kaegel
I know you're not going to believe it but we signed another crappy ex-Brave - Wilson Betimit.
FML
FML
TUMU texted me at the basketball game today to give me the news. I high-fived people I didn't know when I got the news!
LEC,
I was looking at you to see your reaction when you opened the text. It was awesome to see you pump fist and then high fiving the people around you.
I was surprised he won as easily as he did. I think he got 25 of 28 first place votes.
That is CY Young award number 4 for a Royals pitcher.
I was looking at you to see your reaction when you opened the text. It was awesome to see you pump fist and then high fiving the people around you.
I was surprised he won as easily as he did. I think he got 25 of 28 first place votes.
That is CY Young award number 4 for a Royals pitcher.
The good news: Zack wins his much-deserved Cy Young (I was worried pitching for a last-place team would hurt him).
The bad news: The Royals continue to corner the market on .220-hitting combination corner (3B/1B) infielders. And it looks like one of our top prospects, Pete Moustakas (not sure of spelling) is going to be in the same category.
This post was edited on 12/10 4:02 PM by old.guy
The bad news: The Royals continue to corner the market on .220-hitting combination corner (3B/1B) infielders. And it looks like one of our top prospects, Pete Moustakas (not sure of spelling) is going to be in the same category.
This post was edited on 12/10 4:02 PM by old.guy
Posted on Sat, Dec. 05, 2009
Royals believed near agreement with prominent Cuban defector
By BOB DUTTON
The Kansas City Star
The Royals are poised to start the winter meetings with a blockbuster signing.
Multiple sources indicate the club was near an agreement Saturday night with Cuban defector Noel Arguellas, a 19-year-old left-handed pitcher regarded as a top prospect.
Yahoo.com reported the two sides reached agreement on a major-league deal, pending a physical, for a guaranteed $7 million over five years with incentives capable of adding another two million.
General manager Dayton Moore denied any deal is in place but admitted joining other club personnel last week in the Dominican Republic for a first-hand evaluation of Arguelles.
“I can’t discuss any aspect of any negotiation,” Moore said. “We have scouted the player the way that other teams have scouted him.”
Sources say Arguelles, 6 feet 3 and 200 pounds, wowed scouts in recent tryout camps with an above-average fastball and displaying plus pitches with his curveball and changeup.
“Big-time prospect,” one official with another club said. “His velocity was down a little bit when I saw him, but I think that’s because he hasn’t been on a regular throwing program.”
Arguelles also drew strong interest from the Yankees, Mariners, Rays and A’s.
“If he was in this year’s draft,” one source said, “he’d be one of the first four or five picks. But he’s not ready at this point for the major leagues.”
Instead, Arguelles is likely to start next season at Class A ball.
The Royals made a strong run last summer at Cuban shortstop Jose Iglesias, who defected with Arguelles last summer in Canada. Iglesias eventually signed with Boston for $8.2 million.
Royals believed near agreement with prominent Cuban defector
By BOB DUTTON
The Kansas City Star
The Royals are poised to start the winter meetings with a blockbuster signing.
Multiple sources indicate the club was near an agreement Saturday night with Cuban defector Noel Arguellas, a 19-year-old left-handed pitcher regarded as a top prospect.
Yahoo.com reported the two sides reached agreement on a major-league deal, pending a physical, for a guaranteed $7 million over five years with incentives capable of adding another two million.
General manager Dayton Moore denied any deal is in place but admitted joining other club personnel last week in the Dominican Republic for a first-hand evaluation of Arguelles.
“I can’t discuss any aspect of any negotiation,” Moore said. “We have scouted the player the way that other teams have scouted him.”
Sources say Arguelles, 6 feet 3 and 200 pounds, wowed scouts in recent tryout camps with an above-average fastball and displaying plus pitches with his curveball and changeup.
“Big-time prospect,” one official with another club said. “His velocity was down a little bit when I saw him, but I think that’s because he hasn’t been on a regular throwing program.”
Arguelles also drew strong interest from the Yankees, Mariners, Rays and A’s.
“If he was in this year’s draft,” one source said, “he’d be one of the first four or five picks. But he’s not ready at this point for the major leagues.”
Instead, Arguelles is likely to start next season at Class A ball.
The Royals made a strong run last summer at Cuban shortstop Jose Iglesias, who defected with Arguelles last summer in Canada. Iglesias eventually signed with Boston for $8.2 million.
Dick Kaegel / MLB.com
12/08/09 4:01 PM EST
INDIANAPOLIS -- Whitey Herzog's trek to the Hall of Fame really started in Kansas City. He'd been dismissed by the Texas Rangers, was coaching third base for the California Angels and his managerial prospects were dim.
Herzog recalled how his career was rejuvenated in Kansas City on Tuesday as he and umpire Doug Harvey were introduced as the newest members of the elite club at Cooperstown, N.Y.
"I didn't think I'd ever get a chance, and that's why I've got to thank Joe Burke," Herzog said.
Burke was Herzog's boss at Texas, and one day in 1973 it was announced that Burke was leaving the Rangers to become the Royals' general manager. That led to an offer from Rangers owner Bob Short.
"Bob Short, who didn't care about winning -- he was kind of a fast-buck guy -- called me up and said, 'You're the best manager I ever had, you want to be general manager?'" Herzog recalled. "And I said, 'No, I came here to manage, I'd like to build up the ballclub.'"
So there it stood, but just briefly.
"The next morning, I'm standing in the dugout and they announced that Billy Martin had been fired in Detroit. And Bob Sharp said, 'I'd fire my grandmother if I could hire Billy Martin,'" Herzog said. "And I happened to be his grandmother, because I got fired the next day."
Herzog's resume didn't read too well, either, because his record in 1973 was 47-91. Yet the firing came as a surprise.
"That was kind of a shock to me, because I never thought I'd get another chance," he said.
Yet fortune smiled on him in 1975 when Burke, now in charge in KC, called.
"He said he was going to have to make a managerial change -- that Jack McKeon was in trouble. And he interviewed Tommy [Lasorda] and me and Billy Hunter. I lived only 2 1/2 miles from the ballpark in Kansas City, and I got chosen as their manager," Herzog said. "I got in there at a very good time with a very good team, and they changed my whole career around. It was a good ballclub. Not only could we hit home runs, we could play defense, we could do a lot of things and run bases."
Under Herzog, the Royals made some noise in 1975 and finished second, then won the American League West title in 1976-77-78.
"My fondest memory in Kansas City was getting hired in Kansas City, because I came in there at an opportune time," Herzog said. "George Brett was a rookie, [John] Mayberry was young, [Fred] Patek was there, and I had two guys on the bench that became All-Stars in Frank White and Al Cowens. And I had Amos Otis and Hal McRae and [Paul] Splittorff. I really had a great team, and we played the Yankees tough."
The Royals also lost all three playoffs to the Yankees. And after a second-place finish in 1979, Royals owner Ewing Kauffman dismissed Herzog.
"Part of it was my fault and part of it was not my fault," Herzog said. "Me and Mr. Kauffman just didn't hit it off that good. It was one of those things. I was a brash young guy and the next thing I know -- we set an all-time attendance record after finishing three games out and winning three times in a row -- and I'm looking for a job."
Not for long, however. The St. Louis Cardinals called and by the next year he was not only general manager but also manager. He found happiness and more success in St. Louis and, on Monday, he was voted into the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee.
Could Herzog's career in Kansas City have lasted longer than it did?
Perhaps, he figures, if the Royals had signed the great reliever Goose Gossage in November 1977, but he signed with the Yankees instead.
"I always felt that if we could have signed Gossage in Kansas City that I might still be managing there, because he was from Colorado Springs and I thought we had a pretty good chance," Herzog said. "He wanted $600,000 and that's what the Yankees signed him for. If I'd have had Gossage with the team we had in Kansas City, we'd have won a lot. But that's the way it is."
Dick Kaegel is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
12/08/09 4:01 PM EST
INDIANAPOLIS -- Whitey Herzog's trek to the Hall of Fame really started in Kansas City. He'd been dismissed by the Texas Rangers, was coaching third base for the California Angels and his managerial prospects were dim.
Herzog recalled how his career was rejuvenated in Kansas City on Tuesday as he and umpire Doug Harvey were introduced as the newest members of the elite club at Cooperstown, N.Y.
"I didn't think I'd ever get a chance, and that's why I've got to thank Joe Burke," Herzog said.
Burke was Herzog's boss at Texas, and one day in 1973 it was announced that Burke was leaving the Rangers to become the Royals' general manager. That led to an offer from Rangers owner Bob Short.
"Bob Short, who didn't care about winning -- he was kind of a fast-buck guy -- called me up and said, 'You're the best manager I ever had, you want to be general manager?'" Herzog recalled. "And I said, 'No, I came here to manage, I'd like to build up the ballclub.'"
So there it stood, but just briefly.
"The next morning, I'm standing in the dugout and they announced that Billy Martin had been fired in Detroit. And Bob Sharp said, 'I'd fire my grandmother if I could hire Billy Martin,'" Herzog said. "And I happened to be his grandmother, because I got fired the next day."
Herzog's resume didn't read too well, either, because his record in 1973 was 47-91. Yet the firing came as a surprise.
"That was kind of a shock to me, because I never thought I'd get another chance," he said.
Yet fortune smiled on him in 1975 when Burke, now in charge in KC, called.
"He said he was going to have to make a managerial change -- that Jack McKeon was in trouble. And he interviewed Tommy [Lasorda] and me and Billy Hunter. I lived only 2 1/2 miles from the ballpark in Kansas City, and I got chosen as their manager," Herzog said. "I got in there at a very good time with a very good team, and they changed my whole career around. It was a good ballclub. Not only could we hit home runs, we could play defense, we could do a lot of things and run bases."
Under Herzog, the Royals made some noise in 1975 and finished second, then won the American League West title in 1976-77-78.
"My fondest memory in Kansas City was getting hired in Kansas City, because I came in there at an opportune time," Herzog said. "George Brett was a rookie, [John] Mayberry was young, [Fred] Patek was there, and I had two guys on the bench that became All-Stars in Frank White and Al Cowens. And I had Amos Otis and Hal McRae and [Paul] Splittorff. I really had a great team, and we played the Yankees tough."
The Royals also lost all three playoffs to the Yankees. And after a second-place finish in 1979, Royals owner Ewing Kauffman dismissed Herzog.
"Part of it was my fault and part of it was not my fault," Herzog said. "Me and Mr. Kauffman just didn't hit it off that good. It was one of those things. I was a brash young guy and the next thing I know -- we set an all-time attendance record after finishing three games out and winning three times in a row -- and I'm looking for a job."
Not for long, however. The St. Louis Cardinals called and by the next year he was not only general manager but also manager. He found happiness and more success in St. Louis and, on Monday, he was voted into the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee.
Could Herzog's career in Kansas City have lasted longer than it did?
Perhaps, he figures, if the Royals had signed the great reliever Goose Gossage in November 1977, but he signed with the Yankees instead.
"I always felt that if we could have signed Gossage in Kansas City that I might still be managing there, because he was from Colorado Springs and I thought we had a pretty good chance," Herzog said. "He wanted $600,000 and that's what the Yankees signed him for. If I'd have had Gossage with the team we had in Kansas City, we'd have won a lot. But that's the way it is."
Dick Kaegel is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
Very interesting "what if" scenarios from back in the day. Thanks for posting, Mu. The number of views has passed Ty Cobb and is closing in fast on Charlie Hustle!
