What separates Red and Blue?

Saint Louis playoffs, just another day.

Its the first of Fall. Just another night in Saint Louis, MO.

In one of the best baseball games I’ve seen in years, Carpenter pitched his heart out. Halladay a valiant effort, but a run given up on this night, was far too much. Carpenter jumping by the mound, mobbed by his teammates. Saint Louis victorious, Philadelphia battered, finished, torn.

The Cardinals advance. The Phillies walk away losers.

On come the Brewers, led by familar pitching, pounding bats, and a rambunctious fan base. A world series appearance is on the line for two division rivals, and nothing sets the tone better than a pitching mime talking trash.

Here we find Zack Greinke, former Cy Young winner for the Brewers farm club, Kansas City Royals.

If the Royals are GREAT at one thing it is this–giving away good talent to teams that succeed in the playoffs, and it’s fun to watch. It’s so much of a trend that any player that departs Kansas City should be positively sure he will go on to pop champagne bottles post game. It’s a sure fire bet!

Greinke seems unphased in this aspect of success. Almost like a free ticket to the Yankees or Redsox, but man, Zack landed on a very good team. He pulled off a season in Milwaukee that would have been the best for a pitcher in Kansas City. No shock…Was it the money, change of pace or scenery? How was Zack Greinke fighting for the National League pennant?

This is simply another example of modern day Royals history. A timetable of a financial malnourishment. The Greinke story is no different than ones of the past that mirror Damon, Dye, and Beltran. In the next five years, Greinke will have his ring, and we will ponder back and forth on how we let another one slip away. Can you see it now? Veteran ace Greinke leaves Brewers for divsion foe Chicago Cubs.

Cubs curse ends, World Series champs. Greinke MVP.

Just LAST year Zack Greinke was on a Kansas City mound leading a crew of lack luster fill ins, silently begging to be pushed elsewhere. His wish was granted, the Royals received fair talent in return, and we see Greinke months later in a post season press conference attacking newly acclaimed rival Chris Carpenter.

You have to admire a man who speaks so confidently in public on his negative feelings towards another man.

Unfortunately for him, arrogance slipped in, he spoke to soon and the Cardinals beat him fair and square. The Brewers fell short and Greinke still has bare fingers at the end of the day.

The shadows of the season have cast upon the Royals, now hidden until next year. The Brewers (a team I like to compare to Kansas City) are now the new Tampa Bay Rays. The Texas Rangers are building some what of a competitive dynasty (similar to the Phillies in the early nineties). Baseball, as we know it has changed. The Yankees really don’t win them ALL.

Fairness aside, competitive balance still lingers in the league. There is barely any parody between teams, but somehow you still feel that any team can win, and that’s the way it should be. There are no guarantees, not even financially.

At the end of the day, Major League Baseball’s other Missouri team is fighting for another ring.

Being the current resident of Saint Louis that I am, all I can say is this:

Baseball is everything here. Its the most interesting perspective to now LIVE in STL, while just months ago LIVE in Kansas City. I lived in KC for 25, count them, 25 years! A solid quarter in the pocket. I mean come on! I have seen the best and worst the city has to offer. My BBQ palate was worked to the brim. I am and always will be a Kansas City man. But since then I have moved to the Gateway city, the Cardinals success could have not come at a stranger time.

I moved in May and the Cardinals were an extremely bland team in a city that was bound to chew them up. Cardinals fans hated this team. They hated the fact Albert Pujols was in trade talks. They hated Ryan Franklin blowing every opportunity given to him. They hated the team, plain and simple. Each morning a column in the Post Dispatch spoke poorly of this team in a downwards spiral and it was flat out nasty.

Then it changed.

It was the first week of SEPTEMBER. The season was all but finished. I decided to attend a game for cheap since the Cards were out of the race. A $15 ticket at Busch I might add. Not too shabby. They played division foe Cincinnati and were ten games back. It seemed like a team dying to get this mess of a season over with. For whatever reason though, for the next two weeks, Saint Louis kept winning and Atlanta kept losing.

Before you could blink an eye, the Cardinals are sitting quiet earning attention as the National League wildcard. The rest is history.

I’m telling you Royals fans. I now have the outside perspective. As a Royal fan, I no longer look from the inside out. I look from the outside in.

Today I’m telling you that ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN WITH ANY TEAM IN BASEBALL. The Cardinals were a distraught franchise just three months ago. They soon went from mediocre and partially stable, to wild card contenders, to National League Champions.

The Braves should be there.

The Diamondbacks should be there.

The Brewers should be there.

The Phillies should be there. But they aren’t.

The Cardinals are.

As the Royals drift into another cold offseason once again forgotten, there is still hope.