Heartbreak At Home

I thought I could do it. I honestly thought I could do it. I thought that a journey to Kauffman would be enough to halt this disgusting losing streak.

I am thoroughly cowed.

There’s something about actually being at the stadium that made me think we could finally score our first win at home. There’s also something about actually being at the stadium that makes it so much more depressing when we lose.

The day started like it has for the last 4 years. Three of my friends and I pile into the car fairly early Saturday morning and make the trek up to the “K” to get some free jerseys and watch the Royals. We grab something for lunch, hit up some thrift stores to grab some cheap royals gear and head to the game early for those coveted jerseys.

We stopped at Gates Barbecue this year and hit up a couple of stores. I found a couple of books and a decent Royals shirt, but it was pretty big so I passed. Went to the stadium, picked up our jerseys, and took our seats. They were awesome. Just past the third base dugout, three rows from the field. After getting a few BP foul balls yanked our way, I got a text from a buddy who was also at the game. He’d brought a couple of ladies from school and wanted me to help introduce them to Kauffman. We checked out the the Royals hall of fame and the girls seemed fairly impressed. It’s always a lot of fun to experience Kauffman with people who have never been there before, so that got me into a good mood as the game got started.

After listening to “O, Canada” and singing the national anthem, Alex Gordon helped my mood even more by homering in the bottom of the first. I was fully convinced that I was the good-luck charm that we needed to break out of this slump.

I was quickly proven wrong.

I don’t want to go over all of the gory details of the game. You probably already know what happened. A couple of thoughts that crossed my mind as the debacle unraveled:

• Why is Betancourt leading off? I don’t understand.
• I wish we had a starter who could get through 4 innings without giving up at least 4 runs and throwing almost a hundred pitches.
• 100 mph looks really fast going to the plate. It looks even faster when it’s a pitch that’s left up and it’s traveling out of the park.
• Kelvin Herrera is struggggggling.
• Why am I seeing a guy in a Cardinal’s jersey mocking the Cubs? No seriously, his jersey has the number “104” on the back and the name “Bartman.” He’s also wearing what appears to be a cheese head in the vein of the famed Green Bay Packer head-gear. All while holding up a sign that says something like “Colby is the big cheese!” on one side and “Colby hits the high cheese!” on the other. Why are you supporting a player that made a stink in your organization and was traded as a result? Why are you reveling in the fact that a Chicago fan’s life was turned upside- down several years ago due to a split-second decision he made that I doubt any of us would have reacted to any differently. I hate fans like that. Some people need to be punched.
• Why are there so many White Sox and Yankees jerseys here?
• Our offense cannot be expected to score 10 runs a game to keep us in it.
• This is brutal.

All of these thoughts culminated into the picture below.

I will not lie. This hurts. I’ve been trying to keep some sort of positive attitude over the last week, but I’m fading away. We’ve got a stretch of games against division foes in the next week and a half. If we don’t get things going, I’m going to lose even more control over my emotional outbursts. This means a lot more crying in public.

No one wants that.

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