Kansas City Royals: Alex Gordon, it’s so hard to say goodbye

Alex Gordon made himself into a star for the Kansas City Royals. Now it is time for the Royals to find a proper sendoff for him.

Most fans of the Kansas City Royals are Chiefs fans, as well.  So we all remember the Buffalo Bills of the 1990s as a juggernaut. It is hard to compare today’s NFL offenses with the offenses of the 1990s but those Bills are one of the few teams that would still fit right in. They absolutely dominated the AFC, winning the league 4 straight times. And as easily as they have been forgotten by most of today’s NFL fans, due to never winning the Super Bowl, their star players were adored during their run. In Buffalo men like Jim Kelly, and Thurman Thomas and Andre Reed were demigods.

Jim Kelly quit after the 1996 season and then the writing was on the wall. In 1999 it became known that Thurman Thomas would no longer be on the Bills once the season ended. So, Bills fans turned their last home game into a celebration of Thurman Thomas and Andre Reed. The odd aspect of this was Andre Reed kept insisting he was not retiring. And it seemed as though every time he would say something about coming back Bills fans would just roar “We love you, Andre! Thanks for the years!” even louder. I always thought that was a very classy way of moving on from an aging star to whom the fans owed so much.

Alex Gordon will always be a demigod to me. The Hercules of the Heartland. And I am confident the same is true for countless Royals fans. When he was drafted number 2 overall almost 15 years ago it felt like the Royals were beginning to breathe again. The Royals lost 106 games that year. And it was becoming very difficult to imagine Jimmy Gobble and Denny Bautista ever becoming good enough to round out a starting rotation with Zack Greinke anytime soon. Alex Gordon was hope.

For many of us, Alex was the second coming of George Brett. The first Royals game I ever attended was in 1979. I was two years old. Every early memory I have of baseball revolves around Brett. I always had his jersey as a kid. And, when my 6-year-old nephew asked me whose jersey he should wear I, of course, told him to get the jersey of this new Alex Gordon kid. I saw Gordon as a chance to rekindle some of those summer feelings from my childhood when being a Royals fan meant expecting to win. But here is the thing about Alex Gordon: he surpassed every hope for him I could have ever had. He did more for me as a Royals fan than I ever had any right to expect. And, he did it in a way no one could have possibly predicted.

“Alex’s love for the game is evident in how hard he has worked to play through and recover from his numerous injuries.”

When looking back at his career from today, MLB’s success for Alex Gordon may seem like it was always a foregone conclusion but that is not the case. The road was long and winding and in doubt on multiple occasions. For his first two years, Alex looked like a young star trying to figure out the pros. He hit around league average. Then for the next few years a common, yet unexpected thing occurred. Instead of Alex figuring the majors out it seemed as though the league was figuring him out. His power numbers fell off a cliff. He began to suffer one injury after another. He even struggled to play third base. When Gordon began the 2010 season injured and then went on to spend a large chunk of that year in AAA the story of Alex Gordon seemed as though it would be written as a “What Could Have Been” kind of tale. Instead, Alex turned it into a baseball legend.

In 2011, Gordon would come out of the gate on fire during Spring Training. He had become a left fielder, and it was as though Clark Kent had walked through a phone booth on his path from third base to left field. He was now capable of anything. He was not just any left fielder, he was a left fielder that was faster than a speeding bullet, he would propel his body in all directions almost as if he could fly, and his arm seemed to send down lightning bolts on his foes. He threw out 20 runners on the bases that season. He would mash over 70 extra-base hits and bat over .300. And he would go on to win his first Gold Glove.

2011 would begin an awe-inspiring 5 year run for Alex. He was an above-average hitter each year, he compiled over 27 WAR (yes, non-geeks, that is a lot!) and he played left field just about as well as it has ever been played. And, damn, was it a joy to watch.

Alex’s love for the game is evident in how hard he has worked to play through and recover from his numerous injuries. It is clear how hard he worked to evolve from an infielder to an outfielder midway through his career. In the incredible shape he keeps himself in. Even in how he will lean into a pitch and take one for the team with a willingness that would make Don Baylor chuckle.

But, really, you don’t need to know any of that to know how much Alex Gordon loves baseball. You just need to watch him play the field. Watch him smile as he throws his body around, pushes his physical abilities to their greatest capabilities, crashes into the walls, leaps into the crowd. All for catches he still appears incredibly unlikely to ever catch. But, that’s the thing about Alex – he usually catches those ones too.