Sometimes, in my deepest and darkest moments, I wonder what it would be like to blog about the Kansas City Royals.

For one thing, I figure that life is pretty good, considering that constitutes just about the gloomiest thing I ponder. For another, it makes me wonder what it would be like to be following another team in the AL Central so closely with all of you, and wondering just what would be that we’d be comp;aining about.
I mean, if we were blogging the Orioles, we’d be wondering how — with all the managers out there for the taking, how come Andy MacPhail went with Dave Trembley. What couldn’t he lure that TK fellow outta retirement or get a big name. You know, like one of the Joe Morgans. And we’d be wondering how in the name of Tippy Martinez could Trembley have brought in lefty Jamie Walker (.396 BAA against lefties) to face Joe Mauer (.379 against lefties and 6-for-9 against Walker) last night when the guy on the mound had just struck out the two batters he’d faced.

Or if we were blogging the White Sox, we’d have crazy Ozzie and a maddening and inconsistent team where the manager is prone to throwing his players, coaches and bosses under the bus at any given moment. Wouldn’t this team lead the division right now by a half-dozen games, instead of 1 1/2, with a cool hand at the wheel? I mean, when the hitting coach goes in to meet with the owners, something’s weird. Is Joe Vavra’s cell on the Pohlad speed dial?

Or if we were blogging Cleveland, we’d be having a poll about who’ll hit a home run first — catcher Victor Martinez or LeBron James. Someone would be saying that it’s tough being a catcher and we should be OK with his .287 batting average (o HR, 20 RBI) and someone else would say that’s nothing comapred to Joe Mauer, and he’s even hit two home runs this week — off lefties, no less. Big ones, too. And the CC Sabathia thing. Big dude’s 3-7. Why couldn’t we have traded him to the Mets for Carlos Gomez and moved Sizemore to right?

Or the Tigers. What an underperforming mess. We’d be writing about the young talents that helped second-place Florida lead the NL East for most of the season so far. We’d have a little widget on our blog and it would read right now: Marlins 32-26, Tigers 24-34. And the Marlins even have Jacque Jones on their roster. I guess getting rid of him didn’t cure everything, not even Carlos Guillen’s hemorrhoids. Maybe we should get a manager who doesn’t have such an ego. Like that Trembley guy in Baltimore. We could go and on and on with this one.

Or the Royals. Promises, promises, promises. Would I be sick by now of all those dugout shots of Trey Hillman with that look on his face like he’s running a ranch for troubled teenage boys? How would I react to David DeJesus saying, when the losing streak last month was about to reach double figures, that we’ll be all right once we win a game? (Really, I heard that in an XM sound bite.) Would I still go to the games because the stadium is so cool and they have really good barbecue? Is that enough? The Royals’ wreckage is so extensive that bloggers would be reminding their commenters that “it’s only baseball” when they comparisons between the Royals and New Orleans… or Basra… or gas prices. I’d wear a WWJD bracelet and wonder to myself: What would Joe Posnanski do?

That’s our division. And, before I go, let’s take a quick trip West and pretend we’re following the Mariners. After yesterday’s loss to the Angels, which gave the Mariners the worst record in baseball, manager John McLaren made a lame attempt to go Ozzie: “We’re playing our [expletive] off every day and got nothing to show for it. I’m tired of [expletive] losing, I’m tired of getting my [expletive] beat, and so have those guys. We gotta change this [expletive expletive] around and get after it. And only we can do it. The fans are [expletive] off, and I’m [expletive] off, and the players are [expletive] off. And that’s the way it is. There’s no [expletive] easy way out of this, can’t feel sorry for ourself, we gotta [expletive] buckle it up and get after it. I’m tired of [expletive] losing this, [expletive] every night we bust our [expletive]. It’s gotta be a total team [expletive] effort to turn this thing around, and that’s it.”

Sounds pretty impressive, huh? Trade young talent for Erik Bedard (4-4, 4.47) and give Gil Meche money to Carlos Silva (3-6, 5.96) and now you have the worst record in baseball. Why couldn’t we have just signed Livan Hernandez like the Twins?

And one more thing, you can read McLaren’s words and assume that he was steaming, boiling, spontaneously peeved — or you can read Jerry Brewer’s column in the Seattle Post and realize that the whole thing was staged. It was an inch short of Would the reporters please report to Mr. McLaren’s office so he can use a lot of dirty words.

I’m not trying to minimize the Twins issues. But there’s silliness all over baseball — unless you’re a Red Sox or a Tampa Bay fan, maybe — and I’m thinking most of our silliness ain’t so bad.

(A quick note: I’ll be on minimal blogging for the next few days because Young220 is graduating from high school tonight. And I’ll be at an undisclosed location for part of the night chaperoning the class party and then there’s a full weekend ahead: Open Houses, a wedding and other fun. So there’ll be baseball watched on fast forward while I try to slow things down and take in every moment of the excitement around Young220, who is a scholar, an athlete and a great friend. The 220s are starting the fun this afternoon at the Dome, of course!)

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This entry was posted on Thursday, June 5th, 2008 at 9:17 am and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.