RibbieRubarb Posted July 13, 2004 Share Posted July 13, 2004 It's a really great article. He shows his predictions on why the Royals would win the division and then explains why he was wrong in those predictions. Joe Posnanski says the Royals SUCK!! A moment of silence for the Royals... Now if Harold Reynolds would repent on BBTN! :finger Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
southsider2k5 Posted July 13, 2004 Share Posted July 13, 2004 That is awesome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dasox24 Posted July 13, 2004 Share Posted July 13, 2004 Now if Harold Reynolds would repent on BBTN! :finger yeah, i can't believe that dumbass picked us to finish 4th... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAVVY18 Posted July 13, 2004 Share Posted July 13, 2004 The boneloads at the KC Star are asking me to sign up to read this damn thing. Can someone post the article here? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RibbieRubarb Posted July 13, 2004 Author Share Posted July 13, 2004 Season just not within reasons JOE POSNANSKI Sometimes, a man has to do what a man has to do. We began the season by boldly offering 10 reasons why the Kansas City Royals definitely and undoubtedly would win the American League Central Division. Now, we must face the beanballs, the taunts and the well-deserved boos, because the Royals are not going to win the American League Central. They are, instead, going to finish with the worst record in the American League, probably the worst record in all of baseball. They are, at the moment, the worst baseball team I have ever seen up close. Where did they go so wrong? Where did I go so wrong? I never should have fallen for this. In 1987, Sports Illustrated picked the team of my youth, the Cleveland Indians, to win the World Series. I had that cover on my wall for the first three months of the season while the Indians lost game after game after game. That team lost 101 games. This team is even worse. So, as Fred Willard asks in “A Mighty Wind,” “Wha happan?” All we can do is go reason by reason. No. 10: Odds are it has to happen sometime. Here's the funny thing about odds: You can't make them do what they should do. If you flip a coin a thousand times, you will find that a coin will land heads six, seven, sometimes eight or nine times in a row. The Royals are the only team in the American League to have gone 19 years without sniffing the playoffs. It made sense that their luck would change. Their luck has not changed. No. 9: Juan Gone will be a force if he stays healthy. OK, I could cop out here and say Juan Gonzalez did not stay healthy, so, technically, I was not wrong. But it would be just that — a copout. Gonzalez has turned out to be an abysmal signing. Even before he got hurt, the ball did not jump off his bat. It sort of limped off his bat. He was Juan Gone Lite. Meanwhile, Gonzalez seemed only marginally conscious in right field (sometimes you wanted to slap those electric paddles on him). In the clubhouse, he gave off an “I would rather be anywhere else on earth” vibe. And on this team that was supposed to be built on energy and alertness, he has looked more out of place than John McEnroe as a talk-show host. No matter what Gonzalez does in the second half, signing him was a terrible mistake. And I fell for it, too. I'd heard from many people around the game that he was misunderstood. And I honestly thought he would have a huge comeback year and re-establish himself as a star. Instead, he was the wrong guy at the wrong time, and fairly and unfairly, he has for most fans become a symbol of this losing season. No. 8: Brian Anderson will have a breakout season. Sometimes, with predictions, you swing and miss. And sometimes you swing, you miss, the bat slips out of your hands, it tomahawks into the crowd, into a row of orphans, actually, hits four of them, you rush out to help them, you trip on the way, you break your collarbone … I've been wrong plenty in my life — Roy Williams will stay, the Chiefs will go 15-1, Divx is the wave of the future, thin ties will stay cool, on and on — but I've never been this wrong about anything. I wrote that Brian Anderson had figured it out. I wrote that he might win 20. I wrote that he would be the leader of a surprising pitching staff. Well, I sort of got that last part right. There is no way to explain what happened to Anderson except to say that whatever he was fooling hitters with the last 10 years or so isn't working anymore. He had a winning record in the major leagues. He pitched in two World Series. He is smart and hard-working and funny and gracious, all the things you want in an athlete and a pitcher and a friend. And he has been the worst pitcher in baseball this year, one of the worst in the history of the game, a left-handed batting tee, a 1-8 record, a 7.32 ERA, a monumental flop. Never saw that one coming. Neither did Anderson. Some things are inexplicable. Forget Gonzalez: Anderson is the real symbol of this team. No. 7: Raul Ibañez believes. I wasn't alone on this Royals prediction thing, you know. Lots of people around baseball thought this team was on the brink of something special. Raul Ibañez, a notably shrewd student of baseball and a former Royals player, thought so. And, hey, he was wrong, too. Of course, he signed a big deal with Seattle, and the Mariners are also awful, so you'd have to say Raul might want to work something out with the psychic hotline. No. 6: Left-handed pitching. OK, I really cringe at this one. I found some statistics that show that left-handed pitchers, even mediocre ones, tend to have some success. So it looked like a good idea to have four left-handed starters in the rotation (and, for a little while, five). It was not a good idea. It was a New Coke, Edsel, XFL bad idea. It has been a left-handed “Groundhog Day,” with lefty after lefty coming in day after day — Anderson, May, Gobble, George — throwing slop and getting hammered. Maybe if one of your lefty pitchers is Randy Johnson and another one is Jamie Moyer, this could work. Maybe not even then. No. 5: Garth Brooks and karma. He has sold more records than Elvis, and his spring-training participation meant good things for San Diego in 1998 (World Series) and New York in 2000 (World Series). So it seemed as if Garth Brooks playing for the Royals in spring training in 2004 might lead to good things. The Royals won on opening day with two home runs in the bottom of the ninth. Garth Magic! Ever since then, the Royals have lost games when: • A cutoff man was hit in the back with a throw. • A first baseman and pitcher ran into each other, allowing the winning run to score. • The closer gave up a two-out, two-run home run. And so on. Now, Garth really does have friends in low places. No. 4: Zack Greinke is the real deal. You know, when a team reaches such disastrous lows, it's impossible to say one thing might have changed their course. But it's hard not to point to May 1 at Yankee Stadium. The Royals were already bad — 7-14, to be exact — but the season was far from lost. They needed to get a spark and win a few games. An injury to Kevin Appier left a pitching slot open for a Saturday afternoon game at Yankee Stadium. Royals general manager Allard Baird then made what is quite simply the most inconceivable decision in this most inconceivable season: He decided to bring up a non-prospect named Eduardo Villacis to start the game. Here's how little the Royals thought of Villacis: After Villacis pitched his catastrophic 3 1/3 innings, he was sent down, then bumped off the 40-man roster, then picked up by the Chicago White Sox. And the Royals didn't even care that he was gone. I'm convinced that the day Villacis pitched, the Royals packed it in. I'm not saying they quit — teams don't quit (As Kansas State coach Bill Snyder has pointed out “They don't let you quit.”). Deep down, though, they had to know it was over. The players had never heard of Villacis, they could tell he wasn't a major-league pitcher, they knew he had absolutely zero chance of beating New York at Yankee Stadium. Management had cashed out. It's hard for players to believe after that. I'm not saying that if Greinke had pitched that day, the season would have been miraculously saved. But he should have pitched that day. He was ready; he's been the best player on the team since getting called up about a month later. Would it have made any difference at all? We'll never know. No. 3: In the Central Division, anything is possible. I was right on this one. This is the travesty of the season. The Twins are playing better, but this division is there for the taking. If the Royals were anywhere near .500, they'd be in it. Instead, they have the worst record in the league and are out of it. No. 2: Carlos Beltran will have an extraordinary season. Hey, I was right on this one, too. Beltran is on pace to score 120 runs, drive in 120 runs, hit 38 homers and steal 30 bases, and he gets to as many balls as any center fielder in the game. Obviously, though, he no longer does any of those things for the Royals. No. 1: Tony Peña is a winner. There is not a manager in the game who is better when things are going good. Everyone loves Peña then. But it's clear that Peña has never had an answer for the losing. He tried everything he knows to spark the team. He showered with his clothes on to loosen up the guy. He guaranteed an AL Central title to build their confidence. He joked around with his players, told them he loved them, told them he believed. None of it worked. And after a while, the stunts started to just look silly and desperate. He sent Greinke out to warm up just so he would get an extra cheer. He started Mendy Lopez rather than bat Matt Stairs against a lefty. He has tried to run even though his team is slower than dial-up internet. It hasn't been good. Peña is as shocked as anybody by this team's utter and complete collapse. It all fell apart so fast. He has tried to keep a positive view, but the truth is that the losing has gotten to him the way it has gotten to everyone. He really believed this was a playoff team. He was wrong. He was not the only one, either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoxAce Posted July 13, 2004 Share Posted July 13, 2004 It's about damn time!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngelasDaddy0427 Posted July 13, 2004 Share Posted July 13, 2004 I was right on this one. This is the travesty of the season. The Twins are playing better, but this division is there for the taking. If the Royals were anywhere near .500, they'd be in it. Instead, they have the worst record in the league and are out of it. This makes me sick. NO respect for the White Sox... They act like this is the TWINS DIVISION... WE ARE THE TEAM PLAYING BETTER! THE TWINS ARE CHUMPS! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NUKE_CLEVELAND Posted July 14, 2004 Share Posted July 14, 2004 It's a really great article. He shows his predictions on why the Royals would win the division and then explains why he was wrong in those predictions. Joe Posnanski says the Royals SUCK!! A moment of silence for the Royals... Now if Harold Reynolds would repent on BBTN! :finger You know what'd really be nice is if Moronatti would repent and finally admit that his beloved Flubbies blow ass. It'll be a cold day in hell before that happens though so why bother talking about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MurcieOne Posted July 14, 2004 Share Posted July 14, 2004 I love it.... Absolutely love it...... Posanski is possibly the biggest homer in all of professional writing and he must now admit that his team "stinks" It doesnt get mo bedda dan dis. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
southsider2k5 Posted July 14, 2004 Share Posted July 14, 2004 I love it.... Absolutely love it...... Posanski is possibly the biggest homer in all of professional writing and he must now admit that his team "stinks" It doesnt get mo bedda dan dis. Kotex-Boy Don't Walk light CTA Bus Need I say more? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Pasqua's FedEx Driver Posted July 15, 2004 Share Posted July 15, 2004 Can we trade Mariotti straight-up for Posnanski? Better yet, don't you think it's time to help Jay realize he's desperately needed as a war correspondent in Fallujah? Except from Mariotti's "Inside Fallujah" column: "My captors try to tell me the Americans have brought about the collapse of their society and lifestyle. I tell them they haven't seen anything until they've seen the war zone known as Come-Hit-Me Park in Chicago. All the missiles, AK-47's and car bombs in Iraq blend into the background when I tell them about the unspeakable horrors of William Ligue. Sure, mosques may be in flames, suicide bombers eradicate entire shopping districts; even as I write this, the red glare and thunderous bursts of artillery shells fall around me...yet, these streets are still safer than the streets around 35th and Shields. On a daily basis, the Iraquis gamble with their existence in pursuit of their liberation and their religion; thank Allah they will never have to face the chilling terror of risking life and limb in pursuit of a churro at the Ballmall..." Ribster, you got the second paragraph? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CSF Posted July 15, 2004 Share Posted July 15, 2004 This makes me sick. NO respect for the White Sox... They act like this is the TWINS DIVISION... WE ARE THE TEAM PLAYING BETTER! THE TWINS ARE CHUMPS! Back to back division titles says otherwise. This is the Twins division until we wrest it away from them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RibbieRubarb Posted July 15, 2004 Author Share Posted July 15, 2004 Can we trade Mariotti straight-up for Posnanski? Better yet, don't you think it's time to help Jay realize he's desperately needed as a war correspondent in Fallujah? Except from Mariotti's "Inside Fallujah" column: "My captors try to tell me the Americans have brought about the collapse of their society and lifestyle. I tell them they haven't seen anything until they've seen the war zone known as Come-Hit-Me Park in Chicago. All the missiles, AK-47's and car bombs in Iraq blend into the background when I tell them about the unspeakable horrors of William Ligue. Sure, mosques may be in flames, suicide bombers eradicate entire shopping districts; even as I write this, the red glare and thunderous bursts of artillery shells fall around me...yet, these streets are still safer than the streets around 35th and Shields. On a daily basis, the Iraquis gamble with their existence in pursuit of their liberation and their religion; thank Allah they will never have to face the chilling terror of risking life and limb in pursuit of a churro at the Ballmall..." Ribster, you got the second paragraph? As I sit here in the press box overlooking Downtown Baghdad, I wish that Jerry Reinsdorf could be here watching this with me. See, King Jerry, as I like to call him and Price Kenny, as I like to call him, should take a lesson from the new Iraqi leaders on how to control a angry mob. They won't. King Jerry will sit high atop his Distaster on 35th Street as the body parts of local suburban families are set flying through the air on another half-price night sponsered by the WWE. Prince Kenny will figure out another three way trade for Johnny Badarm to rescue his pitching staff and Sox fans will party at the CellMall in images eerily reminiscent of the opening scenes of 2001. Maybe Chicagoans and Suburbanites will wise up and head 8.1 miles North instead...Hey, you may get shot, but at least your but you'll have a great time before that! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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