A Quick Note on my Boys in Blue

I know that this blog is supposed to be about baseball in general, but I want to just say that I'm tickled pink (or should it be blue?) that my Kansas City Royals are 4-2. I had guessed Sunday night of last week that the Royals would do this in their first week and I'm secretly hoping for a 4-2 or 5-1 repeat during the upcoming home stand.


Today we start a series against the New York Yankees. And then Friday we play the Minnesota Twins once more. I am going to do everything in my power to be at the majority of these games. My dad managed to get me a ticket to home opener today, and despite the rainy mess that awaits me outside, I cannot wait!!! On top of today, I should be going to Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. It all really depends on how things are going with my committee and the stuff that we're doing as a thank you gift, so...we'll see. Real life always gets in the way of the fun stuff, right? Anyways, I will make an edit to this later on today with photos of today's festivities. Who knows, maybe we'll get lucky and get another win today!

Loyal's Back...Tell a Friend!

Let's just say that I am the queen of failed attempts at projects. And, as you can tell, this one failed epically. But to be fair, after my last post, I went on a short vacation to Utah that turned quickly into a long vacation in Massachusetts while I worked at a summer camp. I instilled the north east with my midwest Royal-loving spunk. And my boys in blue made sure that momma was proud every day! It didn't matter that I was the only kid cheering (note: when we won against the Red Sox, all the Yankee kids cheered...and when we won against the Yankees, all the Red Sox and Mets kids cheered), everyone had a good laugh at my antics and rejoicing.

So. 2008, the year that I manage to update this on a semi-regular basis! Y'all should be proud of me. Look forward to more TGFH updates (if you have a hottie you'd like to suggest, please shoot me an e-mail or a comment post haste), more opinions on baseball, and...more importantly...updates on Loyal2's Gobstoppers!!!! My fantasy team is so going to kick butt this year it isn't even funny.


And honestly, it was either this or the Jalepeña Hotties. Good thing I didn't get any Peñas on my team! Not that I have Jimmy Gobble, either. It'll work itself out I'm sure. I've already had some ridiculous trade offers, most of them in jest. My personal favorite was Johan Santana for a picture of a kitten playing in the grass. Oh dear, my ovaries are going to have some work to do this year if we're gonna put all these boys in their places. Good thing I like challenges.

To steal a saying from Royales with Cheese...go Gobstoppers, you're the best!

PS: If you like watching people jump over things, check out this clip from last night's Royals game!

TGFH: Thank God For Hotties!

I'm a bit behind on this one this week, so I appologize (good thing no one reads, right?). Our DH today comes from the Orioles organization.

Thus far this 5'9" tall, 175 lb heavy switch hitter from Durham, North Carolina is hitting 259 with 9 RBIs and 1 home run.



Brian Roberts, Baltimore Orioles 2nd baseman. Whoo.

NL vs. AL

It's almost interleague play season, and that means speculation about the two leagues can once again begin. While there are plus sides to each league, one has to wonder which league is actually easier to play (and win) in.

For the sake of arguement, I'm going to use the Kansas City Royals and the St. Louis Cardinals as my examples. Last year, the NL central and the AL central played against each other in interleague, bringing some very interesting numbers. While Cardinals fans tout the "best team in baseball," one look at their games against the AL central division should lead some to highly doubt that speculation.

In interleague play, no NL central teams had a winning record against their AL central counterparts (the best record was 7 wins from Houston). St. Louis went 5-10, with 4 of those wins coming against the Royals. Barring games against the Royals, the Cardinals were a mere 1-8. That's so bad that not even the Royals can pull that off. Meanwhile, the Royals pulled a 10-8 record (8-4 without the Cards games) with the second best interleague record on the AL side (the Indians posted an 8-10).

What's the big difference between these two leagues? Sure there's the whole 'pitcher hitting vs. designated hitter' but how much can it hurt an NL team when visiting their AL rivals? They've got plenty of guys that they can throw in there that will be an upgrade from the usual 9 spot pitcher. If anything, interleague play should be beneficial to NL teams because the AL teams are the ones having to jump the most hoops!

In my opinion, this is just one of the many proofs that the Cardinals are not all they're cracked up to be and, were they to switch to the American League, they wouldn't have the same track record and would probably lose a good amount of their fair weather fan base.

I wrote this a while back, but would just like to throw a heads up at Chipper Jones' opinion. There's a lot of merit to what he's saying, and I agree that the hometown rivalry is a bit overrated (playing the Cardinals 6 times is more than enough). If interleague is something that is necessary (I think it's a nice break for the Royals to get a few wins in, honestly), keep it in the same divisions to keep the "fairness." Then again, why does this pertain to the Royals and their playoff chances when they've got about a .01% chance of making it? Why do 18 games a season really make that big of a difference? Hell, for all you know, they could help you out!

TGFH: Thank God For Hotties!

Well, this will certainly take my pain away. After a terrible performance by my boys in blue, I'll need it. So, on to cute boys in tight pants!

Tonight's Designated Hottie (ie DH) is a Minnesota boy. Born in St. Paul, he played football and basketball along with baseball during high school and appears to have not changed his hairstyle since then, either. In 2006 he dated Miss USA, Chelsea Cooley, but from what this blogger has heard, he is quite single.

This Minnesota Twin is on the board with 1 homer, 14 RBIs, 3 stolen bases, and an amazing average of .353, especially when you take into consideration that the kid's a catcher.

If you haven't guessed it by now, I'm surprised...but here we go!



It's Joe Mauer! Gadzooks! And now some props for Bat Girl, a Minnesota Twins blog.

The Good, The Bad, The Bullpen

When Zack Greinke is good, he is good. April 5th is a perfect example of the good I'm talking about. A game ERA of 1.29, Greinke struck out 7 while walking only one. He also kept the Boston Red Sox to 1 run from 8 hits.

But when Zack is bad, he is bad. On April 16th, he only made it 2/3 of an inning before he was pulled from the game. He gave up a hit and two walks before facing Pudge Rodriguez, who hit a grand slam. I'm not even going to talk about his last start, in which he gave up 3 two run homers in the course of one inning.

So by placing him in the bullpen, what are we doing? Are we telling him that we still believe in him or that he's not made of the right stuff?

In my opinion, Greinke is going to be fine. Instead of throwing him out there and him trying to get six or seven perfect innings, he only needs to have one. And he even said in an interview that he wants what's best for the team. If that means placing him in the bullpen for a while, then I have no problem. Sure, I may not be able to see my favorite pitcher every five games, but I'd rather see him in a place where he can work on things and become a better pitcher in the long run.

I'm so numb from this season that I don't know how to even go at this than slight apathy. Which is pretty bad. Feel free to sound off in the comments, it'll probably be more exciting than anything I can shovel out.

Oh, and apparently the Yankees signed some tool. Excitement.

What Stage Are You On?

My dad sent this to me over a year ago, and despite the year listed, it's still pretty damn pertinent. It's funny what a (bad) baseball team can do to you. You live and breathe stats, radio programs, and at bats for six months. You eagerly search for news in the off season, you follow spring training religiously. But over it all you hope that tomorrow will be better. That you can't possibly get lower than you already are, that it has to get better after all of this.

There's been so many bad years, I don't know what it's like to have a team that's good. I never followed the team through the better years. I was too young to care, and came two years shy of savoring the miracle run of 2003. I would love to proclaim loyalty to another team, just for a day, to see how it feels. But I don't have the heart for it.

I guess if I had to compare this to something in my own personal life it would be the win-loss record of my high school marching band while I was there. We were undefeated my freshman year, and then quickly went to sucking the next two years. Senior year was rough, and there were only about 18 of us that knew what it was like to be part of a winning team. But we managed to get everyone together, and we made finals at Bands Of America (a feat that we weren't supposed to accomplish). Maybe the Royals are just getting into the rough part of their ballclub history. Maybe next year we'll turn the corner (what a slogan that will be: Royals were Great in 2008!) or maybe we're going to manage .400 baseball this year. Maybe, just maybe, we'll pull it together.

Now that I've rambled on for long enough, what stage are you at? If you're not a big Royals fan, feel free to apply it to another team. I've flown through them pretty quickly. Anger came after our first few 'games we weren't supposed to lose' games. That was quickly followed by bargaining (I'll dye my hair blue if you just manage to get 3 games in a row, I swear!!!) and depression. I'm floating somewhere between depression and acceptance right now; part of me is so distraught from tonight's painful loss that I don't know whether I should laugh or cry. As someone on Royals Review stated, good teams don't give home runs away to Neifi Perez. It just doesn't happen. We didn't even show up offensively until the 8th. Does one, as a fan of a bad team, soak up the depression and hold back from admitting that this year is down the tubes? Or do you just let it go, try to have fun with the season but not get your hopes up?