The Royals unveiled their promotional campaign for the 2010 season in a press release on Wednesday. The release says “ROYALS UNVEIL PLANS FOR 2010 ‘IT ALL HAPPENS HERE’ SEASON.” There was a sub-title below this line that said “Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the 1985 Kansas City Royals World Series Champions.”
This sounds like a good idea, right? I mean it is a landmark anniversary of the Royals only championship team. Perfect, right? WRONG!
The problem with this is that the Royals have dragged out the ’85 team for the last fifteen years. Does anyone remember George Brett and Johnny Damon watching TV in their lounge chairs? I do. That is how long we’ve been watching the Royals try to spoon feed us this imaginary link to the glory days. It goes back to when Damon was a hot young prospect with the Royals.
Since then… we’ve seen Damon lead the American League in stolen bases and runs in the same season while playing for the Royals… watched him traded for Angel Berroa and Roberto Hernandez… asked who the caveman was playing center field and emotionally leading the World Champion Boston Red Sox… add another World Series ring to his collection with brilliant (clean shaven) base running with the Yankees… and finally be called old has he tries to cash in on one more big money contract this spring.
That is the length of an entire Hall of Fame career (if you don’t believe me take a look at his numbers).
It seems like every Royals TV campaign has spliced in clips of the ‘85 season. I don’t know if that is true, but it sure feels like it. The radio campaign has featured Denny Matthews' final call of game seven more than it hasn’t… again, at least it feels that way for me.
I’m not trying to rain on the fun of this anniversary. It should be a celebration of a great time in Royals history. But for me it has been polluted by the Royals organization constantly wrapping themselves in the blanket of 1985 in an effort to cover up their complete lack of ability to build a competitive ballclub.
For me the “celebration of the 25th anniversary of the 1985 Kansas City Royals World Series Championship” is just the annual reminder of how good things used to be, and how bad they currently are.