It was a rough day. I’m buried at work and there’s no end in sight. … And having to balance my work responsibilities with the needs of my family is tough.
Kates carted Phoebe to her gymnastics practice tonight. Which left me to do the bath and bedtime battle with Faye. … It took me nearly an hour to get the girl to sleep tonight. She lays in her bed oh-so-quietly, just watching, to make sure Kates or I are at her bedside. Then, when we’re sure she’s asleep and we try to leave, she’ll call out, and we remain her prisoner. Kates and I think she has sonar.
I was drained. The icing on the cake was when I opened the freezer in search of something to eat for supper and a pan of miniature tomatoes – which had been balanced precariously on a bag of chicken nuggets – spilled all the way into the deepest corner of the living room.
As I started laundry, I turned on the Royals game and kept it going in the background. But they were losing 3-0 to the White Sox and showing no signs of closing the gap.
Kates and I caught up with each other about our days. We caught up on some TV.
Then I tuned back into the Royals game for the bottom of the ninth inning.
A little base stealing, and they did it again.
Call the cops, the Royals stole it! said Rex Hudler.
It’s worth noting I had a chance to go to tonight’s game. One of Kates’ friends offered up tickets. But I passed. … Dang.
Sam Mellinger tweeted “a column of a Royals win so crazy George Brett said he's never seen anything like it in his life.”
The most exciting, important, and at times infuriating Royals season in a generation has its latest plot twist. A day after losing a game in which the manager misused the bullpen, the Royals appeared mostly lifeless for six innings, and then for the last three innings like the team that just might end the longest playoff drought in North American sports.
You could say something very similar about their entire season, right?
This group has been through so much, even by the standards of a major-league baseball season. They’ve been effectively out of the race, and then in first place, sometimes in the same month.
This is a team of friends. There are cliques like any other large group, but a genuine feeling of togetherness. They hang out with each other in their spare time, many of their inside jokes and memories going all the way back to the minor leagues. They celebrate every win, and hard, with a fog machine and loud music and at home a neon sign of a deer. There is no way to know for sure, of course, but it’s quite possible they haven’t celebrated any win as hard as they celebrated this one.
In other news, the Angels are in.
The Royals magic number is 12.
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