I stand before you a broken man

[nakgxf]

I am by nature an optimist. I am one of those fans that always thinks "this is the year we turn it around." It has never happened, and I cannot take it anymore.

I have been a Royals fan for my entire life, 21 years now, and I have finally broken.

I have suffered through years of bad teams, through years of losing efforts and not one playoff appearance (discounting '85. I was barely 1 year old). I have only twice seen a winning team. I have suffered through bad players on bad teams. I have looked on as Carlos Beltran, Jermaine Dye, Joe Randa, Johnny Damon and numerous other good players leave this town and this team for greener pastures. I have seen a player that should have been a perpetual all-star injure his back time after time after time after time. I have seen promising young talent destroyed again and again and again.

I have seen the worst five year stretch of baseball in MLB history.

And now, after years and years of bad baseball, I just don't know what to do. I am not angry. No, I think it is more accurate to sa that I am frustrated. I am sad. I am embarrassed, both for my team, and for my city.

All I can do is long for the days of George Brett and young Jeff Montgomery and Mark Gubicza and Kevin Appier and Frank White and, most importantly, Ewing Kauffman.

I hold out hope that one day players and owners like the men mentioned above will return. I hold out hope that this town will come together and sell out games and get energized for this team, just like in the stories that have been told to me by the generations before me. But even hoping is becoming difficult. I hope it doesn't become impossible.

[Royal Rooter]

I first started watching baseball back in 1986, and my whole family were Royals fans. Grandma was the most die-hard of them all, talking about George Brett as if he were the second coming. We have videos of my little sister swinging a bat yelling "Royals Baseball", my little brother 1 year old dressed up in his Royals uniform. We used to make a couple annual trips from Iowa each year to catch a game. We ussually had to have tickets in advance . . . even in May, because they used to sell out on us.

20 years later . . . I still wear my Royals hat with pride, but not the same pride it used to represent. Back then it represented one of the best franchises in baseball, now it represents my die-hard status for sticking with this team throughout the years. Constant mocking by anyone who knows anything about baseball, pity jestures by people saying "Mike Sweeney is decent" etc.

One of the saddest thing that I have encountered recently is the availibilty of quality tickets to a Royals game. I currently live in San Francisco, and as a baseball fan, I like to attend a few games every now and again. In San Francisco or Oakland, you cannot just walk up to the ticket booth and purchase tickets outside of the nose bleed area, you practically have to be a season ticket holder. Kansas City . . . walk up an hour before the game and you can get lower lever seats 5 rows up from 3rd base. And they are 1/3 the price of any other teams prices. Kansas City cannot give the tickets away and expect to get more than 15,000 people to show up.

I echo almost everything stated above, I miss the days of Brett, Sietzer, Stillwell, Tartabull, Jackson, MacFarlane, White, Wilson, Gubiza, Sabrahagen . . . etc. We have replaced these guys with the likes of Emil, Dougie, Angel, Buck????

It is a sad state of affairs for the Royals right now, and the end is no where in sight. But I have been through too much over the past 20 years to give up and switch now . . .

Royals Rooter

[KCGHOST]

I'd like to feel sorry for you boys, but I have been around since Day One.