True Blue Tradition

As you may have noticed, there haven't been many posts here of late about baseball, specifically the Royals. Well, they haven't been doing much, besides having the worst record in baseball. And I really haven't been able to watch many games lately. Hopefully that will change soon, and I'll be heading to some games. I want to go to games in Kansas City, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, and Chicago this summer. Maybe even St. Louis and DC. It'd be nice to be able to see the Royals play in all of those cities, and it may just work out that way, except for DC, they don't play them this season. It'll take some planning, but obviously KC will be a Royals game, as will the Milwaukee game. And I think there are like at least 6 more games for the Royals in Chi-town and Minneapolis, each. I might even make it to a game or two down in Texas. We'll see. I'm excited for the travel, very excited for the games. I just hope that the Royals can get out of the cellar, and maybe avoid 100 losses this season. I predicted a 75-win season for them in this post, and I still think it's attainable. They just need to start playing. I was very happy to hear that outfielder/first baseman/DH Billy Butler got called up to The Show, but I wish it wasn't at the expense of Ryan Shealy, who was put on the 15-day DL this week. Gil Meche has been pitching well, now the rest of the starters and the bullpen need to get it together. Zach Greinke has also pitched well, and has regained his spot in my heart as one of my favorite players. He didn't mean to hit Torri Hunter at all, let alone in the face. But I like that he's not afraid to go up and in, and he will plunk a hitter right in the ass if they need it. Good to have you back, Zach.

The Red Scare Royals haven't been faring well, either. We're in 10th place out of 14 teams, after getting drubbed by the last-place team last week. For those of you unfamiliar with head-to-head fantasy baseball, there are a number of categories (in my league it's 10) that your players earn stats. Each week, you match up against, or "play," another team in the league, and the team that accumulates the better numbers will win the stat category. Here's an example, from the current week:

												Batting																																																																									Pitching
												Team																														R									HR									RBI											SB														AVG															W									SV						K												ERA																					WHIP										Score
												The Red Scare Royals																														9									2									12											3														.310															1									0						11												5.27																					1.68										5
												Twins																														9									4									5											3														.214															0									1						7												5.68																					1.58										3

So both of our players have had the same amount of runs scored (R), so we're tied. His players have hit 4 home runs (HR) to my 2, so he's leading that right now, hence the bold. I'm leading in runs batted in (RBI), so that's bolded. Etc. Right now I'm up 5 categories to 3, but this goes all week, Monday through Sunday, and the stats accumulated during the week by players that each team starts add up. It's kind of confusing at first, but trust me, it's fun. At least if you're way into baseball. Like me.