Oh boy! That stain is not coming out. And on my new pair of writing pants.
As I was enjoying my annual Ball Park Frank hot dog and ice cold Budweiser at home to celebrate the beginning of another spring training and baseball season, reading up on this mornings arrivals to camp, and the smell in the air (www.kansascity.com/sports/royals), I was shocked to see that Gil Meche, our 55 million dollar ace pitcher, starting his second season under his new contract of 5 years, gets it! It took me by surprise that a leading story for the beginning of spring training, is that Gil Meche understands that by making more money the expectations layed on him are different and higher then before he signed the blockbuster deal. People expect more from him then before. Surely more than a 9-13 record from last year. Granted his catagorical numbers were very good, and many of them were career highs, but that does not put a “W” in the column to fans (who, by the way, work hard to take their families to the ballpark and see a Royals victory).
It correctly puts the entire Kansas City Royals organization on the map, and into perspective. Instead of frontpage breaking news stories covering the sports section dealing with huge signings, contract negotiations, front office politics, and of course late breaking coverage from Washington D.C., we are discussing the increased expectations of one of our finest, after throwing a ton of money his way.
By no means am I trying to be negative here, and to prove this I am going to point out a couple of positives that come from these current developments. First, even being note worthy proves that this organization is out of the national spotlight, and for right now, no news is good news. Second, it also lets us know, at least for the last few years, that there is not much to talk about(other than how to get a mustard stain off of a good pair of writing pants). However, here comes the positives, this also tells us that there is nowhere to go but up. Now that is exciting. Better is always better, never worse. Unless you are a nice pair of writing pants, with a huge “stylish” mustard stain on the leg, being worn by a color blind, style emergency candidate. Not cool, dude, not cool.