Veteran sports reporter Harvey Araton of the New York Times has penned a fascinating and lengthy article today about how the once-proud Kansas City Royals under legendary iconic owner Ewing Kauffman quickly deteriorated upon his death and subsequent takeover by David Glass.
Glass, who was recently ambushed by a local sports talk host, refused to be interviewed for the story.
“With what he called his succession plan, Kauffman in a sense set up Glass to destroy the Royals, with the long-term goal of saving major league baseball in Kansas City,” wrote .
Araton.
“Also galling for Kansas City fans was the Cardinals’ success — they have appeared in three World Series since 2004 and won two — in St. Louis, which has a smaller city but a larger metropolitan-area population.” (See related story about KC-STL dislike.)
Araton concluded in his story that the Royals have a ton of young talent, but budget restraints will once again not allow the team to keep it.
“In the meantime, while the young Royals and their long-suffering fans wait for their time, memories of the good old days and Mr. K still shimmer like twinkling stars across the nighttime Midwestern sky.”
I’m not going to go to the trouble of trying to read this story in the NY Times, but suffice it to say that the decline of the Royals is largely reflective of what is wrong with baseball in general. Anymore, as with the rest of society, we basically are looking at a situation where there are the few haves and the many have-nots, with the Royals falling into the latter category, the 99%, if you will. Major league baseball is certainly in need of an extreme makeover economically.