Mike King

Royals are generating some fireworks

The Royals hot off of a five win, one loss road trip (including a sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals) have come home this weekend to win two of three games over the San Francisco Giants.  Friday night, they delighted the capacity crowd with what was billed as one of the largest fireworks displays in Kansas City history.  Vicki and I watched from the same location that my dad and I used to visit frequently during 1969 - 1972 to watch the progress of this marvelous sports complex.  It is great to see the stadium full.  We are only a couple years away from returning to the status of a playoff team.  That's when the real fireworks will begin.

National Championship

Last night was a great night.  We worked late at the office and got to 810 Sports Zone too late to get a table for the National Championship Game.  So we checked out a couple other places before settling in at Jack Stack's on the Plaza.  Vicki and I were joined by Chris Folmsbee, Aaron and Paige Mitchum and Nick Pickrell along with around twenty others who enjoyed the worlds greatest BBQ while watching KU work their magic.  Carl Peterson and his wife were part of the twenty.  Nick was pretty psyched about that because he is a major Chiefs fan and he happened to be wearing a Chiefs shirt.  Anyway, we ate and yelled way too much while experiencing one of the greatest National Championship games ever.  It has been twenty years since Danny Manning last brought us a National Championship.  I would be happy if Carl could make sure that we duplicated this feat by winning us the Super Bowl in 2009 (40 years after our last Super Bowl victory).  I know, fat chance but there was some miracles happening in the last three minutes of last nights game.  Carl was taking notes... who knows.  Oops, it is time to go and watch the Royals Home Opener with the boys...

 

GO JAYHAWKS

Still in 1st place

The Kansas City Royals are still in 1st place.  Wow, for three days I've been able to kind of identify with the joy that being a Red Sox or Yankee's fan must be like.  Come on boys, let's keep it going.  Please.  It happens in the movies.

KU on the way...

The Jayhawks are on the way to a national championship...

CHASE away the blues

I'm thankful that

            

            

      

    

    

                                                          

                                               

helps me forget

Chiefs and Rockies

The Chiefs’ game against the Bengals had more excitement in the first five minutes than all of last Sunday’s game.  Gonzales broke the NFL record for most touchdowns scored by a tight end.  While at the game I received a text message from Jeremy Affeldt, pitcher for the Colorado Rockies who told me how cold it was in Denver.  The cold weather didn’t slow down the Rockies. These guys are on fire.  Jeremy came on in relief and completed a fast three up and three down inning.

 

Go Rockies

 

I shared a couple of text messages with my friend Jeremy Affeldt the day of the one game tie breaker with the San Diego Padres.  I was very excited to settle in and watch the game on TV.  Chris Folmsbee was staying at my house so we watched together.  By the 12th inning with the score deadlocked we were both fading.  I decided to jump in the shower when the Padres scored two runs and Chris went to bed.  When I got out of the shower I decided to watch the Rockies final at bat.  Of course you can imagine how crazy I went when they came from behind to win.  The next day I talked to Jeremy after he arrived in Philadelphia to play the Phillies in the first round of the playoffs.  Jeremy described in detail how he was feeling when he went in to pitch in relief in the sixth inning to face Giles in a lefty-lefty match-up.  Giles was only 1 for 6 against Affeldt this season.  Giles was hot but Jamie took him down.  Jeremy said, "Mike I couldn't even see my feet because of my adrenaline rush."  He shared several details about the game and the post game celebration.  He even took his baby boy Walker on to the field.  All good stuff.  Go Rockies.  These guys are going to the World Series.

David Beckham is not in Kansas City

I was getting ready to torch David Beckham, who is hurt, for not being in Kansas City with his team to play the Wizards tonight.  My son, Micah, bought us tickets for my birthday to see Beckham's premiere here in KC.  I won't torch him because as I was preparing this post I looked online to confirm the spelling of his name and found out he has returned home to visit his father who had a heart attack - see here.  I won't be torching David Beckham.

Almost perfect sports day.

Yesterday was almost a perfect sports day.  It started when I pulled into HiHat Coffee Shop.  I had Chris Folmsbee and Matt Wilks from Sonlife in my car.  I told them as we got close to HiHat that we might find George Brett holding court on the deck.  I don't think they believed me.  Sure enough, George was telling stories with a group of friends.  As I walked by the group to enter the coffee shop a friend of Brett's made a comment about Sting and Bono doing some collaboration together.  The problem was that the friend pronounced Bono with a long o instead of a short o.  George made eye contact with me (the connection was made).  I grabbed the guy by the shoulders from behind and said "it's Bono (short o) not Bono (long o).  George laughed and quickly covered for his friend by saying, "I think he must be talking about Steve Bono." 

Steve Bono (pronounced with long o) is a former Chiefs quarterback disaster.  It was a funny moment.  George and I  tag teaming with spontaneous humor.  I think Chris was impressed.  Matt wasn't too impressed.  After all, Matt is from Canada and collects Hurling Trading Cards.

After lunch I had to run an errand at the Plaza and arrived there just in time to see the Tour of Missouri Pro Cycling Racers crossing the finish line.  Wow, seeing these cyclists racing in person raises my respect level for these amazing athletes.

That night we ended a perfect day when a friend of mine who works for the Royals and Mike Sweeney got Chris, Matt and me some sweet tickets for the Royals vs Twins game.  The weather was perfect and the game was good even though we lost. 

This was an almost perfect sports day.