A bunch of stuffs

A winning month, praise the Lord!
In July 2003, things were pretty good for Royals fans. We had a manager who had ignited a fire under the players and fans alike. Sportswriters had, at least for the moment, quit making fun of our team at every opportunity. There were plenty of reasons to hold hope. July 2003 was a winning month.

Then, Kansas City put up a depressingly impressive 22 months in which they were under .500.

22 months of baseball is a long time. In that time, the Detroit Tigers went from a basement-dwelling laughingstock to a World Series contender who still shows potential to win the toughest division in baseball. The St. Louis Cardinals went from a respectable powerhouse to a team that's double-digit games out of 1st in a much weaker NL Central. 22 months of baseball is a long damn time to keep losing. That's enough time for fans to get disgusted and leave, to pathetically offer up their team loyalty as a commodity on eBay, enough time to grow painfully accustomed to losing and losing and losing.

But lo! With a sweep over the Los Angeles and/or Anaheim Depending on Who is the Bigger and Wealthier Whiner This Season Angels, something KC hadn't done at Anaheim since 1992, the Royals have finally assembled another winning month. And we still have a few games to go before June is over!

It must be some kind of miracle.

AM radio is the best thing ever
The final game of the Royals' series with Anaheim was played at 2:35 here, was not televised, and was not aired on any AM stations (that I could find) in the Omaha area. That was not a problem for most of the game, as I am a subscriber to streaming audio at MLB.com. But then I faced a dilemma: It was time to leave for my first day back at work with the O-Royals in over a month, but the game was not over.

Should I be late to work, even though I had been anticipating my return to the job ever since my dugout-induced brush with disaster? Or should I miss out on the sweet symphony of victory, the kind of moment that keeps me coming back to my Royals? This was a tough one.

WHB to the rescue! The reception brought me more static than voices, but I was able to listen to the bottom of the 9th on my way to Rosenblatt. At one point, there was a dramatic pause in the static, enough of a pause for me to hear that Octavio Dotel had forced a groundout to cap off a perfect inning and seal a sweet 1-0 victory.

As much as I love XM Radio (we have it at my parents' house), I hope AM radio never dies. There is just something comforting about the crackle and hum that provide the backdrop for baseball broadcasts. The sound of a broadcast on AM brings back years of memories of sitting in my bedroom, windows open, radio cranked up. Denny and Fred were as much a part of my household as any of our close friends, as we listened to them call games every day of every summer.

Congratulations to "Craig the Crusher"
In a move that surprises nobody, Craig Brazell of the Omaha Royals was named a representative to the PCL team in the AAA All-Star Game. Brazell leads the minors with 29 homers total, 22 of which have come at the AAA level.

I hate cats
I have always had a distaste for cats, and now there are three in my household. My eyeballs itch.

This morning at about 5:45, one of the cats decided to stand on my stomach, which woke me up. I eventually got back to sleep, but it took a while. When I finally decided to roll out of futon (I don't have a bed) a few hours later, I found that the back door had come open and the other two cats had gotten out, so I had to go get them.

That is all for now, as I have to go brave the bats (not the wooden kind) in my basement and finish some laundry...