Dear Mr. La Canfora
Wow. This is still going, huh? Like most asinine Twitter fights, I fully expected it would blow over. We should be metaphorically yucking it up over a few cold ones by now. Hell, even T-Swift and Kanye Kardashian eventually got over their beef.
This post is not a jab at you. Plenty of Royals fans have been sucked into the Twitter garbage fire exercise of vomiting insults your way. It clearly doesn’t work. Hell, I may have lobbed a couple softer grenades myself over the past couple years. To be honest, I don’t really remember. And whereas I will stop short of apologizing for any of that on behalf of my Royal blue-blooded brethren, I do realize that cause and effect is a very real thing that exists on social media.
My main point here is that I really just do not get it. It has been two years since our teams met in the 2014 ALCS and your opinion of my team, city and fan base changed so dramatically.
I absolutely get that it was hard to watch the Royals sweep your (since 2014) favorite baseball team. That series was A LOT closer than folks remember. Every game could have gone either way. They certainly must have been excruciating pills to swallow. Your team of mashers in their band box, nothing they could do with all their strength against our shut down bullpen and defense.
I really do understand. I had my entire sack of guts ripped out of my body by the San Francisco Giants that same year. Speaking with absolutely no hyperbole, that was one of the darkest nights of my adult life. Emotional Zach was an absolute wreck for many moons after watching Bumgarner and Co destroy the collective heart of my beloved town.
Two years later, Rational Zach realizes how good the San Francisco Giants organization is. Rational Zach can see a lot of similarities between the team they field compared to the Royals. They have a smartly constructed, tight knit core of players that is close to contention every year. Rational Zach actually roots for the Giants when it is convenient. Rational Zach can see beyond why Emotional Zach was so upset at the time and objectively look at the situation.
This is one of two things that really confuses me about your hatred. Objectively, the Kansas City Royals are everything that is right about the current climate of Major League Baseball. A small market team that has struggled for twenty years brings in a general manager that completely overhauls a failing system from the ground up. He drafts talented, athletic players that fit his “team first” ideology. He hits more than he misses with trades. He gets the most out of his limited payroll with middle and lower rung free agents that have “just enough” production to supplement the core players.
Realizing that speed, defense and a dominant bullpen can be a successful formula over the long haul, he finds a somewhat different way to build a championship winning ball club. It is not a romanticized revelation of baseball as we know it like Moneyball, but it is a calculated, sly formula from a man who realizes there are many strengths on the baseball field upon which can be capitalized.
The team is relatively blue collar. They are scrappy and relentlessly optimistic. They are loyal. They are family. They stick up for their teammates well within all the commonly held and followed “unwritten rules of the game”. They are grown men playing a child’s game and enjoying every single damn second of it. It is difficult to think of anything that looks more joyous than Salvador Perez’s grin.
True, I am admittedly a devout Kansas City fan. But how can you seriously spin all of that in any way other than a great success story? At some point, the rational, socially-responsible adult within you (hereafter referred to as Rational Jason) would have to understand this. Right?
Secondly, I just do not understand what you actually gain out of this. I can’t imagine trolling a mediocre sized media market such as Kansas City has really done much for your national profile. There is more than likely not a Skip Bayless / Stephen A Smith / Jason Whitlock / Donald Trump career path in front of you.
Therefore, I would have to assume it is mostly done in interest of self-satisfaction. I do have a degree in psychology, so I could infer some underlying causes at play for your behavior. But that isn’t really fair to you. Here is an example of Rational Zach keeping Emotional Zach from saying something outlandish for attention.
In the end, I have no idea what happened to you to make you feel the way you do. I will be the first to admit Rational Zach does not always win over Emotional Zach, especially in the heat of the moment. However as I move through my thirties, I like to think that each passing year of life experience continues to move the needle further in the Rational Zach direction.
Wikipedia tells me that you are a forty two year old man. All my best wishes to you that Rational Jason starts to win the battle over Emotional Jason.
If you need anything along the way, I’m just a DM away.
Sincerely,
Zach Hodson
Royals Blue
@thegooddrh
@RoyalsBlue_com
