Kansas City Royals’ 2014 World Series Run a Much-Needed Breath of Fresh Air For MLB

By Andrew Fisher @AndrewFisherRS on October 15, 2014

The Kansas City Royals have taken a long 29-year break from the World Series. That fact has been well documented over the past couple of weeks. But after all these years, no one could have predicted the way they went about their return to the Fall Classic.

At first this postseason, many pegged the Royals as a small ball team. They were last during the regular season in home runs, and their lineup doesn’t really consist of many sluggers.

But after eight straight wins and sweep of their AL competition, it’s clear that the Royals are much more than a small ball team. Not only do they know how to “get ‘em on, get ‘em over and get ‘em in” — they can also play top shelf defense, shut hitters down with their pitching and hit the long ball when necessary.

You can’t just point to one thing or one style of play with this KC team. It’s a team that’s doing everything right, at the exact right time. In fact, no team has ever done what the 2014 Royals have done/are doing. Because of the new MLB Playoffs format, KC is the first team to ever win the Wild Card game and then sweep the next two series. Given the degree of difficulty (play-in game and two series that started on the road), they may be the last team to ever accomplish such a feat.

Overall, having the Royals in the World Series is great for the game of baseball. It’s a much-needed breath of fresh air for sport that desperately needed one. Is the entire nation captivated by Royals’ baseball? No way. But for those who were beginning to sour on the sport and needed to remember why they fell in love with the game in the first place — KC’s amazing run is the best thing that could have happened this postseason.

Now it’s just a matter of which familiar playoff team the Royals will face in the World Series. Either way, whether it’s the Cardinals or Giants, you can bet that most baseball fans without a rooting interest will be jumping on the KC bandwagon for the remainder of the season.