My City, My City, Why Has Thou Forsaken Me?

When I was a senior in high school, the vocal music teacher talked me into being a dancer in the school musical, Oklahoma!. Yes, you read that right, I said a dancer. Before you begin to plan some smarmy comment for the end of this blog, let me remind you that this occurred 20 years and a bout 50 lbs ago and that the music teacher recruited out-of-season athletes (like myself) to be the dancers. So there.

The reason I bring this up is because I was familiar with the famous Rodgers and Hammerstein prior to performing in it. What I knew about the musical really boiled down to it having a song titled "Everything's Up To Date in Kansas City." You remember the tune, "Everything's up to date in Kansas City / It's gone about as far as you can go..." As a young Kansas Citian, I took pride in the fact that someone famous had written a song about my city. And why wouldn't I be? You have to remember that my life is pretty much structured around family, work, sports, and comic books -- in that order. So, in that regard, things looked good, real good. The Royals were perennial contenders to make the World Series, and would eventually win it in 1985. The Chiefs were just a couple years away from Marty-ball and Christian Okoye and legitimacy as powers in the NFL. Even the NBA's Kansas City Kings were a respectable organization. Kansas City looked good.

And then something horrible happened, and things weren't up to date in Kansas City anymore. If you had to make an updated version of Oklahoma! the song might say, "Everything's gone to crap in Kansas City / It's gone about as low as you can go. / The Royals are a laughingstock / The Chiefs just flat-out suck / Event he Wizards don't do very much." It's kind of catchy really....also sadly very true.

I think the fall of sports in Kansas City started when the Kings left for Sacramento. I'd say it started when the NHL's Kansas City scouts left for Colorado, but even the most die-hard hockey fans I know don't realize that the NHL ever had a franchise in Kansas City (but this explains why I cheer for the New Jersey Devils, they are the old Scouts). Truthfully, though, every other sport actually got better when the Scouts left, so I don't think you can blame them. When the Kings left, however, there was hardly a whimper. I remember it as a fairly apathetic response from the City, "Oh our NBA franchise is leaving? OK." I think that's where sports started going south in KC.

News broke this week that the Royals traded Mark Teahen, one of their most consistent performers the past few years, and that they would not re-sign CoCo Crisp. Aside from having a name that just aches for jokes, CoCo seemed to be one of the bright spots for the Royales (with Cheese) at the beginning of the season. His season-ending injury coincided with the club's demise to their perennial spot in the cellar of the weak AL Central. He was brought in for veteran presence, so the management said, so why get rid of him? This is just another in a line of puzzling moves by the Royales. They seem to have no plan to improve their club. The Management actually reminds me of the owner in the first Major League movie, where the showgirl/owner tries to assemble the worst team ever in order to move the team to Florida. Is the Royales' management trying to get the team contracted into oblivion? If they are, they're doing a great job.

Of course, the Royales may actually be in better shape than the Chefs. How do you come off a bye week and look worse than you did before the bye week? Seriously! The Buccaneers came off their bye week with a rookie starting at QB (a questionable rookie at that) and they won! They looked like the worked over the two week stretch. I wish I'd been at Todd Haley's press conference afterwards. I imagine it goes something like this...

Reporter: Coach how did you spend your time during the bye week?
TH: I played some golf, signed another guy no one else wanted, oh, and I had that whole Larry Johnson thing to deal with.
Reporter: But what did you work on with the team?
TH: Ummm...yeah...I knew there was something I didn't do on my list...

In any case, I am trying to believe that the Chefs know what they're doing. I am willing to give them a chance. They did make a step in the right direction with their fans this morning. It's just interesting that no one seemed to see this coming as the team declined the past few years. Don't you think some draft choices could have learned from Willie Roaf or Will Shields for a couple years? See, I could do that job.

Hopefully, the sun will shine on the Kansas City sports world again someday ans things will be up to date once again. But until that day, it will be another long cold winter spent wondering what LSU player the Chefs will take with their first draft pick and which career back-up or aging veteran the Royales will sign as "that one last piece needed to put them over the top." When you think of it, I hope it snows a lot this winter to bury my sorrows.