Did they get it?

As I watched Denny Matthews being inducted into the Royals Hall of Fame on Saturday night, I wondered what went through the minds of all the players who stood behind him. They watched the video board and saw the glory years. They saw Brett take Goose into the upper deck. They saw Sabes dominating the Cards in the 85 World Series. They saw Motley squeeze the final out of that same series which brought a World Championship home to Kansas City.

That was nineteen years ago. Many of the current batch of Royals were toddlers or just a little older. They know our history. They’ve surely seen the video footage of the glory years. But I wonder if they’ve ever put it all together in their minds. Denny Matthews called ever game during the glory years. Nineteen years wasn’t all that long ago.

So, what am I saying? That players should attend such a ceremony and automatically become World Champions. No, I’m not saying that. I’m just wondering out loud, as I was in Kauffman Stadium the other night, about whether or not our current group of players understand and appreciate what made this team great.

Winning World Championships takes talent. No doubt about it. But how much more talent did the 2003 Florida Marlins have than we do? Or how about teams like the Minnesota Twins? They continue to lose players, but then continue to win. Beyond talent, our team is missing something that former Royals’ teams contained. Fire.

Fire shouldn’t be only generated when a team is winning–like in our case last season. It should always be there in a player. If it were, the concept of chemistry that baseball announcers talk so much about might be a little easier to come by because teams would be united behind a common goal. To play their best and hardest at all times. Can we be honest and say that we don’t have a team that does that right now?

I reminded a friend recently about a game in the mid-90's in Kauffman Stadium. The Royals were playing the Mariners. We were way out of contention at that point of the season. But the game was on the line. Mike Schooler came in to shut the door on the Royals in the ninth inning. We were down by a run, with two outs. We had runners at the corners and Wally Joyner was at bat. He ripped a frozen rope down the right field line that cleared the bases for the victory. If I remember correctly, Keith Miller scored the winning run from first. When he popped up from his slide, he was mobbed (this was before it became a ritual like it is today) by Royals.

I am not trying to over-romanticize a period in Royals history. I’m sure we had guys who didn’t always give 100%. But I can’t remember one instance. Unlike this season. We have guys on our team who seem to be bothered by the fact that they have to run 90 feet to first base on pop ups or ground balls. We have guys who do not go after balls hard in the outfield. We have catchers who seem inconvenienced by having to block balls in the dirt, so they take a backhanded stab at the ball.

As I stood and cheered for Denny Matthews and for former Royals on the video screen, I hoped a few of the players got the connection. We want to cheer for them the same way. But we aren’t going to give them any more effort than they are willing to give us.