The Day After

When I made plans to come to Kansas City and interview a couple of players for two newspapers I write for, I had no idea that I'd walk in to such chaos. Allard Baird was in the middle of a press conference yesterday when I got to the ball park. I slipped in and caught the tail end of it.

One reporter asked him a question that I think we've all been asking: Why didn't Tony Pena address his team after he decided to quit in the middle of the road trip? Why did some of his players have to find out about his decision from reporters?

Baird said that Pena would need to answer that question. I agree to a point. But I would have liked Baird to say something along the lines of, "I don't know his personal reasons for deciding to not address the team. He's an emotional guy and maybe he thought he wouldn't be able to keep himself composed. But, I still think he should have been the one to tell the team. Unfortunately, he didn't."

Most of the players weren't in a talking mood before the game yesterday and that was certainly understandable. The media had limited access to the players because the Baird press conference ran a little long and because the Royals kept the clubhouse closed longer than normal. The mood was what you would expect from a team whose eternally optimistic manager quit on them when the going got tough. Guys were a little down.

But they came out and fought hard, and after several torrential downpours, and a rain-shortened game, the Royals were victorious 7-5. After giving up a five run lead, they won anyway. As much as this team has been through, much of which has been self-inflicted, some of which has not, they are still playing hard even though they are only 9-26. Hats off to them for doing so.

I had a chance to interview Allard Baird briefly this afternoon and I asked him about the blogosphere—specifically about blogs that are written about the Royals. I'll post his response here in the next couple of days.

Tonight, we've got D.J. Carrasco, just up from Omaha going against Doug Waechter (1-2, 6.58).