I learned to hate the Kansas City Royals from a hospital bed in North Bay.
I was 13 years old. I had bad asthma. I'd had an attack during a holiday. They pumped me with medicine to which I was allergic. Things got dicey for a while. I was stuck there by myself.
As luck would have it, I enjoyed my first near-death experience during the Toronto Blue Jays' inaugural playoff appearance – early to mid-October, 1985.
There were no TVs in any of the rooms, but I was both sufficiently miserable and adequately dopey that someone took pity and found me one.
They'd wheel it in just before the start of a game and wheel it out right after, lest anyone else complain.
I was only half-lucid for Game 4. There's a dim, fever-dream memory of Al Oliver golfing a ball into the right-field corner in the ninth.
At that moment, I wanted Al Oliver to be my dad. Then I wanted to pick a fight with George Brett's kid, and have Al go over to George's house and beat the hell out of him on my behalf.
The Jays were up 3-1 in the series. This all felt quite correct, since the goddamned universe owed me a very big solid. Everything was going to work out just fine.
Through Games 5, 6 and 7, I was getting back to feeling like myself. Which was a bad thing. The Jays were in the midst of ruining my life – a sort of anti-Babe Ruth routine: "Lose one for me, guys."
Through Game 5 – an excruciating 2-0 Royals win – I kept it together.
The agonized shrieking began in Game 6 – it ended 5-3 Royals, series now tied.
The nurses were getting worried. First, they shut the door. Then they asked me to be quiet. Then they told me to be quiet. Then I told them to be quiet. That was the end of our warm relationship, but they let me keep the TV.
I spent the day before Game 7 trying to reason this out with God.
"Okay, so you've dealt me dirty, but we can call this thing even if you'll just do the right thing. I'm not judging you. We all make mistakes. Just read your own book, pal, and don't screw this up for me." I sat there, hands clasped in front of me, like a schmuck. It was not exactly praying, but I figured He'd appreciate being spoken to like a man.
Well, we know how that one turned out.
The Jays lost and I cried. Really, really cried. Sobbing, heaving, a snotty mess. I remember slamming my fists against the mattress and screaming, "No" over and over. I was young, but I wasn't that young. The poor nurses. They didn't know what to do. They knew this was about more than baseball, but I wanted it just be about baseball.
So I went back to God: "What's your policy on curses? Because I'd like to apply for one against the Kansas City Royals, and George Brett in particular. I don't want anyone to get badly hurt – though I'm not saying that shouldn't happen. I'm not telling you how to do your job. But I would like very much for them to be humiliated in the World Series. And after that, the boils and the raining frogs." Predictably, He jobbed me again. Another 3-1 series deficit, this time to the Cardinals. Another three-game comeback. The Royals were champions for the first time. The residents of Kansas City – wherever that was – had stolen that from me personally.
By the time it ended, I was back in Toronto, temporarily lodged in a cystic fibrosis unit at Sick Kids. If you want to put your troubles in perspective, spend one night in a room with twenty kids who all know they're going to die, and soon.
Every time I'm beginning to feel sorry for myself, I think about that place. I memorized the small, brutal details of it for the very purpose.
There was no TV. Someone gave me the news. I received it with what I imagine was a face like a smacked ass. Nothing surprised me any more. This may have been the moment I chose the dark side.
The Jays and I, we'd both improve. The Royals would never make the playoffs again, which was a little too late for my liking.
I continued to hate them, but only when I recalled that they hadn't suffered nearly enough. Eventually, Kansas City got so bad they weren't worth despising. Which was another reason to hate them.
Well, they're back. Still terrible, but somehow winning games with an array of idiotic pitching decisions and cowardly bunts.
After two improbable wins to begin the postseason, the Royals are America's new sweetheart. This proves again that America is that friend who only dates sociopaths and guys who "work" freelance.
It is a nice story, I suppose. Underfunded, underloved, playing in a city that gets so hot in the summer it is unfit for crocodile habitation. Also, their inexplicable fixation with bad live music in public spaces. You know what's terrible? Kansas City jazz. You know what's worse? When it's happening right there in front of you while you're trying to eat.
The people of Kansas City don't go to baseball because they like it. They just can't risk being downtown, with all the clarinets.
I get why people want to like the Royals. They're wrong. They've never been wronger, but I understand the pull. They just don't know them the way I do.
Cathal Kelly