Welcome to Royal Ingenuity

Greetings, and welcome to “Royal Ingenuity” – the new Royals blog on BBTF.

I’d like to briefly introduce myself to you. My name is Garth Sears. I’m a huge Royals fan, and have been for all of my life. I’m 18 years old. I’m interested in journalism (my major and intended career choice), the KC Chiefs, and obviously, the Royals.

In my lifetime (born in ‘88), the Royals have had six winning seasons, with exactly one in the past twelve years, this year included. They have never been to the post-season. Regardless, I have a very deep love of the Royals, mainly handed down to me by family.

My first memories of the Royals came in 1992, with George Brett, Kevin Appier, and Wally Joyner being the names I remember most. That said, I can’t place any specific memories of those teams, only vague notions of watching some games with my family and everyone clapping loudly when Brett was up to bat.

The first true Royals memory I can recall is seeing Johnny Damon fly around center field and Jermaine Dye nail base runners from right. They were absolutely awesome to a ten year old, and eight years later, I still secretly root for those guys. And, around that time (1998), I vividly remember watching George Brett’s Hall of Fame induction speech on the jumbotron in Kauffman Stadium from third base-side seats.

Awhile later, Carlos Beltran joined Damon and Dye to complete one of the best young outfields in the history of baseball. Also, Mike Sweeney came out behind the plate to become one of the premier young first basemen in the league. Times were great.

After my heroes Dye and Damon were traded away to the highest bidder a little later (both times, to the Athletics), I became disinterested with baseball for a few seasons, up until 2003, when the magic struck, and a 9-0 start kicked the Royals season off on the way to a division race and the first record over .500 in nine years. I was enamored. I loved the no-names Allard Baird patched together to make the unlikely bid for the post-season – Aaron Guiel and Raul Ibanez joined hot-hitting rookie Angel Berroa and youngster Ken Harvey in their assistance to All-Stars Beltran and Sweeney on the way to a really fun season.

The Royals have flopped for the three seasons following, but it’s too late – I’m a die-hard fan now. Fittingly, I truly believe Kansas City is on the right track to return to prominence, or relevance at least.

I hope to make this blog a place for thoughtful discussion on the Royals. I read the Kansas City Star, the official Royals website, and about a dozen Royals blogs regularly, and often I get my inspiration for posts in those locations. I have a pretty decent grasp on mainline sabermetrics – not so much that I can run elaborate studies and queries, but that I can read, understand, and try to apply basic principles.

Often in this space, I’ll be depending on the readers of BBTF. The single best feature at this great website is the people. When some of the brightest minds in the whole realm of baseball chill out and talk, everyone comes away learning. As such, I’ll leave a lot of things open to discussion, and I hope everything I write comes under readers’ scrutiny.

To simplify this blog to its core, my primary goal is to provoke great Royals thinking and discussion, be it my own, or more likely, in the comment threads following.