ESPN: Royals fans ‘tired of waiting’

It starts with a photo of a baby. The kid’s not more than 4 months old. For years, Scott Biel would hear the story of the chutzpah his dad needed to acquire this picture because, technically, it was against the rules to go behind the ropes and ask a player to pose with a kid, but how could anyone say no to a cute little baby? Paul Biel drove 3½ hours from Hutchinson, Kan., that day to get a photo of George Brett, and Brett was good enough to hold Biel’s little bundle of a son and mug for the camera. And another Royals fan was hooked.

They did not know that, in a few months, Brett would be soaked in champagne, celebrating a World Series title for the Kansas City Royals. They did not know that these snapshots would be as good as it gets.

Where does the time go? Twenty-seven years, and Scott Biel is a bearded young man grilling hamburgers in the parking lot at Kauffman Stadium. He’s a geologist now. He is wearing a powder-blue jersey with no name on the back, and that’s advantageous, he jokes, because the moment he gets attached to a player, the Royals inevitably trade him.

So young, so cynical. This is the Royals’ Generation Y, as in, “Why do we put ourselves through this every summer?” But it’s almost like an addiction; Biel can’t quit them. He has seen a 100-loss season. Four of them in five years. He has watched Johnny Damon and Carlos Beltran leave town in their prime. But here’s the biggest thing: Unless you count that year when he was teething, Biel has never seen his team in the playoffs. The Kansas City Royals have not been back to the postseason since that magical ‘85 year, the longest drought in baseball.

“Every year,” Biel says, “they say this is going to be the year. And every year, this is not the year.

“I’m tired of waiting.”

Its so bad here Randy Newman should write a song about it.

It starts with a photo of a baby. The kid’s not more than 4 months old. For years, Scott Biel would hear the story of the chutzpah his dad needed to acquire this picture because, technically, it was against the rules to go behind the ropes and ask a player to pose with a kid, but how could anyone say no to a cute little baby? Paul Biel drove 3½ hours from Hutchinson, Kan., that day to get a photo of George Brett, and Brett was good enough to hold Biel’s little bundle of a son and mug for the camera. And another Royals fan was hooked.

They did not know that, in a few months, Brett would be soaked in champagne, celebrating a World Series title for the Kansas City Royals. They did not know that these snapshots would be as good as it gets.

Where does the time go? Twenty-seven years, and Scott Biel is a bearded young man grilling hamburgers in the parking lot at Kauffman Stadium. He’s a geologist now. He is wearing a powder-blue jersey with no name on the back, and that’s advantageous, he jokes, because the moment he gets attached to a player, the Royals inevitably trade him.

So young, so cynical. This is the Royals’ Generation Y, as in, “Why do we put ourselves through this every summer?” But it’s almost like an addiction; Biel can’t quit them. He has seen a 100-loss season. Four of them in five years. He has watched Johnny Damon and Carlos Beltran leave town in their prime. But here’s the biggest thing: Unless you count that year when he was teething, Biel has never seen his team in the playoffs. The Kansas City Royals have not been back to the postseason since that magical ‘85 year, the longest drought in baseball.

“Every year,” Biel says, “they say this is going to be the year. And every year, this is not the year.

“I’m tired of waiting.”