Joe Schulman is the author of a new column in the Kansas City Star about becoming a fan of a new baseball team. He has written for ChopTalk, the Atlanta Braves' magazine. Joe is a freelance writer in Atlanta, and he and his wife, Cady, are avid Braves fans.
Monday, February 05, 2007
Why read this?I started this blog a few months ago for two reasons: One selfish, one not so selfish. First, the unselfish. I'm a baseball fan just like everyone else. I eat, sleep and breathe the sport. There's no such thing as the off season. To me, it's just days without games. I read everything on baseball I can find. I talk to my friends about it for hours at a time.
I've never said I was an expert on the sport. Not in the sense that you'll see me on ESPN touting the next big rookie or picking which team will definitely tear through the playoffs. No, I'm an expert the way every fan is an expert. We bring passion and opinion to our discussion and swear we're right. Even when we may be exceptionally wrong.
So this blog isn't just a place for me to write whatever I'm thinking about the Royals. It's a place for me to offer an opinion and others to agree, disagree or bring up something else. If this was a community site, there wouldn't be a place to leave comments or a message board. I want this to be a place for all Royals fans, young ones, old ones, new ones and veteran ones.
That's the unselfish bit. Now the selfish part. Truth is, that question that ends every post isn't there just to spark discussion. It's there because like everyone else here, I want to talk baseball, and that means hearing what others have to say. As CT put it on the message board, "I'll talk Royals with anyone. Just give me an excuse."
All of this leads me to the main topic on being a fan. Part of that is knowing when to say you were wrong. As fans we like to think of ourselves as always knowing what's best for a team, more than the GM, owner and manager.
There's been plenty of second guessing some of the moves the Royals have made and not made so far this off season. I asked in my previous post about the best and worst signings by the Royals. Juan Gonzalez came up plenty, as did Jose Lima. We all know how both guys had careers that peaked and then crashed.
Looking back, neither player looked like a good signing going into their seasons with the Royals(Lima the second time around). But that's baseball. Hopefully moves like that won't be made anymore. To come full circle on all this I have a question for the fantasy baseball players out there.
As baseball fans we always act like we know more than management. Now that we went over the Royals and their worst signings, what are the worst trades, drops or signings you ever made with your own team? You can send as many as you want. I'll rank the worst ones in my next post. To get you started, I dropped Jeff Francoeur last year when he had three home runs and a .188 batting average. He finished with 29 HR, .260 BA and 103 RBI. There are plenty more where that came from.
So what are your worst trades and signings? Did it cost you a title?