Sangre por sangre.
Thursday night, after attending the Royals’ season-ending defeat to the Yankees in Game Four of the ALDS, I immediately planned on writing an article about how the Yankees had once again become the Royals’ and Royals fans’ biggest enemy.
However, I stopped myself. I did not want to write something so quickly after the loss, something that was sure to be drawn quick from the hip, something brash. Something wrong.
Instead, on the drive home, I decided to give it a couple of days to see if I still felt the same way, to see if I felt better after the loss. Maybe, depending on the results of the games on Friday and Saturday, I might change my mind – I might actually want to root for the Yankees among MLB’s final four.
It’s Monday morning. The thought remains. The sentiment prevails.
The Yankees are back to being Enemy No. 1.
Jay Biggerstaff-Imagn Images
It’s a funny thing when trying to pin down Kansas City’s rivals over the years: it’s always changing.
When they first became good and began making the playoffs in the late 70s, the answer was easy: the Yankees.
The 1985 season served up the rare opportunity to face the cross-state St. Louis Cardinals*, and while animosity ensued long after the series concluded, the two didn’t meet again until interleague play began. It would be awesome for the Royals and Cardinals to face off again in the World Series. The Cardinals reached the NLCS in 2014 but fell to the Giants before the Royals did. In 2015, the Cardinals finished the regular season with the best record in baseball, but lost the divisional round to the Cubs.
*While the Cardinals have won 11 World Series, which is the second-most behind only the Yankees, since the debut of the Royals in 1969, the Cardinals only have a 3-2 title advantage over the Royals.
When the Royals were so bad in the 90s and 00s, did they really have a rival? Hard to say. There were the aforementioned interleague games against the Cardinals, plus games against Central foes like the White Sox, Tigers, Twins, and Tribe, and, sure, no love lost with any of those teams, but the sell-out crowds, the big crowds, were still reserved for the Yankees, Red Sox, and Cardinals.
In 2014 and 2015, there was definitely animosity between the Royals and the Blue Jays, and, to a lesser extent, at least to me, the Royals and the Orioles. The Royals easily dispatched the O’s in 2014 while knocking out the Jays in six games in 2015. The rivalry with Baltimore continues today as the two teams are back on the same winning track and met once again in these playoffs. But it has dwindled with Toronto, especially after guys like Jose Bautista and Josh Donaldson left and then retired.
But there’s just something different about a team that knocks your team out of the playoffs. And it’s even more intense when it’s a team from the same league. I make the comment about the San Francisco Giants, the only other team than the Yankees to have knocked the Royals out of the playoffs in my lifetime.
I really couldn’t care less about the Giants. Even in the aftermath of the 2014 World Series, I didn’t care about the Giants. I don’t like the Giants, but I also don’t hate the Giants. The Giants are just there, in the other league and in a separate division.
But the Yankees.
Oh, the Yankees are a different story.
This morning on the radio I heard a Yankees fan tell a joke: “Why is it called the World Series when it’s always in New York?”
That made me laugh. A regular guest of the morning show on 810, she said it in good fun. I didn’t expect that joke at all.
I’m sure there are other Yankees fans, though, maybe (probably?) even the majority, who take that joke to heart.
There are several reasons why the Yankees are back to being Enemy No. 1.
Reason 1: They ended the Royals’ season
It was a hard-fought series, yes, and the Yankees ended up barely scratching out wins in Games 1, 3, and 4, but the fact remains: New York ended Kansas City’s fairy-tale season. The Royals need to return the favor next season. Them’s the rules.
Reason 2: Their actions
Jazz Chisholm started this mess when he s***-talked the Royals after the Royals won Game 2. Chisholm bashed a high home run off Lucas Erceg in the bottom of the ninth, which, hey, man, nice shot, but it didn’t change the outcome. Thankfully, Royals fans mercilessly booed him in Kansas City, and he did squat the rest of the series.
Jay Biggerstaff-Imagn Images
Except jaw more. Even before Chisholm opened his mouth, Game 2 starting pitcher Carlos Rodón acted…oddly. Look, it’s the playoffs, and you’re pumped, I get it, but what’s up with making weird facial expressions before the fourth inning?
Then there was the incident at second base with Maikel Garcia in Game 4. Chisholm, Gleyber Torres, and Anthony Volpe all got into the banter. Starting pitcher Gerrit Cole acted like the Greatest Pitcher Ever when Kyle Isbel hit a ball that died on the track but would’ve been a homer in 24 other ballparks.
The Yankees are acting like they deserve to win. It’s time for them to lose.
Reason 3: Money
It’s the same old story in Major League Baseball, the only major North American league without a salary cap: the big-market teams with deep-pocketed owners are the ones to beat.
Check this out—for the sake of this, let’s not consider the St. Louis Cardinals a “small-market” team. That would make the 2015 Kansas City Royals the only small-market team to win the World Series since the 1994 strike. In fact, depending on how one breaks it down, only three teams in the second-half of MLB market sizes have won the World Series since the strike: Arizona in 2001, St. Louis in 2006 and 2011, and Kansas City in 2015.
Meanwhile, in leagues with salary caps (and floors), the Kansas City Chiefs have won the last two Super Bowls; the Denver Nuggets, Milwaukee Bucks, Toronto Raptors, and Cleveland Cavaliers have all won NBA Championships in the past nine seasons; and teams from Miami, Denver, Tampa Bay, and St. Louis have captured the Stanley Cup since 2019.
Of the remaining four teams in the playoffs, the Mets rank first in payroll (just over $317 million), the Yankees second (over $309 million) and the Dodgers fifth ($241 million).
The Royals were 20th at $122.5 million.
It’s great to see the Royals spend money. We’ve covered that. This team wouldn’t be where it is without extending Bobby Witt Jr., locking up Salvador Perez, or luring Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha in free agency.
But the Yankees still spent nearly $187 million more than the Royals. There’s no chance of the Royals being able to keep up with the Yankees or Mets or Dodgers. Hell, even the Cardinals spent around $53 million more than did the Royals this season.
Baseball might be romantic, but it’s a business above all else. Financial inequality will always be there. That makes it hurt when the more expensive team wins. But it does make it all the sweeter when the team with the lower payroll prevails.
The Yankees and Royals missed each other in the playoffs in 2014 and 2015, and the Yankees have drawn first blood in the 2020s. Now it’s time for the Royals to not only seek but exact revenge.
As Gustavo Fring once cold-heartedly told Hector Salamancha: “Sangre por sangre.”
Blood for blood.