Sunday Sermon: Local Columnists

Without any established system, and with myself probably not even aware of it all of the time, I grade my sports section. An eight-page sports section seldom gets an 'A.' That's nobody's fault; it's just not enough substance for me. The Sunday sports section seldom gets one either. It's usually got some good points, but then is full of crap like high school sports and fishing and NASCAR. Eff that nonsense. Today's was pretty darn good, though. Maybe even B+ material. Joe Posnanski published a great article on former Kansas City Royal Carlos Beltran, and Jason Whitlock examines how the Chiefs will be different than any Chiefs team he's covered since his employment with The Kansas City Star began. There's some other good stuff in there, but the two things I mentioned really got me thinking.

When this post was published here on the House by Old No. 7, I was impressed by it. Check that, I still am. It's intelligent, full of quality, Wikipedia-free evidence and lucid thinking. I don't aim to disagree with any of it entirely, but I do feel like there are one or two things left unanswered after reading Joe Posnanski's article in today's paper. To me, the crux of the issue falls somewhere in here:

By continually sucking, (the Royals) add credence to the outdated notion that small-market teams can't comepete. That's simply not true anymore. There's more than one way to skin a cat, and there's more than one way to win at big league baseball. If you don't have the revenue streams the Yankees, Sox, Cubs, Dodgers and Angels do, baseball gives you money. If you don't sign the big free agents those teams do, baseball gives you draft picks to get your own players. It's like the teacher is giving you a cheat sheet before the test. All you have to do is take it.

Yes. Baseball gives you money if your revenue stream ain't large, and yes, you get draft picks. How, though, is a team supposed to deal with a situation like the one the Royals had with Carlos Beltran? He's earning $17 million a year from Los Mets; the Royals' total payroll is around $56. Regardless, I'll share some interesting quotes from JoePos' piece:

1) It's almost been 10 years since the Royals called Beltran up from the minors.
2) Saturday night in Omaha, the AAA Royals gave out 1500 Beltran statues to the first 1500 fans. Apparently, he was the fan favorite of the the decade, and the kicker is that Beltran played no more and no less than five games there.
3) When the call-up happened, Beltran hit 22 homeruns, swiped 27 bags, and joined Joe DiMaggio in the company of rookies that would drive to net 100 RsBI, and cross home plate just as many times.
4) Posnanski asserts that it was at that moment that everyone knew the countdown was on, that it wouldn't be long "before the Royals would not be able to afford Carlos Beltran."
5) Through seven seasons with the boys in blue, Beltran left himself eighth in Royals history on the RsBI radar with 516, eighth in home runs with 123, eighth in runs scored with 546, fourth in slugging with .483, fourth in OBPS with .835, and third in grand slams with four.

Those are impressive numbers, and he holds those positions and trails guys that mostly spent their entire careers in KC, back when nobody made anywhere near $17 million a year. Just sayin'.

The flip side of the journalism coin today would be the one and only Jason Whitlock talking Chiefs football. Well, he's kind of talking about Chiefs football. He's addressing his column, the history of it and what it will become along with this new Chiefs team. He speculates that it will be quite the ride, though.

On the incumbent side, Whitlock wonders about Larry Johnson's injury from last year, and how it might affect his game this year. Whitlock thinks that Johnson could be past his prime, will continue to be moody, and if the offensive line struggles, he'll be likely to mope. He also worries about Derrick Johnson never developing consistency, Donnie Edwards getting old, and Tamba Hali not even coming close to filling Jared Allen's shoes.

This, he says, leaves us with two options. The first would be for Brodie Croyle to "shock the world and show flashes of being a legitimate starting NFL quarterback," and the second is for Dwayne Bowe and Glenn Dorsey -- the "Louisiana Purchases" as he puts it -- to become "stone-cold ballers."

It comes as no surprise to me that Whitlock, along with the rest of the world, has given up on not only the Chiefs before they break for camp, but also on Croyle before he gets to log a complete season as the starter. I'm not saying that I'm moving from my 6-10 prediction on the '08 Chiefs, and I'm not saying Croyle will be even as good as Trent Green was. I am saying that the Chiefs could potentially show a lot of competence and confidence in terms of putting a pretty darn good 2009 squad on the field, which would be perfect timing honestly. I don't think I've ever celebrated an AL Central and an AFC West division championship in the same season. Actually, I know I haven't. The Royals have actually never won the AL Central, but claimed the AL West crown seven or eight times.

I've mentioned it before, but I really do think things are looking up for the Royals. They've spent a lot of time not in last place in the Central this season. They could take the series from the White Sox today, having struggled a ton in recent years at US Cellular. Zack Greinke has been bumped up to the one spot in the rotation. Billy Butler's bat has come back around. Mike Aviles leads the team in batting average at .309, and with the Tigers in town tomorrow, the Royals could actually make considerable movement toward overtaking their third-place slot, and creep even closer to a .500 record. Of course they could get swept and drop back into last, too, but that wouldn't be very cool. Now would it?