Before fans again at last, Royals marathon opening day win bodes well for 2021 season
Nobody had heard of COVID-19, Alex Gordon was in left field, Ned Yost still was the manager and Patrick Mahomes was, you know, just the Chiefs’ superstar quarterback and not a part-owner of the team.
If that seems like an eternity ago, well, it was Sept. 29, 2019 … the last time the Royals had played before fans at Kauffman Stadium, some 550 days back, in Kansas City.
So this opening day, even if still restrained in the context of The Before Times, was something more than just another moment of revival and fresh hope befitting a national holiday in many ways.
On Thursday at The K, the Royals played host to the Texas Rangers and it was something resembling … normal?
At least in whatever way such a thing could be said of a 14-10 victory after being down five runs in the first in what became the longest nine-inning game (4 hours 26 minutes) in club history.
But you could say the Infinity War made up for lost time ... and that it was worth savoring every minute for the fans and the Royals themselves. Manager Mike Matheny said it felt like two games for the price of one, and each the sort a team looking for traction could ride for a month by stretching the upbeat vibe of spring training into living proof.
“Best opening day I’ve ever been a part of ...,” Matheny said. “It was a beautiful thing to watch.”
In this case, a sellout crowd limited to just under 10,000 because of ongoing pandemic restrictions basked in the rally but also in the reality once so taken for granted: being in the stands under the 50-degree sun of an early season and roaring through players taking the field.
In this case, they also could relish seeing the retired Gordon throw out the ceremonial first pitch and Mahomes being interviewed (with owner John Sherman nearby) mid-game.
Also somewhat customarily of late, some had occasion to boo 15 minutes into the game with the Royals abruptly trailing 5-0 and hinting at another cruel April ahead.
But in what amounted to the first time since 1906 that both teams had scored four-plus runs in the first inning on opening day, per @sportradar, the Royals tied it almost instantly in the bottom of the inning.
And so the adventure and suspense of the moment resumed, framed in an entirely different way with the return of the living, breathing component of the game that fans make up.
Thankfully, baseball marched on even without them last year, and it was great as far as it could trudge on with no fans in the stands.
But all along it also felt more like merely a bridge to the other side, or just treading water, than the symbiotic sensory experience that requires them to be an essential part of the dynamic.
Without that, even the piped-in noise resonated more like the sound of one hand clapping. Or a hollow thud, much as we might imagine the reverberation of a tree falling in the woods to be with no one around.
So, this day loomed as a cosmic shot in the arm to amplify the earthly ones of vaccination creating hope of their own to help us through the pandemic and on to whatever the new normal might be.
So, in the spirit of the day and for sanity’s sake, we were ready from the start to compartmentalize an anti-climactic, and even distressing, five-run top of the first inning off Brad Keller and consider it an inauspicious blip instead of a defining tone.
As it happened, though, it only took a half-inning to rekindle some legitimate optimism and contemplate a more appealing alternate template for this season:
Whatever fluctuations there might be in pitching, the Royals will play some stellar defense (as Andrew Benintendi and Michael Taylor flashed), and this order has a chance to be wildly productive.
Even with Adalberto Mondesi sidelined with an oblique strain, it’s potentially long and strong … as it flexed with a five-run first that included leadoff singles by Whit Merrifield and Benintendi, walks to Carlos Santana, Salvador Perez and Jorge Soler and RBIs from the 7-9 slots with singles by Kyle Isbel and Taylor and a sacrifice fly from Nicky Lopez.
By the time it was over, the bottom of the order had eight of the Royals 15 hits with Isbel and Taylor getting three apiece.
(In addition to throwing two men out at the plate, Taylor later hit the Royals’ first home run of the season, cutting the lead to -6 in the third inning to an ovation Matheny figured sounded like a full house.)
That list of contributors Thursday reflects the unique mix of this team, interwoven of stalwarts such as Merrifield, Perez, Soler and Hunter Dozier and an infusion of new players like Benintendi, Taylor and Isbel, a rookie who hadn’t so much as attended an opening day game before only to make his first at-bat a milestone moment.
At a pre-draft workout at Kauffman in 2018, Isbel said his jaw had dropped when he entered the stadium. Now, here he was, about to become part of what people were coming to see.
“This is a dream come true,” he said before the game. “And I’m super-thankful, and I can’t wait to run out there.”
Hours before, hundreds eager to see them run out there tailgated before seeing their first game here since 2019. That included Rick Shields, who grew up in North Kansas City but flew in from Ohio to resume the tradition of attending opening day with family.
As he flipped burgers, including, alas, an errant one to the ground, under their tent in what seemed to be the closest possible lot space to the stadium itself, Shields said he felt it was imperative to still be cautious but to “feel some type of normalcy” back in their lives.
“Hearing the crack of the bat” and the “roaring crowd” that figure to sound like many more than 10,000, he added, would be part of making it possible to “create memories in an era where we haven’t been able to create many memories in the last year.”
Added his cousin, Dawn Beck: “You can watch it on TV, and it’s wonderful. But to be there in person, it’s another level of experience.”
One she missed the most because of the camaraderie it provides, both with family and in terms of the broader experience.
“We all have a shared common interest,” she said, “in the Royals.”
Just like the Royals, and baseball, have a shared common interest in having them back ... and made it plenty worth their while on Thursday.
This story was originally published April 1, 2021 at 5:14 PM with the headline "Before fans again at last, Royals marathon opening day win bodes well for 2021 season."