Newsmakers 2015-2
Newsmakers 2015, A last look…Aug. 11, 2015
‘Royal Rush’
What was once — in the not-so-distant past — considered only in the realm of fantasy became reality on Nov. 1, 2015, as the long-downtrodden Kansas City Royals ascended to baseball’s throne. KC, which shocked the hardball world in ‘14 with a run that finished 90 feet shy in a heart-wrenching Game 7 loss, returned to the World Series and defeated the NY Mets in five games.
KC’s glorious return to the top reads like a Hollywood script. It started in September 2014 with the franchise’s first postseason game since 1985 — a dramatic 12-inning “play-in” victory over Oakland in which KC trailed by four in the eighth and went down again in the top of the 12th. It then culminated with a 2015 postseason run where seven of the team’s 11 victories were games in which they trailed by at least two runs at some point. That was a first in well more than a century of professional baseball. Six of those wins, the Royals were losing after five. Again, a first. And in the World Series, KC not only trailed in all five games, but won three in which they trailed in the eighth inning or later. That didn’t happen in any of the previous 110 World Series, either.
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