Proposal: Royals Fans Should Be Granted Special Rights

At Grantland, Rany Jazayerli notes that the Kansas City Royals are one of two American sports franchises (the other being the Expos/Nationals) to exist since at least 1986 and never reach the playoffs. He points out that the Royals have never really been close to reaching the playoffs either, which leads to a jarring conclusion:

Alone among professional sports teams, the Royals have not played a meaningful game — defining “meaningful” as a game with genuine playoff implications in the last week of the season — in a quarter-century.

Whether the Royals are as miserable as the Pirates -- who are on an American sports-worst losing season streak of 18, but who at least reached the playoffs as “recently” as 1992 -- is up for debate. But the Royals have played 4,059 games since 1986, and not a single one has held any real implications for them.

The solution I propose: we should grant Royals fans “rights” that other fans don’t have.

Of course, one should be a fan however he or she wants. Be a fan of all 30 teams, or 11 teams, or one team, or zero. There is no wrong way to be a fan. That said, our fanhoods have been hammered into something resembling nationalism: root for one team, and one team only. We frown upon temporarily rooting for another team as though we’re staying at a beach house.

I know this, because I am frowned upon all the time, because I happily hold dual citizenship as both a Royals and Braves fan. I enjoy the April winning streaks the Royals tend to put together, and when they collapse a month later, I turn my attention to the Braves.

No regrets, and no guilt, because look: of those 4,059 games, I would estimate that about 3,600 of them happened while I was old enough to know what was going on. If baseball’s your sport, why would you never, ever, for 25 years, allow yourself to hold personal investment in a single “important” game? It’s ludicrous. Anyone who tries to guilt you into this silly fan paradigm simply doesn’t understand.

There may be other fan bases that deserve this exemption; indeed, as I said, people should feel free to discard standard fan protocol and celebrate sports however the hell they feel like. But I’m starting here, with the Royals, because one has to start somewhere.

I propose that we allow Royals full license to wander to whichever franchise they like without being labeled a deserter. I also propose that if the Royals ever return to contention, they are permitted to return to the team without being labeled a bandwagoner. Special circumstances require special consideration, and I would suspect anyone who objects of not really understanding what it means to lose for one’s entire life.