Kansas City Royals fans are excited for the coming baseball season. I’m not sure if they’re excited to have any kind of baseball back, or they think the Royals have a legitimate shot at winning games during the 2012 season. Like most either-or situations the truth is most likely in the middle. I’m excited too, and I have been since the end of the regular season.

I have not been this excited during a Royals off-season since the winter of 2003-2004. Remember that? I do, and it has me slightly worried. The Royals finished the 2003 Season 83-79. While the 2003 Royals faded down the stretch, and dropping their last three to White Sox there was lot to be excited about that fall. The Royals had a collection of young guys. Angel Berrora was the 2003 AL Rookie of the Year. He flashed some leather in the field, and was surprise at the plate. Surely Berrora would get better during the off-season? Ken Harvey had a good first half of the season and became an All-Star. Even though he faded during the second half of 2003, surely he would figure some things out and get better? Mike MacDougal would learn some control. Jose Lima had eliminated his demons and was back to being a productive starter. Mike Sweeney will get healthy over the winter. Runelvys Hernandez, Brian Anderson, Jeremy Affeldt, DJ Carrasco, Jimmy Gobble, would all come back in 2004 and be better. Because that’s what young ball players do. They get better. They don’t ever regress? Do they?

Not only was the current roster going to improve but Allard Baird signed veteran free agents Benito Santiago and Juan Gonzales. Zack Greinke was waiting in the minors. Some national media prognosticators even picked the 2004 Royals to win the division! The Royals future was bright, and the Royals fans had to wear shades to even look at it. How could anything go wrong?

You're looking at the best moment of the Royals 2004 Season.

The 2004 Off-Season concluded with one of the most exciting Opening Day’s in franchise history with Mendy Lopez hitting a home run off Damaso Marte in the bottom of the 9th. I was at that game, and it’s one of my favorite Royals memories. The Royals march to October was underway. I went to two more games that opening week. The Royals finished up the opening home stand 4-2. Of Course, we don’t need Paul Harvey to tell us what happened to Ken Harvey and learn the rest of this story. The Royals only won three more games the rest of April, finishing 7-14. This included a six game losing streak. May got even weirder with Tony Pena fleeing the country and the wheels officially coming off the wagon. Thus began even darker days for the franchise and it’s fans, and truthfully I don’t know if we’ve ever fully recovered.

This season does look promising. But years, and years of disappointment have dulled my optimist’s blade a little. After all, the 2003 Royals won twelve more games than the 2011 Royals. I claim to not be a very big statistics person. But one statistic that came to my attention during the 2003 season was the Pythagorean Win-Loss Formula. You use total runs scored and total runs allowed for a team to determine what a team’s record should be. The 2003 Royals had a better record than their Pythagorean W-L: 78-84. Their actual W-L was 83-79. In other words, the 2003 Royals were lucky. Any team that got to play the 2003 Tigers 19 times was lucky. The 2011 Royals Pythagorean W-L: 78-84. Their actual W-L was 71-91. The 2011 Royals were more unlucky than the 2003 Royals were lucky. This tells me that last season’s Royals weren’t all that far off from being a .500 team.

Knowing that last season’s team was better than perceived sort of eases my mind. However, a lot of assumptions on 2012 being a good season for the Royals are dependent on the same things that made us think 2004 was going to be a good season. Youth taking a step forward, no major regressions from the established roster, and new additions being as advertised or better. I’ve been this excited before only to see the worst team in franchise history trotted onto the field. There are always a lot of ifs for a baseball team this time of year. Too many times the answer to those ifs has been wrong for the Royals. That’s what has me worried. If this group of players doesn’t turn things around for the organization the only thing we’ll have to look forward to is another GM and another process. For once it would be fun to be excited about the Royals, and not worry that the wheels might fall off. Of course, like a lot of Royals fans problems only consistent winning will take care of that.

In the last 15 years, the Kansas City Royals have put some pretty pathetic teams on the field. As some time has passed since some of these historically inept Royals teams have come and gone, it is interesting to take a look back at the worst of them all, the 2005 version of the Royals.

Having the benefit of perspective, it really is astonishing to think that anyone in the organization expected that team to do anything other than suck really bad.

The 2005 Royals were entering the season coming off of a 104 loss season, their second 100 loss season in 3 years. And as hard as it is to believe now, up to that point, those were the Royals’ only 100 loss seasons in franchise history. Little did anyone know, that was just the beginning of a stretch of some of the most disgracefully inept (borderline insulting) brand of baseball anyone would ever witness. In order to fully appreciate the level of stink that graced Kauffman Stadium 81 times in the summer of 2005, we must first take a quick look back at 2004:

The 2004 Royals came into the season with some glimmer of hope, as crazy as it seems now. They had just completed a 2003 season that saw them lead the division most of the year and remain in contention into September. The Royals felt that if they only could carry that positive momentum into 2004, and add a few key pieces, that they would be ready to contend again. Enter Juan Gonzalez and Benito Santiago and a slightly higher payroll. Clearly this approach was miscalculated at best, and delusional at worst. Nonetheless, it represented a somewhat honest attempt at fielding a winning team for the first time in quite some time, which was refreshing in its own way.

As soon as the next off-season hit, it was like Royals ownership and management immediately wanted to get the message out that since they went for it last year and it failed miserably, that it would be a cold day in hell before they would ever try anything like that again. Come April 4, 2005, Royals fans who took off work early and spent their hard-earned money to come out to Kauffman Stadium for Opening Day, were therefore treated to this opening day lineup:

David DeJesus-CF, Ruben Gotay-2B, Mike Sweeney-1B, Calvin Pickering-DH, Matt Stairs-RF, Angel Berroa-SS, Terrence Long-LF, John Buck-C, Mark Teahen-3B, Jose Lima-SP

Not shockingly, the Royals were beaten 11-2 by the Tigers in their first of 106 losses that season. The 2005 Royals would start the season 5-9 before going on a 9 game losing streak to fall to 5-18. They would eventually fall to 8-25, before Manager Tony Pena decided he had enough and quit. Interim manager Bob Schaefer got in on the fun, going 5-12 before Buddy Bell was brought in as the permanent replacement for Pena. In most seasons, a 9 game losing streak would be far and away the low point in the season. Not for this team…not even close. They would go on to treat their fans to losing streaks of 5, 5, 8, and 19 games before going into just standard Royals Stink Mode in late August. To put it further into perspective, that 19 game losing streak saw their loss total rise from 63 to 82 before their win total rose from 38 to 39.

The passage of time allows us to look back at seasons like 2005 and find the humor in some ways. If Project 2012 can come to fruition and the Royals are fielding championship caliber teams for years to come, the 2005 season can then become nothing more than a hilarious footnote in Royals history.

Hi. You don’t know me or anything about me. But if you’re reading this column, I’m pretty sure I know plenty about you.

You are obviously a Kansas City Royals fan, and are for the first time in a very, very, very, very long time, feeling legitimate optimism for the upcoming season. However, for the better part of the last 20 years, you have endured year after year of baseball misery. You have cursed every player, manager, pitching coach, general manager, owner, trainer, and groundscrew captain that has passed through the orgainization during this time, using your entire repertoire of colorful language many times over. You have watched Scott Elarton, Brian Anderson, Runelvys Hernandez, and Jose Lima trot out to the mound to start Opening Day, and nearly been forced into regurgitation over it. You allowed yourself to get excited about the arrival of washed up, non-roided versions of Juan Gonzalez and Benito Santiago. You watched the All-Star games and cringed when Mark Redman and Ken Harveywere announced as the Royals’ representatives.

And as you know, this doesn’t even come close to scratching the surface of what you have endured being a Royals fan. Yet for some reason, you have continued to come back. Oh, I know, you have considered walking away many times. There are so many other things to focus your energy on in the summertime. You are sick of being laughed at and dismissed by fans of other teams. But your hope is that your loyalty would be rewarded eventually. You say that when the Royals finally do win again, the celebration will be unlike any other that anyone has ever seen (of course, nobody reading this has likely seen the Cubs win the World Series). Could that eventually be now? You are optimistic, but we will forgive you for guarding your optimism with an armed militia. You know you have been burned before, but you also know that now just feels different. Actually, it doesn’t just feel different, you are sure it is different. But you’re trying not to talk about it, because you remember when you argued with your friend who is a Cardinals fan, that OF COURSE Reggie Sanders was the missing piece in the Royals lineup. Or that one time, when you got into it with someone in the bar, saying ABSOLUTELY Calvin Pickering has what it takes to hit big league pitching. Haven’t you seen what that guy has done in AAA??

The difference this year, of course, is that you, as a Royals fan, don’t have to argue on behalf of your team anymore. The national media, and people in other baseball towns are hip to what’s going on with the Royals. They are the ones drooling over Eric Hosmer as being “can’t miss” and Mike Moustakas having terrifying power. They are saying Alcides Escobar may be the best shortstop in baseball and Salvador Perez might be the next Pudge Rodriguez. And now it is you that is either keeping quiet, or even taking the other side… reminding everyone that people spoke of Alex Gordon when he came up the same way they speak of Eric Hosmer today. And, you also say, while it is possible that Escobar could be a perennial Gold Glove winner, he could also regress into the second coming of Angel Berroa. As a Royals fan, you are now trained to think that way.

In just over 3 months, the time for talking will be over. You and I will get to know each other much better throughout this time, and together, we will watch the story of Project 2012 unfold. Will it be another self-depricating comedy? Or a dramatic thriller with a joyous ending? Who knows? Maybe in 3 months the time for talking will be over…or maybe the time for talking could finally have arrived.

April 5, 2004: The stadium is positively electric. Fans chant, whoop and holler as they exit the stadium like it’s college football game day. High fives for everyone who passes by.

The spiraling ramps bubble with the kind of glee found on Bourbon Street. The cause for such elation?

Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, the Royals just won their opening day game on two dramatic home runs in the bottom of the ninth. After trailing 7 to 3 going to bat for the last time, Mendy Lopez tied the game with a three-run blast. And then with movie-quality drama, Carlos Beltran launched a two-run homer to finish it off.

The Royals are going to be contenders once again.

After all, we came oh so close to making the playoffs last year. And we’re a lot better this year than last year. We’ve got Juan Gonzales to rake home runs and a veteran catcher in Benito Santiago to shepherd our up-and-coming pitching staff. We’ve got the Rookie-of-the-Year at shortstop in Angel Berroa, plus Mike Sweeney, Ken Harvey, Joe Randa… this is a team that’s built to make a playoff run.

Well… that didn’t quite turn out as planned.

But that was an opening day to remember.

I’ve taken in quite a few opening day games. There’s nothing like it, as far as the Royals are concerned. The team is still mathematically in contention, and for one afternoon, the stadium is packed with people.

In talking to the people actually in the stadium on opening day, however, you learn that most of them aren’t exactly there because they’re enthusiastic about the team. They are there because they got free tickets from work, or because it’s a tradition to come out one time a year, drink beer and enjoy the spring afternoon away from the office, or because they just like to be where the action is.

Not many folks in the stands really care about the Royals success or failure. But on that day in 2004, we were all believers. When I say it was like a college football atmosphere, I mean it. We were passionate, hanging on every pitch.

Of all the games I’ve seen in Kaufman, I’d say that was possibly the most exciting one.

Funny as it sounds now, we really did have high hopes for that team. We’d finished the 2003 season still believing like Tony Pena even after faltering down the stretch to finish at 83-79. It was the most exciting season in about a decade. Why couldn’t we improve upon it?

“Juntos Podemos!” was the battle cry for 2004. Unfortunately, it would seem Gonzales and Santiago didn’t understand that in English that means “Together we can!” They weren’t a part of anything but the disabled list for most of the year.

Berroa wasn’t terrible… yet. But he was well on his way. Three of our best hitters – Sweeney, Randa and Harvey – all finished with the exact same batting average: .287. They each battled injuries, as did just about everyone else.

The losses started mounting immediately following the opening day thriller.

With a record of 28-41, the plug was pulled on this team on June 24. After getting blasted 12-3 by Detroit, the Royals shipped off their best player, Carlos Beltran, for prospects that would prove to be the building blocks for the terrible teams of the rest of the decade.

That team won just 58 and lost 104. There have been some awful teams in KC since then, but possibly none as bad as that one. And certainly none as disappointing.

But for that one glorious afternoon, the exit ramps rocked with chants of “Let’s go Royals” and it was great to be a fan on opening day.

Last week Bert Blyleven and Roberto Alomar were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. The event goes by without much interest from the Royal fan – not since George Brett was enshrined in 1999 has a Royal received serious consideration for the Hall.

Going nearly unnoticed, two players with a tie to the Royals received votes in the 2011 balloting for the Hall of Fame. Juan Gonzalez garnered 30 votes for 5.2% of the total vote on his first time on the ballot. Benito Santiago got one vote. Gonzalez’s name will remain on the ballot for next year because he topped 5%, but Santiago can say “adios” to his chances.

Gonzalez’ vote total may seem paltry, but it’s actually the first time a former Royals’ name has remained on the ballot for consecutive years in a long time. Sadly it’s been more than a decade since a Royal has even received a significant number of votes.

With the Hall of Fame voting on the minds of baseball fans, I thought it warranted a closer look. I’ll leave the whole “Does Bert Blyleven deserve to be in?” and the “Mark McGwire and Pete Rose should get in” arguments to someone else.

Instead I’ll focus on the Royals, as irrelevant as they may be to the Hall. In this article, I’ll take a look at how Royals have fared in past votes. In a future article, I’ll play a little “What about so-and-so?” game and analyze who we think should have been given more consideration.

If you think Brett is the only Royal in Cooperstown, you’re wrong. Technically.

The first man who wore the Royal blue to enter the Hall was Harmon Killebrew, who suited up for KC in his final season – 1975. In 1984 he earned 83% of the vote in his 3^rd time on the ballot. (75% is required for enshrinement.)

Second came Gaylord Perry, the quirky, ageless wonder who pitched in KC in 1983 and was voted into the Hall of Fame in 1991. In his 3^rd time to be on the ballot, Perry earned 77% of the vote that year.

The third Royal to be enshrined in Cooperstown was Orlando Cepeda, who made the last stop of his career in Kansas City in 1974. Cepeda’s name dropped off the regular ballot in 1994 when he fell just 1.5% shy of regular election. But he was voted into the Hall by the Veterans Committee in 1999, the same year Brett was voted in via the regular process.

Brett, of course, is the only player whose bust and all other regalia represents his career with the Royals. Brett cruised into the Hall with 98.2% of the votes in his first year of eligibility – just 9 voters left him off their ballots.

A large number of players’ names show up on the ballot each year, and most of them garner at least a few votes. As stated before, those who do not get at least 5% are left off all future ballots. As much as we Royals fans love Frank White, Willie Wilson and others, the boys in blue have barely caused a ripple of interest by Hall of Fame Voters.

The man who’s come closest to becoming the fifth Royal in the Hall has been all but forgotten, not just in KC but anywhere. Vada Pinson, an outfielder who spent his best years in Cincinnati, wound up his career in KC in 1974 and 1975. Support for Pinson topped out in 1988 when he secured 15.7% of the votes cast.

The next best finish by a former Royal was in 1993 when Vida Blue garnered 8.7% of the votes cast. Blue was a key member of the pitching staffs of the 1982 and 1983 Royals teams.

Sadly, and somewhat amazingly, no other Royal has ever received the requisite 5% to remain on the ballot past their first year of eligibility.

The reason? Could it be media bias? There have certainly been some very good players who made their mark wearing in Royals uniform. Are the players whose best seasons were spent in Kansas City not getting the votes of the East and West Coast writers?

Well, before we dive into a conspiracy theory, consider Lou Piniella, one of the Royals players I assumed would have received the most support by Hall of Fame voters. He was popular and spent a lot of his career as a New York Yankee. But Piniella got just two votes in his one year on the ballot.

How about Bret Saberhagen, who won lots of national awards, shone in the World Series spotlight and pitched for both the Mets and Red Sox? A mere seven votes in 2007.

It would appear, much as I hate to say it, that our great players just weren’t great enough. Not Hall of Fame great, anyway. The highest finishes by those players who really made their name while wearing the Royals uniform are as follows:

David Cone – 3.9% in 2001

Dan Quisenberry – 3.8% in 1996

Frank White – 3.8% in 1996

Willie McGee – 2.3% in 2006

Willie Wilson – 2% in 2000

If you study the annual ballots too closely, it’s quite sad: Kevin Appier and Dennis Leonard – 1 vote apiece; Hal McRae, Amos Otis, Paul Splittorff, John Mayberry and Cookie Rojas – 0 votes.

So don’t pay too much attention. A trip to Cooperstown is expensive and the crowds are a pain… Just take a drive up to Kauffman Stadium and bask in the warm glow of the Royals Hall of Fame, where our beloved boys in blue are forever remembered for the joy they brought us.