This past week has seemed like the dog days of summer, even though that phrase is usually reserved for August. It’s usually stupid hot, and the Royals are usually losing at a good clip. Come August we’re tired of both, and ready write off the Royals until March while waiting for that first strong cold front in September.

Photo Courtesy of Minda Haas

This week in a lot of Royals Nation the temps have been near 100. Along with the heat was the humidity, and if you didn’t have humidity you had wind. Likewise, the Royals have dropped 16 of their last 26. Including being swept at home by the worst team in the league; the injury plagued Twins. For me it was my Annual “Ok I’m done with this.” Series

But then I remember: Like the 100 degree days I pine for while driving through snow, I remember that regardless of how bad the Royals are I spent the entire off-season looking forward to the season, not just the month of April. There will be a dark 4 month stretch in the winter where I’ll be looking for this stuff again. There is no sense in wishing either of them away

However, the end of this week brought some relief from the heat. It also brought some news we’ve been expecting since Spring Training. Mike Moustakas has been called up. This brings renewed energy into watching and paying attention to the Royals. “Moose & Hos” will now be in the same Major League line-up.

Mike Moustakas will make is MLB debut 50 miles from his home

The major dynamic Moustakas should add to the line-up is power. In the minors last year Moose had 36 HR in 118 games. I know it’s the minors, but even if there is a drop in production Moose should be a huge addition to the line-up. Especially when looking at previous decades power numbers. You know, what will go down as The Steroid Era? You have to go all the way back to Carlos Beltran in 2003 to find a Royals hitter with more than 25 home runs in a season. Miguel Olivo came close in 2009 with 23. Want to read something that will make you avert your eyes? Yuneski Betancourt lead the Royals in home runs last year with….16. This year the numbers are a little better, but still not good. Moustakas should help with that, and Hosmer has 5 HR in 32 games.

So the youth movement continues. The monotony of the season has been broken up. Hosmer, Moustakas, and the Law Firm of Coleman, Collins & Crow will provide enough bright spots to ignore the historically horrendous starting pitching. That’s a good thing, there are still 99 games left and no NFL waiting at the end.

Opening day is just over the hill. 2011 is a very strange year for both Royals and Cardinals. This actually could very well be the strangest year in decades for both franchises.

The case of the Royals sheds a feeling of anxiety. The other side of the coin in Saint Louis presents a feeling of uncertainty. I think most readers can agree with me on these two statements.

In my eyes, Cardinals aficionados usually know where they stand. They usually have a good idea of what might happen in the season ahead. For the most part, I’d give a leaning vote to positive thinking and say the Cardinals instill a sense that they will not shell out a losing season. With their heads still above water, under Mozeliak’s wing they sink a little deeper every year as the grip loosens a little more. It’s not dramatically frightening because we all know the Cardinals have just enough stability to not completely fall apart and just enough talent to stay in the middle of the division. The loss of Adam Wainwright is the largest low blow to any team this season and I think the Cardinals are still attempting to get that awful pill down.

Jaime Garcia put up extremely promising numbers last year, posing a continuing threat to an already solid pitching staff. This year’s spring training numbers tell a different tale though as he has dished out a 1-3 record in five appearances and a heavy 7.95 ERA to boot. Should the front office be concerned? Is this an early sign of the eventual mediocrity to come? This we know is true: Carpenter will get his fill and find a way to be productive. There is no need to worry about that. BUT, with the loss of Wainwright to Tommy John surgery and the nail biting fact that Garcia is underachieving in the spring, Saint Louis could be in trouble before the season even begins.

The Royals know the future is bright, although the present is lack luster. They are receiving more publicity than ever since the first half of 2003, when they went on a tear. The farm system is the best Major League Baseball has seen in twenty years and the Royals know that. There are plenty of arguments to be made for how the Royals handle their organization though. What they do with their money and how they move their players is questionable to say the least. However, Dayton Moore and company grabbed the attention of Royals fans regarding the promising future of the ball club.

Fans in the Royals nation want to see results now. There is an anxiety to grab the money and run away in the fields of MLB success. Many people speculate that patience is the key for the team’s rise. They know that the team should accept the fact they are very weak this year, will most likely lose 100 games, and continue the trend of bottom feeding. That good fortune will arrive with time and that fans should shovel their trust in the hands of the front office. That this seven-year plan is almost to its conclusion and victory upon victory is now within the reach.

The Kansas City Royals have provided us with an interesting blueprint, one that most can depict as a blueprint for resuscitation. Bringing back to life something that was once dead. It takes time. It takes trust. It takes money in the right places. It takes draft ability. It takes the perfect amount of team analysis and management, all churned into one interesting mix on the rocks that will eventually go down smooth.

Having these suspicions headed into the 2011 season creates for a very odd assumption. The Royals, so horrible in their own right, have found the key to a hidden door. The door still difficult to open yet reaps of promise. The Cardinals, meanwhile, are always secure and engaged with expectation, yet unfamiliar with the current lack of depth and stability.

We are left with two odd feelings from two completely different faces in the game. Only time can tell the direction each team is headed.

A few years ago I had the pleasure of getting to know an elderly woman who was one of the sweetest, most gentle people I’ve ever known. She was the old lady who gives everyone a hug when she shows up, who calls everyone “sweetheart” or “sugar.”

She lived alone, her children grown and living in other parts of the country. I got to know her pretty well, and at one point I found out that she had been married to a professional baseball player, but they had divorced decades ago.

Of course, being a baseball fan, my interest was piqued, so I had to ask her about her ex-husband. She was gracious and polite, but it didn’t take a lot of asking to learn their story.

He’d had a few seasons in the major leagues in the 1950s, but had been a long-time minor league player and coach. They had lived in California, mainly, but the game had taken him all over the country.

The thing was, the woman didn’t seem at all enamored with the glamour of being a ballplayer’s wife. She didn’t care if he had been a good player or not. She could care less what famous players he’d taken the field with. After all the years, the only thing she knew – and so delicately divulged – was that he’d been too busy, too absent, too unfaithful to marriage, and too poor a father to their children.

I grew up dreaming of being a professional ballplayer, and to this day I still feel an emptiness of not having that dream fulfilled. But I’m a father now, a husband. I have a job, a house, a normal life. So those dreams of being a professional athlete have faded, and that life seems more like fantasy than reality.

That’s why as story after story of athletes and their marital infidelity find their way into the news, I become more and more incredulous. Hearing the story of that sweet old lady who looked back on her shattered marriage and fatherless children, and knowing myself what having a family is like, I just don’t see how ballplayers can be so reckless, so arrogant, so callous.

While any mention of cheaters will immediately bring Tiger Woods to mind, I can’t shake from my memory the exploits of Johnny Damon. Damon brazenly revealed in his 2005 autobiography Idiot: Beating “The Curse” and Enjoying the Game of Life his wanton infidelity and his desire to shake loose the bonds of marriage because he “wanted to live, have fun, not pick out furniture.”

I’m just glad I didn’t know anything about Damon’s personal life while he was wearing a Royals’ uniform. All this came to light when he was winning a World Series in Boston, and I didn’t need any more reason to despise him. He’d rejected my beloved team for greener pastures, and it only seemed fitting that he’d abandoned his wife and children as well.

But now I’m older. And so is Damon. He’s 37 and is looking for a team to pick him up as a free agent. He hit .271 for Detroit last season, but he had a WAR of just 1.6 as his physical abilities, particularly on the defensive side, have deteriorated.

Damon is also remarried. He has children with his second wife. As age has changed my perspective on what’s important in life, I hope it’s changed Damon’s as well. His career may be over, but his life isn’t. Damon, and his wife, and his ex-wife, and his children – they’re all going to grow old. And the glory will fade.

I hope they don’t look back with sadness like my elderly friend does on what became of her life. To an 80-year-old woman, batting averages, wins and losses, money, fame – none of it seemed to matter. I hope I learned something from that woman. I hope Damon, along with a lot of other men, learns about what’s important in life as well.

For an interesting article on athletes and marital infidelity, click here to ESPN.