The Loop
Someone forgot to tell the city of Kansas City the Royals had a game on Wednesday
G. Newman Lowrance
Kansas City fancies itself a baseball town. The Royals did win the World Series in 2015, made the Fall Classic the year before. It does boast one of the sport's best museums, played a small part in that sweet highlight of George Brett going bananas for getting caught cheating, and perhaps best of all, it's not St. Louis.
But being a baseball town means showing up when things aren't going well, and on that front, the Paris of the Plains falls decidedly short.
The Royals have been in a rut, DFL in the American League with a 9-20 record, and a performance that's showed at the turnstile. With almost a fifth of the season in the books, the Royals are averaging a measly 14,923 fans per game. Only Miami and Tampa—Major League Baseball's equivalent of abandoned gas stations—rank lower in attendance.
If this picture from ESPN's Jeff Passan to be believed, that figure will likely drop following Wednesday's game against the Rays:
Given the state of the country, never has "America's Pastime" felt so apropos.
While there are YMCA Lil Tikes' tee ball games that will outdraw this Titanic struggle on Wednesday, as Passan points out, it is a school day, and not a particularly sunny one at that. Moreover, the game is part of a double-header, so perhaps fans are taking their sweet time getting to the ballpark.
Can't say we blame them. Watching the Royals twice in one day? Forget baseball town; that's behavior fit for a straight jacket.