Sigh
Posted: December 15th, 2009 | Filed under: Media | 38 Comments »
I’m currently flooded in an effort to make some sense of the mega three-team deal, but I need to post here that there will not be a Royals Fantasy Camp contest after all. And that’s because I was just told that the Royals Fantasy Camp has been canceled for 2010. I guess not enough people signed up. The economy and all.
I know that this is an easy mark for jokes … but I have to say this is really a sad deal. The Royals fantasy camp has been a great thing featuring many of the best players from the organization’s proud history. The chance to play ball with George Brett, Frank White, Bret Saberhagen, John Mayberry*, Paul Splittorff … on and on … it was really a special gift for a few Kansas City fans who, let’s be honest, haven’t had much special in a long time.
*For one of the great underrated seasons in baseball history — check out Mayberry’s 1975. He hit .291/.416/.547 in a dreadful offensive year (he was second in both on-base and slugging). He was one of only three players in baseball to hit 30 homers and 30 doubles, he walked a league-leading 119 times. He led the league with a 168 OPS+ (the highest OPS+ in the AL from 1973-76). One heck of a year. Mayberry got hurt in 1974, but even with that taken in from 1972-75, four years, he hit .277/.399/.493 with a 153 OPS+.
The talk is that the fantasy camp will return in 2011. I hope so. As for the money I spent on the camp, well, it went to Harvesters which was the whole point. I hope we will still have a contest of some kind to raise a little money and awareness for the great people at Harvesters, Kansas City’s only food bank.
In the meantime, yes, I have already heard the joke that Royals fantasy camp actually begins Feb. 17 when pitchers and catchers report.
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circle me a sad Mr. Roarke
Joe — Is there a website for Harvesters? While I can’t afford to send a lot, I can arrange a small donation. I bet other readers could, as well.
Well, at least we haven’t had a river catch fire.
Kudos for the effort, Joe. One would think that this team, in this city, in this economy, would offer at least a local, poor-man’s fantasy camp.
Most importantly, thanks for reminding us to give – even when it hurts like it hadn’t before.
Make it a trip to KC for a weekend with flight/hotel, a Royals game and dinner with you. That would be one hell of a prize.
That’s a shame. Just listening to the Royals tv broadcasts last year, it seemed like all the old players and the campers had a great time.
“He hit .291/.516/.547…”
You scared me for a second with that typo, Joe. Baseball-reference confirms that he on-based .416, not .516 in 1975, which would have been Bondsian.
Here’s their site, for anybody interested in making a donation:
http://www.harvesters.org/
Here’s a link to donate to Harvesters, which is a great community program here in KC.
https://www.harvesters.org/GiveMoney/Donate.asp?x=030|020&~=
With the unemployment numbers where they are, I think it’s great that Joe is getting out the word for our only food bank. Just one more reason this is the best blog on the interweb.
a 1532 OPS+?! Wow, that IS good!
I hope Joe will keep the 1532 OPS+. It makes me smile each time I look at it. And let’s face it, it’s fun to think about how that would translate into raw numbers…
I guess I can post the 25-word entry I had made up:
Royals fantasy
White, Splittorff, and Mayberry
Bret Saberhagen
Kansas City greats
All the legends will be there
Hopefully me too
And so that’s my entry
I agree with Buck…dinner and a game with Joe would be a great prize.
OK – I’ve gone ahead and made a small donation to Harvesters, because in this day and age nobody should be going hungry in this country.
Allow me to make a friendly challenge to the rest of the wonderful readers here. Even a donation of $1 helps. Consider your donation a thank you gift to Joe for the entertainment he provides us with here on the site.
Happy Holidays, Joe!
thanks for the link to Harvesters… just so you guys know, every $1 donated provides 5 meals. That’s a great number to keep in mind and helps me realize just how far they can make money go. I encourage everyone who is able to give to this great organization.
I can just see the Royals fantasy camp in 2039. Yuni, Gload, Farnsworth, Bloomquist. They will probably cancel that one too.
Joe,
You sound sad, which in its own way, is sad for the rest of us. You bring so much joy and brightness into our lives with this blog, that it sucks to see you down. You should post an address (physical or web) where we can make donations. I know you want something more creative, and I look forward to that as well, but an address is something for us to get started with.
So, Joe — not only are you a great writer (and that is not fanbole), but you are also a great humanitarian. Is there nothing you can’t do?
Heck, I’d settle just for dinner with you and a trip to KC (in that order). Long ago in a galaxy far away, I lived in KC for a year. Unfortunately, I remember nothing about it, as I was roughly 10 months old when the family moved there. Family mythology, though, says that I saw Mickey Mantle play for the Kansas City Blues at some point during that time, so I guess there’s that.
“Royals Fantasy Camp has been canceled for 2010. I guess not enough people signed up. The economy and all.”
Well, if the Royals quit paying $3 mil for a catcher that was arguably worse than the $2 mil catcher they could’ve kept, the Royals could’ve lowered the price offered to the consumer and people would’ve signed up. This is more bad management really, not the economy.
You said yesterday that the retail value of this trip to Fantasy camp would be around $3,500. If the Royals saved $1 mil by retaining Buck, they could’ve PAID for 100 people to come to fantasy camp, and still donated $650,000 to Harvesters.
Now, I’m sure they wouldn’t have paid the entire cost for 100 people. They could’ve lowered the price in half or something though, and still come out great.
@David Dubbart #16: there’s a link in posts 7 and 8 of this thread.
Can’t the Royals just find a local high school field and hold their fantasy camp there? Who says it has to be fancy? This is small potatoes and its sad they killed it off. Fans remember these sort of things.
Thanks John. I didn’t read carefully enough. For some reason, they don’t work. I can only hope that we’re flooding the website right now, but I’m afraid they might actually have some server issues.
The 1532 OPS+ is genius. To reach that number, a player would need to hit a home run every plate appearance, and the league OPS would have to be somewhere south of 1968 levels.
Or, plugging in the actual worst OPS+ qualifier of last season…
OBA = 1.000
SLG= 4.000
YuniOBA=.274
YuniSLG=.351
…gives our hypothetical perfect hitter an OPS+ of roughly 1478; in other words, almost 15 times better than Yuni Betancourt.
Sheesh. That really sucks. But I like the idea of donating to Harvesters as kind of a back-door way of paying for this blog. I’m in.
Is David Glass intentionally trying to demoralize the fan base of the Royals? I ask this as a serious question. Joe, if you can, do some digging to see if the subject of contraction is raising its head again in the back halls of league offices? Maybe I am off base here but it really seems to me that this team is intentionally being run into the ground. The old A’s owner that pre dated Charlie Finley would be proud of Glass and the bunch running things right now.
I tried to find a way to report this typo through si.com, Joe, but failed. In your recent article on the Vikings, you wrote: “the Hall of quarterback in Favre”. Clearly the word “Fame” is missing from that sentence fragment.
I really, really hope you do have a contest sometime soon – I have been really, really excited about the prospect of a JoePoz contest involving writing.
Joe,
may I humbly suggest still running the contest?
Keith Law runs a $5 fine during his chats which goes to (I believe) the Jimmy Fund.
Just make a $5 or $10 donation to Harvesters the required entry (people can email their receipts with entry).
sorry to hear about your camp, I’m not a Royals fan but as a fan of yours took a trip out to KC two summers ago to watch a three game set against Cleveland.
Maybe they were afraid the campers would challenge the 2010 Royals to a game.
That’s too bad.
Love your columns Joe. Keep up the great work. In the past few months you’ve become my favorite sports writer.
What are your thoughts on the Halladay deal (well, almost deal)? Jays getting ripped off?
My team just traded for Juan Pierre, that’s the definition of sigh.
David Dubbert @21: The site for Harvesters appears to be working again.
Bummerhemian Rhapsody
Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
Because I’m easy come, easy go
Little high, little low
Any way the wind blows
Doesn’t really matter to me, to me
“Easy come, easy go
Little high, little low
Any way the wind blows”
Sounds like a description of the Royals’ relief pitching.
Mike @ 30: I would be thrilled if the Royals got Juan Pierre. That’s how bad it is in KC.
I’d hope nobody from the Royals’ bullpen shows up for that fantasy camp. Moore might offer up some contracts to people off the street.
Quick note on the Harvesters stuff…
When I was a kid, Dan and Janie Quisenberry ran a Harvesters promotion every season where you received an autograph for bringing food to donate to Harvesters… Royals wives manned every gate with a slew of black and white 3″x5″ player “cards” with autographs, and we would go from gate to gate with cans of food collecting as many cards as we could… I’ll always remember those nights as big nights, and my friends and I went to each one…
Forward to 1998 when the Royals hosted Dan Quisenberry Day–the day when Quiz bolted out of the car (to everyone’s surprise!) that was taking him around the field to slap five with all of the players and Lancers gathered around the infield (Monty was the last of the players and standing on second base, and if that hug didn’t bring tears to your eyes you aren’t a Royals fan)… The Royals announced prior to the game that to honor Dan they wanted fans to bring a food donation to the game…
Well, walking through the parking lot with my case of food I didn’t notice more than a few people who brought anything to donate… The crowd size was about 31K, which felt empty to honor a Royals great who was in the last months of brain cancer…
The next night the Royals sold out Beanie Baby night…
I’ve never forgotten how sad I felt seeing that a night honoring a dying Quiz–one of the most unique Royals and the one who probably most identified with the average fan–drew 10,000 fewer people than a night for a bunch of stuffed animals…
That weekend 11 years ago will always strike me as the first time I noticed that the Royals I grew up with–Mr. K, competitive and exciting teams, players that were special to me–were dead… And not for the better…
@ 36 Kyle,
You can thank David Glass and his PT Barnum “there’s one born every minute” approach to MLB ownership. Wasting money on give-aways and sub-par baseball players over the years has taken a toll on this fan base. The man is a disgrace to professional sports. After the money the city has spent on this franchise, the city of Kansas City should sue him for fraud.
Now they’re cancelling the fantasy camp as if they can’t afford to put this on. Please.
Several weeks ago an article was written that the powder blue uniforms that the team wears on Sunday home games will now also include a powder blue cap. YEAY! They can’t even do that right. Toronto employs this same gimmick by wearing their ENTIRE road unis from the mid 80’s. As usual, the Royals screw this up by only wearing an amalgam of the original jersey and white pants. They play like clowns so why not look like them as well.
And of course, there was the George Brett figurine give-away towards the end of the season where 20K boxes were printed stating that GB played 2nd base. They handed out sickers with “3rd base” on them to everyone that took a box so they could place them on the error. This was the Royals ONLY Hall of Famer and the man with the MOST hits of any 3rd BASEMAN in baseball history. WTF!
This organization is an absolute embarassment at every turn. These kinds of bush league mistakes and brainless moves derive from a lack of integrity and professionalism that comes straight from the top.
David Glass is an abomination.
@ 37 stpat:
I was working as the marketing director for the Royals Double-A team in Wichita at the time, and I remember the Royals “senior director of communications” at the time, Jim Lachima, bragging about how the Royals came up with a die-cut card to go with the Beanie Babies they were giving away… He was patting himself on the back for how clever they were and how well the Beanie Babies brought in fans…
I kept thinking that the soul of the Royals had died, and that this import from Pittsburgh has no sense of the history and tradition of this franchise, and that no stone should have been left unturned to sell-out a day honoring Dan Quisenberry…
Until going back to the stadium a few times this year and going through the Royals Hall of Fame, I thought all of what I grew up with was lost, or at least buried deep in the souls of those of us who lived it from the mid-’70s through the early ’90s…
To quote The Rolling Stones: “Sad, Sad, Sad”…