Admirers meet Royalty

For sports fans in Columbia, if you’re yearning to see a good baseball team, or even just a 30-pound hunk of brass and pewter, you’ll need to drive a ways to find it.

That’s because the best teams don’t have to set up shop at, say, a grocery store to get their fans to come out. The top-tier teams, like popular restaurants, can stay put and let the visitors roll in.

Thursday’s display at Hy-Vee in west Columbia was a perfect example. The Kansas City Royals paraded their caravan of B-list athletes into the neighborhood grocery store in an effort to muster excitement for the upcoming season.

You read it right. Excitement. This from the team that has lost 100 or more games in four of the past five seasons.

The results were surprising.

So the Royals went to a grocery store, somewhere everyone eventually goes. When the trophy of the World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals came to Columbia two weeks ago, they displayed it at a cell phone store, somewhere everyone dreads going. But the loyal fans, clad in red, showed up anyway, paid a $10 “suggested donation” and took pictures with a metallic symbol of success.

On the other end of the spectrum, the top name in the Royals’ caravan was former pitcher Dennis Leonard, who played for the Royals during the late 1970s and early 1980s — when Kansas City won its division and even a World Series.

Twenty fans, half of whom had Royals gear on, were lined up when the players arrived. Toby Cook, the Royals’ vice president of public relations, sounded like a game show host when he asked the group, “Do you like the Royals or the Cardinals better?” The crowd half-heartedly grumbled “Royals” back.

It was a different scene from the Cardinals’ parade in St. Louis, which hundreds from Columbia no doubt attended. Winning will do that for you.

But the fans who were there, the “Loyal Royals,” if you will, were eager to see their favorite team. To them, it didn’t matter whom the Royals brought. They wanted to show their support.

Shoppers pushed empty shopping carts into the store and shot confused glances at the modest scene. They must be Cardinals fans.

But Royals fans dominated this time.

A brother and sister wearing oversized Royals caps over their eyebrows waited patiently to meet and get autographs from part-time catcher John Buck, pitcher Luke Hudson and Leonard. Their dad grinned proudly and snapped one-handed pictures with his right hand as he clutched two small winter coats in his left.

Later, a boy showed off an autographed ball to his dad but was quick to snatch it back to indicate ownership. One thing’s certain about these autographed items — they’re not going anywhere near eBay. These fans are too loyal to sell these prizes.

When the line thinned out at 5:20 p.m., just 20 minutes after the event began, the players were still in great spirits.

They performed better under the penetratingly bright fluorescent lights of Hy-Vee than they did at Kauffman Stadium (or any stadium for that matter).

The day had its share of spoilers, like the college-age man who unbuttoned his jacket as if to silently protest the event silently by flaunting the “Cardinals World Series champions” T-shirt hiding beneath it. He muttered something under his breath to his father as they both walked out chuckling.

But other than that, not a tinge of red could be seen among the faithful visitors.

It was a rare sight.