KANSAS CITY, Mo. – On the biggest night of baseball this city has seen in nearly 30 years, the man responsible for so many great moments here was just like the 40,000-plus people losing their minds around him. About a dozen rows back of the third-base dugout, Frank White sat anonymously – or as anonymously as Frank White can sit in his city – and relished the Kansas City Royals clinching a spot in the World Series for this suddenly baseball-mad town.

It was his third time visiting Kauffman Stadium in the past month, a softening from the stance outlined in his autobiography released less than two years ago: "You'll never see me in that stadium again." White smiled, posed for pictures, signed autographs, momentarily forgetting what kept him away and still keeps him at a distance.

Frank White should be in the middle of all this. He should be on the field, slapping the backs of Alex Gordon and Billy Butler, two linchpins of these Royals whom he once managed. He should be throwing out a first pitch, or catching one, or doing something that would allow him to bask in the Royals' resurgence. He should be a broadcaster or ambassador or anything with the Royals rather than spending the team's first meaningful October in ages campaigning for an open Jackson County Legislature spot he intends to fill for the final act of his career.

"I could throw out a first pitch for the fans, and it would be a wonderful experience," White said. "I guess my biggest thing is it doesn't fix what's wrong. Only the Royals could fix what's wrong. I've come to grips with that situation with the Royals a couple years ago and decided to move on and do some things that are positive in the community."

View photos Frank White played 18 seasons for the Royals. (Getty Images) More

The saddest estrangement in baseball, between a man who embodied the ascent of a franchise and a franchise that once again has risen, lingers on the fringe of a World Series set to begin Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET. Frank White and the Royals, happily married for nearly two decades, tolerant of one another for two more, now exist at an awkward impasse forged by slights perceived and actual, insults spoken and monetary, and the most intractable force of all: pride.

Last week, the Royals extended an olive branch to White. If ever there were a time to make amends, it was heading into Game 3 of the ALCS against Baltimore, the first ALCS the Royals would host since the 1985 team that featured White, a sure-handed second baseman, filling the cleanup spot. The director of the Royals Hall of Fame, Curt Nelson, reached out to White. Others in the hall were coming to town for the occasion, and they were going to be on the field together, and the team wanted to let bygones be bygones, to have White join the group.

He said no.

"It wasn't right for me," White said, and it prompted some in the organization to wonder: If that wasn't right for him, can anything be?

Frank White built Kauffman Stadium. This is not like Babe Ruth building Yankee Stadium. White literally built Kauffman Stadium, toiling with mortar, scraping floors level, a kid working construction to earn some money on a side job to his real work: trying to make baseball history.

The man after whom the stadium is named, the late Royals owner Ewing Kauffman, dreamed up his fair share of ideas, and one of them was brilliant: take raw athletes, send them to what amounts to baseball school and turn them into major leaguers. Frank White was the first graduate of the Royals Baseball Academy and the best. He made five All-Star teams, won eight Gold Gloves and spent all 18 of his major league seasons with his hometown team. He was Bill Mazeroski with one fewer World Series-winning home run and one fewer ring.

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