“Kansas City: you’ve got a world series.”

Denny Matthews has had the play-by-play radio broadcast for the Kansas City Royals since the team’s inaugural season in 1969. On October 15th, 2014, in his 44th year, he sat before the microphone as the Royals clinched their first World Series berth since 1985. He could have said anything, or everything; instead, he chose to say virtually nothing and let the roar of an emotional crowd pick up the paintbrush and audibly illustrate the scene.

If you listen closely, you can hear me; crying, screaming, crying, laughing, crying, in section 405, seat 21. My name is Matthew Holloway, I am 27 years old, and I’ve been a Royals fan for as long as I can remember.

If you listen closely, you can hear the guy next to me, “WHOOOOHOOOO”ing like a fanboy, in section 405, seat 22. That’s my boss. He’s kind of a hipster, with no interest in sports whatsoever. He has been following the Royals playoff run since I returned to work at 8:00 AM the day after the Royals won the wildcard game against the Oakland Athletics, after leaving the stadium beyond midnight, and driving three hours home. He sent me a text message while he was in Connecticut last week, inquiring about where we should watch the game. “… At the stadium?”, I jokingly responded. The joke was on him, because, I got him a ticket.

If you listen closely, you can hear the chick next to me, who softly says “wow…… just, wow…..” and embraces this bawling mess of grown man, in section 405, seat 20. That’s my girlfriend, who as recently as two years ago, was a St. Louis Cardinals fan. She used to think our household rivalry would be “cute” in one of those “house divided” kind of ways. I believe she envisioned a home littered with Pinterest crafts, all with chic-ish faded royal blue and cardinal red paints; she would also reach over and slap my leg when I’d inform her I was envisioning what it would be like to be single again. Ask her now; she’ll admit that she came to realize I wasn’t joking, and I didn’t think it was funny. She’s in her craft room as I write this, making a Royals themed wreath.

If you listen closely, you can hear the clicking sounds of a middle-aged man stumbling through his smartphone to send me a congratulatory text message, from his home in Seneca, MO, 3 hours south of Kauffman Stadium. This is my brother, who hasn’t watched a baseball game on television in decades. He is a former high-school pitching standout, who gave it up to become one of the most talented outdoorsmen in the region.

If you listen closely, you can hear the horns blaring from I-70, where I took a brief moment away from celebrating to glance up and see traffic at a complete standstill, just behind the fortress that held 40,000+ fans in blue. I saw people pulling their cars off the road, exiting their vehicles, running toward the stadium, and raising their arms in victory. Seconds later, I saw a highway patrol officer in a truck turn his lights on, pull off to the side of the road, and thought to myself “ohhhh shit”; the officer walked over to the shoulder put his hands on his hips, and soaked it all in, without saying a word to the individuals who had halted traffic.

If you listen closely, you can hear the innocence of what appeared to be about a six year-old child, who doesn’t quite understand the significance of this victory. His parents parked next to my vehicle outside of the stadium. I watched as his father removed two gloves from their trunk, and they played catch in front of me. I couldn’t help but wondering what it must feel like to not live 27 years before the Royals made the playoffs. In that celebratory moment, I couldn’t help but think of him, and hope that this was the most memorable moment of his life.

If you listen closely, you can hear one of my three dogs, Hoz; clip-clopping across my hardwood floor as he anxiously awaits my return. I adopted Hoz from the humane society this past December. He’s a golden retreiver/lab mix that was brought in because the family that owned him didn’t have the patience for him, and gave up on him. After about 10 months of having him, I can totally understand where they were coming from. He makes small improvements here and there, and I have to remind myself to focus on those things because he’s making progress; even though I predict that it’ll take a really long time, I know he’s going to be great someday.

If you listen closely, nearby, you can hear another of my dogs, Moose; my veterinarian says he’s a spaniel/lab mix of some kind, and I have no choice but to leave that assessment up to her. He’s snoring, loudly. I found Moose stumbling across my yard during an ice storm back in early March. He had little frozen snotcicles running from his nose all the way down to his long beard. He had snow and ice caked between his paws. He looked up at me with the sweetest eyes, and where his eyes were supposed to be white, they were dark red. He wouldn’t have made it much longer out there, so I threw him in the truck, wrapped him up in my jacket, and drove around trying to find where he had come from. As it turns out, the owner’s neighbor contacted me the following day and told me to keep him, because he was malnourished and mistreated. Now, Moose spends every moment he is awake trying to prove to me that he’s worth keeping — he does everything I asks, without hesitation, and gives all the effort he has.

Among the screaming, laughing, crying, hugging, fireworks, car horns, beer glasses clanking, high-fiving, and whatever it sounds like when you rip a bandage off of a heart that’s been broken for 29 years, you can hear one last, unexpected thing.

If you listen closely, you can hear dead silence.

—

The noise didn’t stop when we got in the car to leave the stadium. Nearby, cars were honking in-sync. “BEEP/BEEP/BE-BE-BEEEEEEEEP” would be countered by the line standing outside of the portable toilet with “LET’S GO ROYALS!!!”. Every car exiting the stadium was blaring music, rather than the post-game radio programming. My car was blaring Archie Eversole’s “We Ready”, and as we continued through the parking lot, people walking towards their vehicles would echo its lyrics.

In hindsight, we were all trying to hide the fact that we didn’t know what to say. I remember feeling like I should have prepared a speech, for the ride home. I tried to think of what I might say when my co-workers asked how the game was, because, I knew they would. I never found the answer, so I did my best to cease this mindset of “thinking ahead”, and do my best to enjoy the moment for what it was. For most of the drive home, we let Pandora Radio do the talking for us.

When I arrived at work the next day (Thursday), my voice sounded twice as masculine as it ever does, with only about one-tenth of the strength it typically has. “How was the game?”, I was asked as I opened my driver’s door. I wanted to punch myself in the junk for not revisiting my internal discussion the night before. “I cried” was the best and unintentionally accurate response I could muster up, at 8:10 AM.

I unlocked my office door, walked inside, opened my laptop, checked my e-mail, “good morning!”‘ed everyone; the usual routine. When 9:00 rolled around, I realized something wasn’t right… I was missing something. I stood up, patted my right butt-cheek to reveal I hadn’t forgot my wallet. I’m in my office, which was locked, so I obviously hadn’t forgot my keys. I patted my left butt-cheek to reveal I hadn’t forgot my phone, but I removed it from my pocket, saw I had no missed texts or calls, and tossed it on my desk. WTF am I missing??

In that moment, in my office, it was dead silent.

—–

I’ve never been shy about being a Royals fan. On the other hand, I’ve never been obnoxious about it.

Sometimes I use craigslist to buy or sell random things. I always meet people in public, and, they always ask me what I’ll be wearing. I always say “Royals hat, Royals shirt/hoodie” — not because I dress up in Royals gear for craigslist, because it’s what I wear when I’m not working. Probably one-third of every article of clothing I own has something to do with my favorite baseball team.

For so long now, I have been completely oblivious to the commonly understood concept that wearing aforementioned attire in public was an open invitation for both acquaintances and strangers to speak freely on how inferior of a baseball team they so keenly noticed I supported.

My earliest memory of this took place in elementary school. I had this awesome Royals shirt that had “Slugerrr” on it (the Royals mascot). Twice in one day, both a teacher and the principal cracked jokes about my shirt, and let me know they were Cardinals fans.

More recently, as in Thursday night, I drove out in the middle of nowhere to a restaurant. I walked through the front door, and was greeted by a cute, 18(ish) year old girl, who had braces and long blonde hair. She was wearing a neon green tanktop that said “CARDINALS” on it. Actually, it said “CARDINALS”, and then “CARDINALS” was stacked on top of that, followed by “CARDINALS” stacked on top of the two prior. Before I could wrap my mind around the level of obnoxiousness she was wearing, she greeted me with a grin, cocked her head to the side, and loudly told my group “OHHHHH!!! You can’t wear that in here, I guess you’re going to have to sit outside tonight!”.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been at a bar, asked either how much my tab was, and the reply was “It’ll be twice as much unless you take that hat off”. I always reply “why?”, and I always hear a slightly altered version of the exact same thing.

“The Cardinals are better!!”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in Target, wearing my Royals pullover, and some douchebag early 20’s kid in a sleeveless t-shirt says “Maybe next year!”, or, “You should take that off and follow a better team, like St. Louis!”.

Last time the Cardinals won the world series, I was working for a behavioral health agency. I recall receiving 8 e-mails the morning after they won, reminding me how inferior my favorite baseball team was, and letting me know that the Cardinals are world champions. My facebook wall was also cluttered with photos and links about their win.

The lady at the post office gives me a hard time, she is a “die hard Cardinal for life”. My old mailman gave me a hard time, he’d jokingly say he was going to start leaving my mail in the gutter since that’s where the Royals season was.

Here’s a fun one: in my career, I am in charge of interviewing and selecting potential candidates to hire. I have an Eric Hosmer bobblehead on my desk. If you sit down, and the first thing out of your mouth is “Royals? You’re a Royals fan? I don’t know if I want to work here, I’m a Cardinals fan… Just kidding, bahahaha!”, I don’t care if you really can perform open heart surgery with a ballpoint pen, you will never, ever, EVER work for me. It’s not discrimination, it’s that some individuals don’t understand the concept that I’m there to interview them for a job, and not discuss your favorite baseball team, let alone be criticized for mine. If you don’t have the awareness to use situational tact, I don’t think you’re right for… any job.

Last year, I went to the Royals vs. the Cardinals Sunday game at Kauffman. Jeremy Guthrie was starting, and he threw the opening pitch for a strike. I clapped my hands, maybe five or six times. I didn’t say a word. The group of Cardinals fans in front of me turned around and said “are you going to do that all game?”, he scoffed at me, and stared at me awaiting a response. “I’m a Kansas City Royals fan, in Kansas City, watching the Royals play”, I instantly replied. The guy grunted, turned around, and shook his head. The rest of the game, he and his friends, who I believe were a group of swingers, were the most hateful, rude neighbors I’ve ever watched a baseball game near. Furthermore, they sat there and rubbed each others’ wives’ legs and shared a dripping wet hand towel to rub the sweat off of themselves. There was only one towel.

Every bar, every restaurant. Sitting in traffic, walking my dogs. Strangers, friends, family members. Teachers, co-workers, bosses. The mailman, the vagabond that drives the ice cream truck. My opponent in my headset while I’m playing MLB: The Show on PS4. My facebook wall, my twitter feed. Voicemails, texts. The police chief. They all say the same, unoriginal, offensive things. They’re all taking what they “love”, berating what I love, and dangling their metaphoric baseball dicks in my face.

Maybe some day you’ll know what it’s like to have a winning franchise. If the Royals wouldn’t give all their players to the Yankees and the Red Sox, they’d be good. They cheated to win in 1985. They didn’t even earn that trophy. Kansas City’s off season starts every September. Enjoy watching the Cardinals win from your couch. Poor man’s baseball. The MLB farm club. They’re a minor league team. The Royals won last night?… I didn’t know they knew what that was. It’s June — are the Royals mathematically eliminated yet?

—–

I realized, at about 9:15 on Thursday morning, what was missing. It was a text message, from a former co-worker.

After every Royals win, I’d get a text message between 8:00 and 8:30 the following day. “What’s happened to your Royals?” after the Wild Card game. “Lucky Bastards.” after the first ALDS win. “The demons must be cold this morning because I’m pretty sure hell is freezing over”, after the last ALDS win.

But, on that morning, silence.

That night, I decided to reach out and see how he was feeling after the Cardinals lost to the Giants in the NLCS, so I sent him a text.

Since that text message, silence.

Wearing my Royals pullover, eating at MOJO burger on Friday, the previous home of dozens of negative comments about the team I choose to follow and support; silence. But on my way out the door, I passed a late 20’s guy wearing a Royals hat. “Enjoying this?”, he said to me. “Absolutely, man”, I replied. We high-fived, and nothing else was said.

If you listen closely, in the audio clip of Kauffman Stadium immediately following the Royals ALCS win, among the screaming, laughing, crying, hugging, fireworks, car horns, beer glasses clanking, high-fiving, and whatever it sounds like when you rip a bandage off of a heart that’s been broken for 29 years, you’ll hear silence, from the self-proclaimed best fans in baseball, who held their breaths all the way through game five of the NLDS, which eliminated them from contention for the 2014 World Series trophy.

And now, that St. Louis will be the ones watching the World Series from the couch, these Cardinals fans are breaking their silence in the most unlikely way imaginable. The following are quotes pulled off of my Facebook wall, from Cardinals fans.

“Well, if the Cardinals aren’t going to do it, I’m pulling for KC!”

“Guess I’m on the Royals bandwagon now”

“At least one Missouri team made it to the world series, go Royals”

“LOL well St. Louis played like idiots, time to put on some blue i guess”

No. No, no, no. Actually, hell no. HELL NO. There’s no room on the Kansas City Royals bandwagon for you. There’s no room for my mail man. There’s no room for the guy I used to work with. There’s no room for the bartenders, waitresses, potential employees, or the vagabond ice cream truck driver. There’s no room for the douchebags at the grocery store. There’s no room for people who have spent decades thinking I deserved their opinions, or that their criticism of what I love was warranted. There’s no room for people that call themselves “The Best Fans in Baseball”.

On behalf of true Royals fans everywhere, don’t show up at Kauffman for the World Series — you’re taking tickets from people that earned this. Don’t show up in the bars during the World Series, and if you do, don’t wear blue. Don’t support “Missouri baseball teams”. Don’t post on Facebook about the Royals, and don’t tweet about them. Don’t speak to me, don’t text me, don’t call me, don’t e-mail me. I’ve listened to your bullshit for years and years, and I’ve taken it gracefully, and in stride. This isn’t your moment, and you need to face the fact that once, in this lifetime, the Royals are in the spotlight — and you don’t deserve to join in the biggest baseball party America has ever seen.

But to the rest of you; the tactful fans of other teams, the non-baseball fans, the former baseball fans being re-introduced to baseball, and my fellow Royal family for the past however many years…

Welcome to the show — you deserve this.

Tweet me! @mattyflexknows

Here’s the thing with your comments: I won’t approve your comment if you are using the comment board as a medium to talk trash on the Royals, or talk trash on me. PLENTY of Cardinals fans have had their voices heard, as seen below; but I’ve also deleted over 150 comments (so far) from Cardinals fans who just don’t get it — but then again, I wouldn’t expect you to.