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KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Down at Triple-A, there were rumors. Brett Hayes heard about what happened to the Kansas City Royals at home after a win. Someone flicks off the lights. Another person turns on a strobe and a smoke machine, putting the club in clubhouse. Finally, the player of the game – maybe the guy who hit a game-winning home run or maybe, as in Hayes' case Wednesday, the guy playing in his first major league game in almost a year – activates the neon sign and sets the place aglow in red, purple, yellow and blue.

They're having fun here. This is a novel concept in Kansas City, where the Royals have been so awful for so long, fun seemed like a cipher. And the numbers always seemed to add to more and more losses, more worthless Augusts and Septembers. The crowd here at Kauffman Stadium broke out into the wave Wednesday, practically an involuntary reaction after all those years of boredom and disappointment. Like the men in the clubhouse, they, too, are re-learning how to have fun. Friendly suggestion to crowd: The wave is not necessary.

It takes getting to know the team, which Kansas City is doing. The television ratings here are bordering on absurd. Over the weekend, nearly 10 percent of the homes here watched a Royals-Mets game. On Monday, for a Royals-Twins game, it was more than 10 percent. A great sports city has been asleep for almost three decades. This is what happens when it awakens.

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Kansas City is not greedy. The slightest crumb of success gathers the masses. This is more than a crumb. This is a nibble that turned into a slice that's threatening to become the whole damn cake. The Royals won again Wednesday, a 5-2 victory over the Minnesota Twins, their 15th win in 19 games, one that kept them within 4½ games of the second wild-card spot in the American League. They struck out a franchise-high 16. They started a left-hander whose second pitch registered 99 mph on the radar gun, finished with a closer whose second-to-last pitch registered 98 and in between showcased the sort of pitching and fielding that wins playoff games.

The realists in here understand: It won't be easy. Texas and Baltimore each made the playoffs last season. Cleveland was as hot as any team before running into the Detroit buzz saw. Climbing three teams is no easy feat. Still, at 58-53, the Royals are just three games back in the loss column from the Rangers. Following this weekend's series against the Boston Red Sox, they play only one out-of-division opponent over .500 for more than five weeks, meaning they can feast on lesser teams as they have of late and make up ground in 17 head-to-head games with Cleveland and Detroit.

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