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Starting (as in, this is my first and possibly will be more) a weekly segment as an homage to Jack’s Smack called the “Fake Ned Minute” for Troy’s Royalman Report every Sunday night.
I will post the text of these Special Commentaries here on Rambling Morons on Monday’s.
Here is my first one. Would love to get your feedback.
FAKE NED MINUTE – September 18, 2011
I’d call what’s going on down at One Arrowhead Drive a circus, but “circus” doesn’t begin to describe just how many clowns and piles of elephant crap are associated with the Chiefs right now.
These problems target one man – Todd Haley. Todd hasn’t prepared his team for the 16-week season and wasted a tremendous opportunity in a shortened pre-season.
It reminds me of the “Camp Snoopy” Spring Trainings that the Royals had in the early-2000’s under Tony Pena. His Spring Trainings were legendary for being soft on content and high on goofing around. He was the gym teacher that never made you climb the rope. Pena’s teams were monumentally bad culminating with a 104 loss season in 2004.
By all accounts, Haley’s strike-shortented pre-season camp was light on content and heavy on butt-grabbing and two losses by a combined 89 points to open the season are the result. Todd, you once famously said “do your job and we’ll win this game,” but Todd, and you need to start doing yours. Haley, you messed up not getting your team prepared and you need to go. Now. The only problem is that there is no Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas waiting in the wings for the boys out at Arrowhead.
(Editor’s Note: If your name is Mike McCartney, stop reading now. I mean it. Stop.)
Billy Crystal once famously told a story about his first trip to Yankees Stadium and when he first heard legendary PA Announcer Bob Sheppard and how Reggie Jackson called him “the voice of God.”
Major League Stadiums are special places. We are lucky in Kansas City to have one of the most amazing stadiums. One of the major reasons for this is the booming voice announcing “YOUR KANSAS CITY ROYALS” – His name is Mike McCartney.
Now batting... Number 3... Fake Ned Yost...
Whether you ever knew his name before today is irrelevant, you immediately know his voice. You hear it when you pick up your bags at KCI. You hear it on commercials on television and radio. You might even have imagined him announcing your name as the starting First Baseman for the Kansas City Royals in a dream. (Just me?? Okay. Fine.)
But I’ve learned that Mike is an actual guy – he has a young baseball-playing son, is active in the community and has a kindness that comes through even when he’s announcing a New York Yankees lineup.
So, I was shocked when I read his twitter pronouncement last week that he’s been diagnosed with Prostate Cancer. “Caught it early and treatable” he said, as if that doesn’t make it any less scary.
I (thankfully) don’t have a lot of history with family members and cancer. If it were something like alcoholism or obesity, I’d be able to give precise tips – but this is new to me.
I think, through twitter, we’ve begun to form a community of Royals fans – dare I call it “Royals Nation” to steal a phrase. So, I challenge Royals Nation to send out some love to Mike when you see him this week at the ballpark.
And if you REALLY want to take it to an over-the-top level, I would challenge you to make a donation to MLB-endorsed Cancer Charities in Mike’s name. You can put me down for $50.
Make sure to send Mike a tweet @mikemccartneykc knowing that you’re thinking of him and are eager to hear him back on the mic for the 2012 season!!
Hear that sizzle??
From Royals Radio 8/4/2011 – All rights reserved by Royals Radio Network.
Billy Butler Royals Pregame Country Breakfast
Remember that #CountryBreakfast shirts are on sale. Click HERE for information on where to buy!! Proceeds from these shirts go to Billy’s charity which helps the hungry of Kansas City.
Let’s get these shirts on the backs of Royals fans and keep some positive mojo heading Country Breakfast’s way!
UPDATE: Here’s video of #CountryBreakfast getting the shout out from Sports Center on ESPN. (courtesy of @dhlord64 and @SportsCenter)
Because historians will look on this weekend as the days the Royals’ fortune changed, I feel compelled to document what exactly happened in Boston and carried into Cleveland.
It started, as most Royals stories do, with a fuckup.
It was Monday night, July 25. The Royals were beginning a 4-game series with the Red Sox. The game started with high expectations, or low expectations depending on your point of view. The starting pitcher was Kyle Davies and sports talk show host, Danny Parkins had begun a game called the Kyle Davies Drinking Game. The drinking game is documented here. But there was a problem. Kyle Davies wasn’t pitching like… Kyle Davies. He was pitching well. We weren’t getting drunk.
And that’s when the game went into extra innings. My wife decided to go to bed, but I’d have none of it. Already delayed 2 1/2 hours by rain, the game now stretched past 11 pm with the teams knotted at 1-1.
Finally, at midnight, the television screen went black and was replaced with Streetball. The first few minutes of the Streetball game featured someone called “Bone Crusher,” so, logically Twitter exploded by marrying both the Royals and Streetball. #RoyalsStreetballNames exploded with nicknames for our Royals:
- @FakeNedYost – Nate Adcock = Swingin’ Dick
- @BrianMcGannon – Chris Getz = Slappy McPappy
- @BrianMcGannon – Alex Gordon = Corn Hustler (also known as A1)
- @michaelengel – Frank White = Chuckles
- @michaelengel – Greg Holland = Dirty South
- @pcbearcat – Mike Aviles = Feast or Famine
- @theKCEye – Tim Collins = White Mugsy
- @djphoto76 – Jeff Francouer = Crazy Eyes
The Billy Butler of the breakfast community
Then, it happened. @pcbearcat, a writer for the St. Joe Newspaper, coined the term that will forever change the game of baseball.
Billy Butler = Country Breakfast
Why? Well, it’s perfectly obvious.
The country breakfast traditionally features three types of meat. Bacon ham, sausage — the gold-standard of awesomeness. Add to that biscuits, gravy, eggs and a tall glass of Melk and you’ve got the start of a trend.
The Royals win the game in 14 innings.
Billy Butler begins an offensive tear. He homers in each of the next two games. It’s significant because he had hit so many warning track outs in the past several months.
Don't fuck with Country Breakfast
Then, Friday night, he hit two homers as #CountryBreakfast began trending on Twitter. In addition, he was involved in a near bean-ball incident with the Indians.
Butler credits extra work by batting coach Kevin Seitzer, but we all know it’s because of #CountryBreakfast. Next, we need to get the nickname embraced by the Royals and perhaps a #CountryBreakfast night at the Royals.
- Replace the Hot Dog Race with a Ham, Sausage and Bacon race
- Replace the water in the fountains with sausage gravy
- Billy’s walkup music changed to the sound of sizzling bacon
- Opening band: Country Breakfast – playing the smoothest southern rock
Look for more developments with Country Breakfast coming soon!!
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