11.03.2015

World Series Parade Day!

How else could I describe today – other than to use the word that’s been used again and again to describe the Royals resurgence and World Series championship?

Unbelievable.

Kansas City has been lit  up in blue since Sunday night. Today it was colored in blue for parade day, and it was a spectacle from no matter where you watched. We will not soon forget this day.

For the record, I had barely a tiny bit of interest in going – if only a small consolation prize in missing the Game 6 matchup that I would have been attending tonight. But I didn’t have it in me to try navigating all of the traffic, parking and crowds. Beyond that, I have too much going on at work this week and couldn’t afford to be out of the office.

It’s not like the last couple days have been productive ones anyway. Our workplaces are in a haze of championship giddiness, pent up from 30 years of misery. … Today, we hosted a state agriculture director on the university campus for a discussion about our programs and initiatives. After our 12:30 p.m. news conference, it took me another four hours to write the news release when it should have taken me half that time. Before and after the news conference I kept getting sidetracked by all of the social media posts popping up on my phone and laptop.

So instead of joining the crowd, I set our DVR to record the parade and rally. We had our own family watch party tonight, eating our supper around the coffee table in our living room, taking in the sights and sounds recorded earlier in the day. That was the memory I wanted to have from today.

As we got started, Phoebe admitted – as if she was admitting she had taken candy from Faye’s Halloween bucket – that her teacher let her class watch some of the parade after their lunch hour today; Phoebe, she told us, was the one naming the players – and their uniform numbers – for the teacher and her classmates. … I admitted to Phoebe I had watched some of the parade and rally at work, too.

It turned out to be a gorgeous day in Kansas City today – sunny skies with temperatures were in the low 70s. The parade was scheduled to begin at noon at Sprint Center and then make its way down Grand Boulevard on its way to Union Station, where a championship rally was set to take the stage at 2 p.m.
Streets, businesses and schools were shut down. Those that did venture out – the majority of them going to the parade – found gridlock on all roads pointing to downtown. It was basically a snow day – without the snow.

Here are just a few of my favorite tweets and photos from the day …




















Here’s a stunning aerial video looking toward Union Station from above the Liberty Memorial.


ROYALS RALLY - UNION STATION AERIALS from Vision Digital Cinema on Vimeo.


Updated Nov. 6, 2015




There are some more great gifs, tweets, photos and videos here on MLB’s Cut4 site

But this one has been called the best Royals parade video you’ll see. I’ll back that up. This is the only one to give me chills as I watched it.



Good reads …

Here's more from Sam Mellinger ...

The best part of watching the rise of the Royals has been the correlating rise of their fans. Rooting for the Royals used to mean accepting that nothing good would come of it, and of being able to laugh at yourself when Mark Redman is your All-Star, or when Tony Peña showers with his clothes on in some vague attempt to stop a losing streak. Now, it means knowing that being down two runs in the eighth inning is exactly where you want to be. ...

 They bought more tickets and spent more time at home watching more games than ever before. Next year, those numbers figure to go up again. Royals fans essentially highjacked All-Star voting, at one point putting Omar Infante in position to start at second base, even though most of them did not want Infante starting at second base for their own team.

 More than 60 percent of TV-owning households in Kansas City watched Game 5 of the World Series, and you have to assume most of the other 40 percent were at someone else’s house, or a bar.

 So the celebration on Tuesday was entirely fitting. When those images and stories make their way around the internet and the world, the only reaction is, basically, hole-ee crap.
Meanwhile …

Posted by Horns! at 11:37 PM
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