<table> </table> OMAHA | And, boom, there goes another home run, which means more text messages in the morning on Kila Kaaihue&#8217;s phone.</p><p><em>R U serious?</em> from back home in Hawaii.</p><p><em>Another HR you gotta be kidding</em>, from a former teammate.</p><p>Kaaihue will see those words, just like he does most every morning, and laugh. He&#8217;s a serious guy who treats his craft &#8212; hitting baseballs &#8212; as such. But this? He can&#8217;t explain it.</p><p>&#8220;Every day I&#8217;m surprised,&#8221; he says. &#8220;I look at it, I still can&#8217;t believe it&#8217;s me.&#8221;</p><p>Kila Kaaihue &#8212; pronounced KEE-la KY-uh-hooey &#8212; is as close to an overnight, Internet sensation as we can have in this time of oversaturated sports coverage. Four months ago, he was a non-prospect. <em>Baseball America</em> didn&#8217;t list him among the Royals&#8217; best 30 prospects, and nobody in the team&#8217;s scouting department would&#8217;ve disagreed.</p><p>Since then, he has torched minor-league pitching, putting up on-base and slugging numbers comparable to recent big-league MVPs, and strong-arming his way to the Royals&#8217; top affiliate here in Omaha.</p><p>Three hours south of here, the big-league club is trying to make do with one of the American League&#8217;s worst offenses. One of their holes is first base, where the starters are hitting .276 with just six home runs.</p><p>A fan base used to disappointment is taking notice of the 24-year old. Some call for his instant promotion. Others post pictures of cans of Hawaiian Punch.</p><p>Maybe, after some memorable whiffs, the Royals have walked backward into the slugger they haven&#8217;t had since before Mike Sweeney&#8217;s back went out. Or maybe we&#8217;re just looking at the next Calvin Pickering, a minor-league sensation who played just 95 games in the Show.</p><p>Nobody knows for sure, but there are real questions to go along with the faux skepticism Kaaihue sees in those text messages.</p><p>&#8220;I still don&#8217;t see him as an everyday major-league player,&#8221; says a scout for an opposing American League team. &#8220;I still see a slow bat. But I hope I&#8217;m wrong, because he&#8217;s a guy you root for.&#8221;</p><p>&#8226; &#8226; &#8226;</p><p>Kila Kaaihue reaches up to the top shelf of his locker in a cramped minor-league clubhouse. Out comes an 80-page notebook, black cover with red wiring. The pages are filled with Kaaihue&#8217;s handwriting, notes on every pitcher he&#8217;s seen in person this season.</p><p><em>Fastball pretty straight</em>, he writes about a starter. <em>He&#8217;ll mix it up, and look for the curveball with two strikes</em>.</p><p><em>Match his intensity</em>, he writes about a reliever.</p><p>This book is a big reason he&#8217;s hitting .322 with 30 homers and a .463 on-base percentage through Friday, and it&#8217;s very much Kaaihue: serious, organized and focused.</p><p>Big-time football programs like USC and Oregon wanted Kaaihue to play quarterback, but Kaaihue wanted to be a baseball player. The dream started when he was 6 and his father, a former minor-leaguer, threw him batting practice in the back yard.</p><p>Even then, dad wouldn&#8217;t let either of his boys &#8212; Kila&#8217;s younger brother, Kala, is in the Braves&#8217; system &#8212; swing at bad pitches.</p><p>So Kaaihue signed to play baseball at Nebraska, partly because he liked their pre-med program, but mostly because he liked the baseball program. He never made it to class, signing with the Royals as a 15th round draft pick in 2002.</p><p>His career had a near-death experience two years ago, at Class AA Wichita, when he hit .199 and looked defeated.