Royals give fans plenty to like, without all that pressure, on opening day

Talk about omens.

After murdering the Chicago White Sox in that 10-1 rout Monday, the rain that persisted all afternoon ended and the sun peeked through the clouds, shining hope upon the season ahead.

A bit much?

But hey, the day had the feel about it. The Royals are off to a remarkable start, and the fans at Kauffman Stadium on Monday, all 40,000 of them, were pumped and offered up their appreciation the way they did during that miraculous postseason run last fall.

Loudly!

Only this time, the cheering was joyous without all the pressure.

There are a lot of games ahead. And the data shows that it doesn’t matter all that much if your team wins on opening day.

According to the team’s stat masters, the Royals have not won the first game of the season, at home or on the road, since beating the Tigers in Detroit to open the 2008 campaign.

That, we can assure you, was not a year to remember.

Whereas, 2014 began in defeat and ended in, well, we don’t have to remind you of that.

The fans we talked with Monday weren’t thinking about omens so much as they were just happy to be there, rain or not, with a new American League pennant flapping in the breeze.

Here are some of the folks we ran into at the ballpark, one per inning.

First inning

Royals about to come to bat.

Who: Chris Buesing, 39, Topeka. He and several pals were hard not to notice. Wearing blue-and-white mohawk wig hats, they whooped and hollered at the front of the rope line in the standing-room area on the third-base side at the Dugout Concourse.

How he got the ticket: About a week ago from a friend.

How many home openers attended: This was his second. The first was 15 years ago.

Best Royals memory: Game six of the 2014 World Series, when he also was SRO. A foul ball bounced past him, but the guy who caught it let him hold it long enough to get his picture taken. Later, when his wife posted the photo on Facebook, “it became an Internet phenomenon for a couple of days,” Buesing said with a chuckle.

Second inning

Royals 0, White Sox 0

Who: The Royals were making quick work of the White Sox . And out on the outfield concourse, near the statue of Ewing M. and Muriel Kauffman, Cameron Chandler, 46, couldn’t see any of it over the crowd streaming by. “I’m a people person,” the lifelong Kansas City resident said. “I just like being here, walking around.”

How he got the ticket: From a friend, about a month ago.

Home openers: Seven.

Best Royals memory: “My favorite memory of the Royals was 1985 when they won the World Series. Frank White. Willie Wilson. George Brett. That was a good time.”

Third inning

Royals 1, White Sox 0

Who: Off in the distance, the crowd roared as someone got a hit. The Royals? Yes, the Royals. Lorenzo Cain singled, driving in another run. But J.T. Naifeh, 25, of Tulsa, Okla., missed it. Like so many other fans at this sold-out game, he was in line on the upper concourse, waiting and waiting to take care of some necessary business.

How he got the ticket: His cousin won two tickets in a lottery.

Home openers attended: His first.

Best Royals memory: Winning the American League Championship Series in 2014.

Fourth inning

Royals 3, White Sox 0

Who: Jane Watson used to have season tickets, down low, behind where Buck O’Neil used to hold court. But on this opening day, the 57-year-old Kansas City woman was in the upper deck, wearing sunglasses on a day when shadows were in short supply.

How she got the ticket: From StubHub, a few months ago.

Home openers attended: Her first.

Best Royals memory: Winning the World Series in 1985.

Fifth inning

Royals 3, White Sox 0

Who: Toni Bezler’s sister is lost, but then someone in their party of four is always off somewhere, it seems, which was why Bezler, a 42-year-old nurse from Kansas City, Kan., was spending the fifth inning at the AOS Technology Hotspot bar and not watching the game.

How she got the ticket: StubHub in December and, seriously, not while at work. “I was at home. In bed,” she said, laughing.

Home openers attended: Her first.

Best Royals memory: “Game 6 of the (2014) World Series. Ace (Yordano) Ventura did an excellent job pitching.”

Sixth inning

Royals 4, White Sox 0

Who: Gary Huddleston, 61, swears he is a true-blue Royals fan and always has been. Even though the Osage Beach, Mo., medical doctor also happens to do some business with the Chicago White Sox, whose guest he was at Monday’s game. Nice seats, too, lower deck, third base, next to the Diamond Club.

How he got the ticket: A trainer for the White Sox had it waiting for him at will call.

Home openers attended: Four.

Best Royals memory: “I got a signed baseball,” Huddleston said, autographed by all the first Royals, when the team began play in 1969. “Still have it, too.”

Seventh inning

Royals 4, White Sox 0

Who: Along with a nephew and her husband, Kimberlee Bookhart, 42, of Kansas City, Kan., did her best to keep dry as the rain spit on her, a nephew and her husband, Spark, in their seats near the left-field foul pole. Spark Bookhart had a rally towel for cover. His wife pulled her hood tight.

How she got the tickets: Kimberlee Bookhart got them from a supplier she works with at her job.

Home openers attended: Four or five.

Best Royals memory: “The World Series last year. That’s my favorite memory.” No, take that back, she said. “The one in ’85, instead.”

Eighth inning

Royals 9, White Sox 1

Who: While the Royals piled on yet another run in the eighth, Ira Likes, 10, was enjoying his own performance at the Little K, the children’s play area beyond the outfield fence. As his grandmother, Doris Housh looked on, the kid from Manhattan — “Kansas, not New York,” he said — hammered the balls thrown at him at Sluggerr’s Pitching Mound.

How they got the tickets: Housh bought them from Tickets For Less awhile back.

Home openers attended: His first.

Best Royals memory: “If I could remember it,” Ira said, “it was when I first came here when I was 4 months old.”

Ninth inning

Royals 10, White Sox 1

Who: Large swaths of seats in the upper and lower decks are empty. The game has been all but over for quite some time as the White Sox came up to bat, but Nick Pettit, 33, of Kansas City, was not about to leave his field-box seat on the first-base side until the very end.

How he go the ticket: “I’m a season ticket holder,” he said.

Home openers attended: Eight or nine.

Best Royals memory: “It was one of the last games of the regular season last year, when Terrance Gore and Jarrod Dyson scored in the bottom of the ninth to win it.”

That was Sept. 15. Once again, the Royals beat the White Sox, that time the score was 4-3.

This story was originally published April 6, 2015 at 8:38 PM with the headline "Royals give fans plenty to like, without all that pressure, on opening day."