Royals’ World Series trophy brightens up the Kansas Statehouse

The Kansas City Royals brought the 2015 World Series trophy to the Kansas Statehouse on Monday, and that drew smiles from the House chamber to the Senate to the governor’s office.

Gov. Sam Brownback signed a proclamation and both chambers approved resolutions celebrating the World Series championship.

“The Royals just brought a joy and a sense of team and esprit de corps and just rejoicing to a region,” Brownback said after the signing ceremony.

“This is a confirmation of a region that is lifting up and growing and is dynamic and is moving forward, and they seemed to encapsulate that in their season and in what they did,” he said.

There’s nothing like a World Series trophy to brighten up a place, especially a tense Capitol dealing with budget woes and a dramatic school finance deadline.

Legislators swarmed around the trophy to have photos taken. Sen. Anthony Hensley, a Topeka Democrat and longtime baseball fan, said it was a treat for him to present the Senate resolution.

“As Yogi Berra once said, and I apologize for quoting a Yankee, ‘It’s deja vu all over again,’ because this is a resolution I sponsored 30 years ago as a member of the Kansas House when the Royals won the 1985 World Series,” Hensley said.

Toby Cook, the Royals’ vice president of community affairs and publicity, said it’s been the same great reaction at every stop for the trophy, which has toured communities throughout Kansas and Missouri and beyond.

“It is a blast,” Cook said.

Besides Cook, accompanying the trophy were Curt Nelson, the director of the Royals Hall of Fame, and Dave Webster, aka KayCee Baseball, who hangs the “W” at Kauffman Stadium after each victorious home game.

“It’s been a real whirlwind since the end of the season,” Webster said. “People’s faces just light up.”

This story was originally published March 21, 2016 at 1:26 PM.