Kauffman Stadium and KC hold their breath and then let loose with a victory scream

Hopes, fears, rain, a breath-holding final inning — and finally cheers exploded when the Royals clinched their pass to the World Series late Friday night.

Out in centerfield by the fountains they whooped hugged and high-fived. “Yeah!” 38-year-old Jeff Lawler from Hays, Kan., said. “Bring on the Mets!”

And that was just at the stadium. It was no different at any of the watch parties around the city. Or maybe even on TV in your living room.

For everyone, the game played out in a number of dramatic acts.

At the K

▪  Predictions. Everyone was making predictions before the game. Win big. Win, maybe. Win, I hope.

A few minutes before the stadium steel gates clanged opened at 5, Gary White of Overland Park was fretting.

“Are we going to do it?” he asked a stranger near the gate leading to the seats in left field.

The stranger shrugged. “You tell me,” he said.

“I don’t know,” White, 50, replied. “I’m nervous. No, wait, make that I’m cautiously optimistic — but nervous.”

But 51-year-old Bob Knecht from Lawson, Mo., said he wasn’t the least bit nervous, or at least he wasn’t showing it.

Sure, he said, the Royals were going to take Game 6. They could have won two in Toronto and not returned until the Series, for that matter.

“They just wanted to win it on their on turf,” he said.

▪  Growing confidence. The stadium was slow to fill up ahead of the first pitch, the mood languid and emotions as hazy as the light fading in the sky above.

But once pitcher Yordano Ventura got through the top of the first inning with commanding stuff, the crowd began to roar with confidence.

It sizzled as Royals second baseman Ben Zobrist homered in the bottom of the inning to ease any remaining nerves out in the stands.

Ventura’s command at the top of the second buoyed Jason Tomlinson and the and his buddies in the left field seats, sure now that the Royals were going to prevail through nine.

“That guy’s got ice water in his veins,” said the 36-year-old Tomlinson of Olathe. “He’s got this one.”

Despite a solo homer off Ventura by the noted bat-flipper Jose Bautista, the early innings were all Ventura’s.

The offense also inspired.

As Mike Moustakas’ disputed homer cleared the fence in center in the bottom of the second, antler-man Craig Rookstool ran down to the seats behind third base with those plastic moose antlers flailing, fans taking snaps with their cell phones.

“No doubt about it,” 26-year-old Kim Gilges in standing-room only said. “We’re going to win it,” her mother, Cathy Gilden, also of Baldwin, Kan., said.

▪  Nerves. That confidence flagged a bit in the fifth when it looked like Ventura, had lost his mojo.

With two men on, that tension Gary White mentioned was beginning to set in until Ventura battled back and got the side out. “Moooose!!!” they bellowed as Moustakas snagged a hot shot to end the inning with the score still 2-1.

“All we’ve got to do is get through this inning,” a uniformed Kansas City cop said in the top of the sixth, and with the help of reliever Kelvin Herrera they did just that.

But then came another Bautista home run, a tie, a long rain delay, an excruciating 9th inning.

And the party was on.

“We are the Champions” by Queen played over the loud speakers as the grounds crew rolled stages onto the infield for the championship presentation.

Party: Reunion

At Charlie Hooper’s Bar and Grille in Brookside, 89-year-old Joan Finney of Mission enjoyed a raucus girls’ night out with her daughter, Candy Cole, and adult granddaughter, Sydna Cole.

“Oh, the Royals, they’ve just got to do it tonight,” Finney said, clutching a fist in the third inning.

The three generations climbed aboard stools among the elbow-to-elbow crowd at Hooper’s because the TV room in Candy Cole’s home in Mission Hills was being renovated.

“This is my game,” Candy Cole shouted above the watch-party din. “I knew we just had to go out for this one.”

The throngs watching the game around them included dozens attending a reunion of the Southwest High School class of 1970, crammed into a back room. When they graduated the Royals were a fledgling band of mostly no-names and alumnus Howard Hirsekorn sold 65-cent bottled beer at the ballgames.

Most of the Southwest celebrants stood beneath TV screens, yelling to catch up with each other and glancing up at the game every few seconds.

At a table in the relative calm outside the bar sat a recent arrival to Kansas City, Greg Macaleer, 42. Unable to find a seat inside, he watched the action through the gaps of the wooden blinds with his wife and a friend from Philadelphia, Elizabeth Uffner.

“I’m feeling a little of that Royals fever,” said Uffner, 33, holding a palm to her forehead to get a reading.

Macaleer, who was transferred here from Philadelphia just 18 months ago, was wearing his “Crown Me, Baby” Royals T.

“Game this big, you can’t be sitting on the couch,” he said. “You want to be out with the people and the noise. Absolutely.”

The roars inside Charlie Hooper's Bar and Grille were ear-splitting all night, but never so loud as during that final, shut-them-down inning.

This was after the gathering of dozens attending the reunion had dissipated to about 15.

Karen Stark was among them, stomping and hollering with the rest.

“I'm the only woman wearing Royals shirts in Durham, N.C.,” said Stark. “I haven't lived in Kansas City since I graduated from the University of Missouri in 1974...To fly in and see everyone wearing Royals almost made me weep.”

Party: Downtown

The Power and Light District filled with a sea of blue shirts, yellow paper crowns and high-fives Friday night as fans pressed in to watch the game.

While some fans at home certainly sweated over a close game, with the Royals holding a 2-1 lead late into the game, the crowd at Power and Light gave off an air of confidence.

Certainly some of the fans partying downtown were under the influence of something stronger than Royals fever. But maybe some of it was pure hometown belief.

Muiz Amosat, 28, and Cira Florido, of Kansas City, laughed at the idea of being nervous.

“No, we’re good,” Florido said. “Because I know we’ve got what it takes to win.”

They had watched the Royals win in tougher situations before.

Confident or not, all eyes locked in on the big screen as the game proceeded into the later innings, with fans reacting emotionally to plays big and small. The home run by Moustakas provoked an explosion of cheers, but a simple ground out by a Blue Jays player did the same.

Fans booed a montage video of Bautista.

For Shane Rogers, watching from far back on the second level above the other fans, the night held special significance. This was his first night coming out to watch the game with fellow Kansas Citians.

“I didn’t get to experience this last year,” Rogers said.

Last year, the 31-year-old Kansas City man watched the game at home, unsure of whether the Royals would keep going in the postseason.

He promised himself he would quit smoking if they went to the World Series.

They did, and Rogers quit, he said.

On Friday, Rogers enjoyed every minute of the game at one of the biggest parties in the city, laughing and and backslapping strangers like a madman.

If the Royals go to the World Series this year, Rogers, said he will run a 5k every month, starting next week.

“These guys, they saved my life.”

With the last out, the crowd in Power and Light jumped as if it were shot with a bolt of electricity.

Full cups of beer rained from the second level. Strangers hugged.

A large man grabbed this reporter and flung him around like a rad doll.

The crowd started the party again. It would go on for at least one more series.

Party: Lenexa

At the Blue Moose Bar and Grill in western Lenexa, manager Rick Peterson said crowds had been good for the Royals’ playoff run, and Friday night was no exception. Every table and barstool was filled at game time, and the 30-plus TV screens were all tuned to the same channel.

By their looks, about half the crowd wasn’t born when the Royals beat the Blue Jays and Cardinals in 1985, but that didn’t matter.

Ben and Kathy Bellinder of Olathe, who met as students at Kansas State, remember the ’85 Series victory, and Royals games well before that at Municipal Stadium.

Kathy was a member of the Royalettes, a gymnastics crew that performed between games at doubleheaders — back when doubleheaders were routine. “And I must have seen her,” said Ben, “because I grew up in Wamego and my family came in for doubleheaders.”

Another longtime Royals fan, Donna Ashlock of Olathe, remembers 1985 well, too. This time around is bittersweet because her late husband, a Cardinals fan, isn’t around to share it. But this team and this place have captured her heart.

“I’ve been here for all the playoffs, and it’s been great,” she said. “They really play as a team, not as individuals.”

When Ventura clenched up in the top of the 5th and walked the first two batters, the crowd tensed, too. But a bartender dropped a tray of dishes right when Alex Gordon caught a fly for an out, and whoops and applause erupted. Third baseman Moustakas speared a screaming liner for out number three, and the cheers were even louder.

But a storm moving in knocked out the restaurant’s satellite feed. A few fans headed for the door, but the rest checked their phones for updates and hoped for the transmission to resume.

The diehard fans were rewarded with the drama that followed the rain delay.

Denise Harmon of Lenexa said she would keep celebrating Saturday by buying a World Series T-shirt. And her friend Therese Hinds of Olathe, with a high-five, pronounced, “Well done!”

This story was originally published October 23, 2015 at 11:40 PM with the headline "Kauffman Stadium and KC hold their breath and then let loose with a victory scream."