We’re a lot like you, Mets fans: We love good baseball, and our team, the Kansas City Royals

Fair warning to Mets fans:

We’re not as nice as you might think.

I mean, we’re not Blue Jays fans, for goodness sake. Kansas Citians have more good sense than to litter their own playing field with Boulevard cups when we don’t like a call. And like you we hate the Yankees (if you don’t recall the #BooCano movement, Google it); to this day, few words make our skin crawl like “Chris” and “Chambliss” when used together in the same sentence. On this, at least, we can agree.

But that Midwestern gentility you’ll hear so much about in coming days? It’s out the window faster than you can say Long Island Expressway the first time one of your boys drills one of ours in the back with a heater.

See, we love our team.

You’ve waited 29 years for a World Series championship? We’ve waited 30. You’ve endured down seasons? Try averaging 95 defeats per year from 2001 to 2012, with four 100-loss seasons thrown in for good measure. We understand you’re jacked to be back on baseball’s biggest stage, but we encourage you act like you’ve been here before, as we tried to last year when we finally returned to The Series after so many postseasons in the wheat fields.

Not like you asked, but a few pieces of advice. 1. Yes, you should definitely eat all the barbecue you can while you’re here. It’s a tad cliche to only associate KC with burnt ends and short ribs, but you could do worse than to gobble up good food, and Lord knows we’ll do all we can to instigate a city-wide pizza shortage when we’re at your place. 2. Absolutely don’t miss the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. It’s a national treasure that’s uniquely Kansas City, an experience that will forever change how you think about baseball. 3. But please spare us the we’re-overlooked-underdogs-who-get-no-respect rap. You’re New York, for goodness sake; we’re flyover country.

Is our disdain for East Coast bias showing? Oops. It’s just that outside that Gotham-sized bubble of yours, the struggle is real. Underdogs generally can’t afford to pay $138 million to one player, as you did with David Wright. You want underdog? Our payroll was $35 million a couple of years ago. This year’s Royals payroll might come in a tick above the Mets’, but this club was actually built a lot like yours was: through blood, sweat, shrewd drafting and good old-fashioned development on the farm, not by lavishing cash on top free agents. If anything, our fan bases should share a mutual respect for the other’s team.

Look, we love your statue. Your whole city, in fact. New York is plain awesome, and its sports fans are as devoted as they come. Your politics are always good theater, and it’s hard to beat Keith Hernandez and Magic Loogies on Seinfeld. But we’ve got some heritage, too, and it starts with Hall of Famers like George Brett and the late Roger Maris (who in case you didn’t know played for the Kansas City Athletics before joining those damn Yankees, but that’s a story for another day).

We’ll tip our cap to your Daniel Murphys, Jacob DeGroms and yes, your David Wrights, but understand that we’re pretty proud of our Eric Hosmers, Yordano Venturas and Alex Gordons, too.

Get to know it and you might be surprised just how cool little Kansas City can be.

Until, that is, it’s game time.

Then it’s on like Donkey Kong. Or King Kong. Or Sluggerrr atop the Empire State Building.

May the best team win.

This story was originally published October 26, 2015 at 7:59 PM with the headline "We’re a lot like you, Mets fans: We love good baseball, and our team, the Kansas City Royals."