What was the first Royals team you really followed?

I didn’t care for baseball as a young child. I knew the Royals were in the World Series, but I was more enamored with the guy in the red uniform doing backflips when he ran on the field than I was with any Royals players. At school, we were asked to draw a picture of our favorite Royals player. I asked my teacher who played left field for the Royals, since that was the position I played in t-ball (reflecting my playing ability at the time). She told me Lonnie Smith. I didn’t know what he looked like, so I drew a white guy with curly blonde hair. Lonnie Smith is not a white guy with curly blonde hair

But in 1987, my next-door neighbor set up a small TV in his garage and we watched the American League Championship Series between the Twins and Tigers on that thing. The Tigers are my ancestral team – my dad grew up in Detroit (attending Al Kaline camp!), and I was born there before we moved to KC when I was a tot. So I was rooting for them and slowly getting hooked on baseball. That offseason, I read everything about baseball I could get my hands on, and when the next season rolled around, I was a rabid fan.

I am pretty certain I could name every player on the 1988 Royals from memory, from Bo Jackson and George Brett down to Rey Palacios and José de Jesús. It was a fun team to follow with Bo becoming a superstar, George still in his prime, recognizable vets like Willie Wilson and Frank White, exciting young players like Danny Tartabull and Kevin Seitzer, and a terrific pitching staff with Bret Saberhagen, Mark Gubicza, and quirky submarining closer Dan Quisenberry.

But they floundered around .500 much of the year and were overwhelmed by an emerging mini-dynasty in Oakland, the “Bash Brothers.” They won 84 games, finishing a distant third place, 19.5 games back.

Still, I had watched as many games as I could (it was like 30-40 games on TV back in those days, kids!) and listened to the rest on my radio, sometimes cradling it in bed for the late-night West Coast games, drifting off to sleep as Denny Matthews described Charlie Leibrandt’s battle against Claudell Washington. I read the Star sports section on a regular basis – Dick Kaegel, Gib Twyman, and Jonathan Rand in those days. I asked for Royals Starting Lineup figures for Christmas. I got a Bo Jackson poster in my room. I got my first Royals cap.

That was my first season following the Royals. What was yours? What was the team that got you hooked?