Of all the amazing things I'll remember the 2015 World Champion Kansas City Royals for, the most amazing is this: They turned the story of the 2014 Royals into a prologue.
The 2014 Royals were the biggest story in American sports for an entire month and the greatest story in Kansas City sports in a generation. Before that, the Royals were as connected with being hapless losers as they are associated with being a relentless winning machine of late. They had gone 29 years without reaching the postseason, the longest playoff drought in professional sports. They had just finished a stretch of 17 losing seasons in 18 years.