Two short years ago, the phrase "World Series Champion, Kansas City Royals" would have sounded ludicrous to anyone under the age of 35. The notion of a championship matchup between them and the Mets would have been completely laughable. Two bottom-feeding, stingy teams that are always bad? Yeah, right. Where's the drama there?
Except the Royals haven't always been bad. In fact, during the second half of the 1970s, they were arguably baseball's second-best team. Four times in five years, between 1976 and 1980, Kansas City met the Yankees in the ALCS.