Tonight was the night we’ve looked forward to for the last few Octobers. On the Thursday night before Halloween, The ‘Ville’s downtown businesses host a downtown trick-or-treat and the campus residence halls open their doors to let children knock on students’ hall doors for candy.
I arrived home from work ahead of 5 p.m., ready to meet the girls and head downtown. But they didn’t walk through the door until after 5:30 p.m. And saying they were a little crabby is an understatement.
Phoebe was in the most foul mood of all and wanted no part of putting on the fairy costume her Grandma S made for her. Many tears and kicking ensued, stoking memories of the infamous Homecoming Day meltdown years ago.
I tried to negotiate, pitching the idea of going to the Student Union for dinner. But Phoebe still refused to wear her costume.
Phoebe and I went for another round while Kates and Faye boarded the car in the garage. Finally I got her to go if I allowed her take one of her teddy bears. And I swiped her costume from the kitchen table on our way to the door, telling Phoebe I was bringing it in case she changed her mind.
So we skipped the downtown trick-or-treating and finally arrived at the Student Union to eat around 6:20. There, the girls continued to bicker and whine – which further frustrated Kates and I who barely ate anything. And we had gone to the all-you-care-to-eat dining area, so we hardly got our money’s worth.
And then, as we walked to the car, Phoebe had a change of heart. The clouds parted, a rainbow broke through, and suddenly she wanted to put on her costume to go trick-or-treating.
We got the picture of the girls together in their Fairy dresses. They filled their Halloween baskets with candy. Erase the hour or so between the time they arrived home from school and the time we exited the Student Union and we had a really great time.
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When the World Series comes to town, everyone talks about baseball. Everyone wears baseball on their shirts, baseball in their eyes. They sit next to you, waiting for you to bring up baseball, unless they snap and bring baseball up first. On the flight into the city, there are announcements about baseball. Driving into the city, there are baseball billboards, baseball banners, electronic traffic signs that end with messages about baseball. The walls of the city are festooned with baseball. The people are mad about baseball. Everything is baseball.
It's a living, delightfully suffocating experience. The deeper you dig, the more you realize there's nothing like it. It shows up unexpectedly where you live. It's about you. It's about the people around you. It's about where you live, happening right there. It's unambiguously good. It's all anyone can talk about, unless they're talking about the plans they're making around it.
There's nothing like it. When an entire section of the country can't stop talking about the same thing, it's always a tragedy or awful story. The happy, fun things are shared on social media until the next happy, fun things come along, but they're mostly disposable. There isn't a wellspring of this this this for everyone to enjoy at the same time, all around you, completely unavoidable.
When the World Series comes to town, everyone is sure thinking about the World Series.
The Kansas City Star’s Sam Mellinger notes that in six of the Royals' nine playoff wins, Kansas City has trailed in the fifth inning or later. “It's more than heart.”
This is not a fluke as much as it is the amplification of a season-long trend. The Royals had 41 comeback wins in the regular season. No American League team had more.
Comebacks are stacking on top of comebacks, enough that Royals manager Ned Yost comes up blank when asked his most memorable comeback before last year’s Wild Card Game.
And The Star’s Rustin Dodd writes about how the Royals’ frenzied hitting attack sank Mets ace Jacob deGrom last night.
As Kauffman Stadium pulsates and the cool breeze blows through this old stadium, the Royals’ offense can feel a little like a technically sound prize fighter, quietly dismantling an opponent. There is the consistent jab, the precise touch, the perfectly crafted right hook. Inside the Royals’ clubhouse, they call this display “frenzy hitting,” a never-ending line of hard contact and rattling bats and balls in play. …Meanwhile the national analysts are going crazy, overthinking the Royals. I find it funny and annoying. … Baseball is a game with millions of variables. The Royals are winning the game right now. Get over it.
If this World Series was supposed to be a referendum on the Mets’ power arms versus the Royals’ hum-drum attack, the early verdict suggests a precision knockout for Kansas City. In two games, the Royals have stared down deGrom and right-hander Matt Harvey, the Mets’ two front-line horses. In two games, the Royals have struck out just four times against Harvey and deGrom while nicking the starters for seven earned runs in 11 innings.
The Kansas City Royals are the sort of team you find yourself trying to come up with excuses for why they just beat you, because you can't make sense of it otherwise. Everybody always thinks they're better than the Royals. Last year, the A's were more versatile, the Angels had more star power and front-line starting pitching, the Orioles had more home run thunder. Same thing this year: The Astros were younger and more new school (and came closer than anyone to beating Kansas City), the Blue Jays were too strong and too cool and too ready and the Mets, man, those Mets pitchers were just gonna blow them away.Game on.
The Royals' postseason record against those teams, after their 7-1 World Series Game 2 win on Wednesday night? 17-4. 17-4!
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