In the hours before the championship flag was flying above Kauffman Stadium, before the starting catcher had thrown someone out from his knees and the center field kept sprinting first to third and the crowd had chanted the starting pitcher’s name, Eric Hosmer stood in front of his locker inside the Royals’ clubhouse on Sunday afternoon.
In less than four hours, the Royals would begin the season with a 4-3 victory over the New York Mets, reveling in one title while dreaming of another. But in the afternoon quiet of the clubhouse, in a nearly empty room, Hosmer looked at a row of cameras and notepads and offered a four-word summation of his team’s plans in 2016.