For the second time in five years, champagne flooded Broadway Street, thousands called in sick to work, and fans tried to push over the WWI memorial; the Royals had won the World Series again.
Call it a surprise, but the Royals front office would tell you they knew their destiny from the first pitch of the year, when Whit Merrifield hit a Carlos Rodon slider 454 feet over the right field wall. This set the tempo for the season, that the 104-game losers of last year were gone even though the cast remained mostly the same.