It ain’t about the money…

By Sierra Trujillo

In a time when it seems money means everything in sports, you would think that the team that has the highest payroll would come out on top. But, for the umpteenth time, that is not the case with the 2015 MLB World Champions.
The Kansas City Royals won the World Series on Sunday. Or was it Monday? Depends on where you live since it ended past midnight on the east coast, where the game was played. Anyway, the Royals won in five games, and you could honestly say that it was their heart, and not the number of zeros on their paychecks, that won the series.
To put that into perspective a bit, the KC Royals are ranked 15th in payroll, putting them dead center among teams, dishing out $110,914,525, according to ESPN. The Los Angeles Dodgers, who top the list, have a payroll of $227,329,905. That more than doubles KC’s payroll.
And how far did the Dodgers make it in the postseason? They didn’t make it past the NLDS. Actually, they lost to the New York Mets, who are even lower on the payroll list than the Royals at 20th, paying their players $99,663,329. And the Mets made it to the World Series to face the Royals.
While it may seem that many players are “in it” for the money, that’s not the case with the Kansas City Royals. The Royals deserved to win the championship because of their dedication to their teammates, and their dedication to the game itself. This is a team that trailed going into the eighth inning in four of the five games they played in the World Series, and trailed going into the ninth inning in three games. And the Mets only got away with one win.
The Royals came out on top in Game 1, a 14 inning battle, after tying the game in the bottom of the ninth to start the World Series a week ago. It is only fitting, then, that they won on Sunday/Monday in extra innings, after tying the game (again) in the ninth. And people say that baseball isn’t exciting? These guys would have been handed their checks whether they won or not, but to be able to come back from trailing in not one, not two, not (okay, you get it) games, shows how much the game of baseball means to the Kansas City Royals.
I wanted to the Royals to win. They lost to the Giants last year, in seven games, after coming in as a wild card team. Then, they made it back to the same national stage this year. And, they’re not the Yankees, or Dodgers, or Red Sox or any other “big name” team.
So another World Series has come and gone, and if you’re anything like me, you’re now asking yourself… “Is it Opening Day yet?”