A Royal Ending: With the Royals making it to the playoffs for the first time since the 2015 World Series, East students reflect on their time as Royals fans

Senior Mallory Wilkerson shows up to every Royals game in the same t-shirt depicting the three hotdog racers dressed as ketchup, mustard and relish. When they race before the game she always cheers for ketchup — the best condiment — and “based on the standings this year,” ketchup usually wins.

Wilkerson has pictures of herself at Royals games from when she was just one-year-old and has cheered for the team through the 2015 World Series win and the past nine seasons since. Even when Sports Illustrated reported their team record number of losses of 118 in 2023, Wilkerson still shows up for the post game fireworks and Gatorade dumps.

“Even when they weren’t very good, we’d still go to games and cheer them on,” Wilkerson said.

With their season tickets, the Wilkerson family sits behind the third base dugout. When she was younger, before the game started and the net was put up around the field, Wilkerson and her brother Garrett would catch baseballs from the opposing team during warm-ups.

She’s used to having a strong baseball team and bad football team or vice versa but this year the Royals are proving her wrong.

“I used to joke that Kansas City can only have one good team at a time,” Wilkerson said. “But I guess I’ve been disproven with that now.”

On vacation in Colorado, now-sophomore Tommy Trucksess sat on the floor, crammed into a small room, eating spaghetti and meatballs. Without any cell service, Trucksess and his family watched the 2015 World Series through the small screen of a box TV that must’ve been from the 1980s, trying to decipher each play of the game on the old, minuscule screen.

“[We were] watching the game, super intently, trying to figure out exactly what was going on on that TV,” Trucksess said.

Just over a week before, Trucksess was in Kauffman Stadium watching Salvador Perez hit the game-winning ball against the Blue Jays in the American League Championship Series to take the Royals to the World Series. Down by one in the bottom of the ninth inning, the game was over — Trucksess was even tempted to leave the comfort of his massage chair.

That is, until Perez made a hit down the third base line to bring in two runs and win the game. The Royals were going to the World Series.

“It was just the most electric thing that had ever happened to Kansas sports that I was a part of,” Trucksess said.

On Halloween, after carving Royals-themed pumpkins, decorated with the Royals’ crown, then second-grader Matthew Waters went trick-or-treating. But he only allowed himself and his friends to walk around one block. Then it was time to go back to the front yard set-up and check the score to the World Series game.

Extension cords ran to the TV set up outside, surrounded by chairs to hold a block party filled with neighborhood families, all there to watch the game

“That’s probably my fondest memory of The Royals,” Waters said.

Now-junior Waters has been a fan since age 3 and has kept up with the team, even when they weren’t winning the World Series. Just this year, he’s gone to over 20 games with friends and family members.

“I’m hoping we can go all the way,” Waters said. “I think we’ll take it to game five of the [American League Division Series] and then lose.”

Watching this season’s playoff games, junior Linus Mai was sick to his stomach. Only up by one for the majority of the first two games against the Orioles of the season, Mai spent the entirety of the games stressed — and didn’t do any homework.

“It wore me out,” Mai said. “I was really tired after watching because it was so stressful.”

A baseball player himself and with some influence from his Royals-obsessed mom, Mai began to cheer for the team in 2014, and in 2015 went to a postseason Royals game. It became one of the longest postseason games with a two hour rain delay. After eight hours, the Royals won and went to the World Series that same year.

Through the past 10 years, Mai has found love and comfort in the Royals. The stadium is his happy place and he hopes the Royals can win just one home game to see Kauffman energetic with cheers and victory music.

“[Kauffman Stadium] is my happy place,” Mai said. “It’s a special place, when we play well.”