The following article appeared in the Topeka Capital-Journal on Aug. 31 – you can read it by clicking here.
The Kansas City Chiefs open their season next weekend, and expectations couldn’t be much higher. With Patrick Mahomes set for a an encore and what appears to be an improved defense, the Chiefs were installed as 6-1 favorites (tied with New England) to win the Super Bowl.
Should the Chiefs win the ultimate prize, it would certainly make 2019 one of the greatest years in Kansas City sports history. But not the greatest. The dismal season of the Royals has already eliminated that possibility.
It hasn’t happened often that both the Royals and Chiefs (and others in Kansas City) have simultaneously achieved at a high level. With the Chiefs entering 2019 with such lofty expectations, and another forgettable season winding down for the Royals, now is a good time to look back at the greatest years in sports in Kansas City.
The Best Season Ever: 2015, or 1969?
1) 2015 narrowly takes the prize as the best year of sports in Kansas City, and it’s because of the cumulative achievements of all the city’s teams. The Royals reached the pinnacle after a quick and enjoyable climb. Fans fell in love with the players. And the players embraced the fan base in a manner rarely seen. They won the World Series in thrilling fashion, and then capped it off with an unforgettable parade through downtown.
Remarkably, 2015 is the only time that both the Royals and Chiefs reached the playoffs in the same year. The Chiefs finished 11-5, and won their first playoff game in 22 years.
As if 2015 could have been any more special, Sporting KC claimed the U.S. Open Cup.
2) 1969 comes in a close second, but saw perhaps the most historically significant event in Kansas City sports history. The American Football League (AFL) – the product of years of labor and sacrifice by Lamar Hunt – had succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. The league had proved the equivalent of the NFL and forced a merger that would be fully realized in 1970. So 1969 would be the last year of Hunt’s creation. Fittingly, his Chiefs emerged as the champions of the AFL to face the vaunted Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IV. Some still doubted the AFL could match the older league. Those doubts were finally put to rest. The Chiefs beat the NFL champion in convincing fashion to win the last game played by an AFL team. Hunt’s dream was fully realized. Nine members of that 1969 team, including Hunt and coach Hank Stram, are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. 1969 still stands as the Chiefs’ lone Super Bowl victory.
Earlier that summer, the Royals were birthed to replace the despised Kansas City A’s, who moved to Oakland after the 1967 season. Though the Royals won just 69 games, they were the best of the year’s four expansion teams and proved to be a scrappy and respectable bunch that reinvigorated enthusiasm for baseball in the city.
The Other Major Championships: 1985 and 1966
3) 1985 brought the Royals’ first World Series victory. After years of near misses by better iterations of the club, the 1985 Royals finally broke through. An aging team featuring George Brett, Willie Wilson, Frank White and Hal McRae was bolstered just in time by a youthful pitching staff featuring Bret Saberhagen. They won the American League West, slipped past the Toronto Blue Jays, and then shocked the St. Louis Cardinals in the championship. 1985 finishes a distant third behind 2015 and 1969 not just because the Chiefs were 6-10 that year, but because the Kansas City Kings basketball team abandoned the city for Sacramento earlier that spring.
4) 1966 isn’t remembered prominently by Kansas Citians, but it saw the Chiefs win their other AFL championship. (The club also technically won a championship 1962 as the Dallas Texans.) It ranks a distant fourth because the Chiefs were whipped in the first Super Bowl by the NFL powerhouse Green Bay Packers. An above-average season by the moribund A’s made the summer tolerable for baseball fans.
The Near Misses:
5) 1980 saw the Royals reach the Fall Classic and thrilled fans with one of the greatest individual performances in the history of the city. Brett’s historic pursuit of a .400 batting average gave fans something to follow daily. The team recorded its second highest win total in history, only to suffer a bitter loss to the Philadelphia Phillies in the World Series.
In one of the best all-around years in Kansas City sports, the Kings reached the playoffs by notching their second best record while based in Kansas City, and the Chiefs finished a respectable 8-8 after six straight losing seasons.
6) 2014 animated a new generation of Royals fans. For anyone under about 35 years of age, playoff baseball in Kansas City was unknown. That year the nation was introduced to a lovable cast that included names like Perez, Hosmer, Cain, Moustakas and Gordon. An unforgettable Wild Card upset epitomized the spirit of the team. The team battled to the last out of the seventh game of a thrilling World Series.
Sadly, the Chiefs took a step back after a strong 2013 season, missing the playoffs.
7) 1971 was the last hurrah for the Chiefs that emerged from the AFL. Led by Len Dawson, Otis Taylor and a legendary defense, the Chiefs lost an unforgettable home playoff game against the Miami Dolphins on Christmas Day that was the NFL’s first ever double-overtime. It is still known as the NFL’s longest game. Hunt and Stram’s Chiefs wouldn’t be the same after that devastation.
But with one team fading, the city’s other team was rocketing to the top. In just their third season, the Royals went 85-76 and promised that greatness was to come. No one expected an expansion team to be this good this soon.
8) 1993 will always be remembered as the year of Montana Magic. Joe Montana, shockingly ushered out of San Francisco, where he had been the best quarterback in the game for more than a decade, rode into Kansas City to try to work his magic one more time. The Chiefs had been knocking at the door for several years, but needed something to put them over the top. Montana nearly did the trick. The Chiefs won a division title for the first time in 22 years, won two playoff games, and fell just one loss short of the Super Bowl.
Meanwhile, the 1993 Royals went 84-78. It was the last good Royals team before they fell off the cliff for the next couple of decades.
9) 2013 saw Sporting KC win the MLS Cup Championship, while the Royals learned to win again. The Royals improved by a surprising 14 games in the standings to finish 86-76 – their first winning season in a decade. They stayed in the playoff hunt until the final weekend of the season. Perhaps not a lot of people were watching, but the foundation was laid for back-to-back World Series runs.
The Chiefs also learned to win again under the guidance of first-year coach Andy Reid. The Chiefs rocketed from last in the league at 2-14 to the playoffs with an 11-5 record.
10) 1984 saw the Royals come just one series away from the World Series, continuing their run as one of the best teams in baseball. The Kings also made the playoffs, although they were just 38-44 in the regular season. The Chiefs went 8-8.
Honorable Mention:
The 1942 Negro League Monarchs were perhaps the best team to ever make Kansas City home. But with World War II underway, and with white fans and media largely indifferent, unfortunately not a lot of people saw it. The Monarchs, who whipped the Homestead Grays in the Negro World Series, featured Baseball Hall of Famers Satchel Paige, Hilton Smith and Willard Brown, plus Buck O’Neil and numerous other Negro League legends. With no major football or basketball teams in the city at the time, Kansas City was considered a baseball town. And with only the white minor league Kansas City Blues for competition, the Monarchs ruled Kansas City and the entire Midwest.