The 24th Annual Baseball in Literature and Culture Conference at Ottawa University had a greater emphasis on philosophy than in previous years. Aside from Eisenreich’s personal testimony, I was most entertained and interested by a presentation about Jack Kerouac’s creation in the 1930s of an elaborate fantasy baseball game. The author of On The Road took this hand-crafted game with him on his travels to entertain himself. He created teams and players and even wrote newspaper reports and newsletters about the games, teams and seasons. Perhaps most shocking is that he allowed almost no one to know about his hobby! As far as researchers can tell, he played the game alone, purely for his own enjoyment, and didn’t involve others.

I was inspired to learn more about the 1919 New York Giants, a team that danced with the devils gambling and game-fixing, but avoided the fate of the 1919 Chicago White Sox.

Interestingly, we heard another speaker discuss Jim Thorpe’s disappointing baseball career. Thorpe was on that 1919 Giants team, but probably wasn’t a significant enough player to be involved in any gambling fixes.

It’s always amazing to see the diversity of topics people are working on. I always come away from this conference inspired to keep digging into the topics that interest me.

First of all, it hasn’t been any fun turning on the TV the past two years and not seeing the Royals in the playoffs. Though it was only a two year run, watching the Royals in an unforgettable Wild Card game and 6 playoff series turned a ton of people into playoff baseball watchers.

That’s gone now. But you can’t turn on the TV and not see one of our boys on the screen. The number of former Royals littering playoff rosters is astounding.

2014 or 2015 Royals in the 2018 playoffs:

Brewers: Lorenzo Cain, Mike Moustakas, Erik Kratz

Rockies: Wade Davis, Drew Butera

Cubs: Ben Zobrist, Terrance Gore

Dodgers: Scott Alexander, Ryan Madson

Braves: Lane Adams

Athletics: Liam Hendricks

Royals from other seasons in the 2018 playoffs:

Brewers: Joakim Soria, Jeremy Jeffress, Manny Pina

Cubs: Jesse Chavez

Athletics: Trevor Cahill, Ryan Buchter

Indians: Melky Cabrera

Braves: Lucas Duda, Peter Moylan

Did you think you were losing your mind when you saw Wade Davis throwing to Drew Butera? Last time you saw that in a playoff game, the Royals mobbed the field to celebrate winning it all.

No, you’re not having a flashback. You really are seeing 11 players you got used to in Royal blue during 2014 and 2015 playing in the playoffs this year…in different uniforms.

It will most certainly evoke some bittersweet sentiment. The good thing about this situation is that those Royals teams are being referenced plenty during this year’s broadcasts.

Eight more former Royals, most notably Joakim Soria, are going to be in the thick of things this year.

Two guys who won’t, however, are two of KC’s former top prospects. Mike Montgomery, who figured prominently in the Cubs’ 2016 series championship, didn’t get on the field before the Cubs were knocked out in the Wild Card round. And Sean Manaea, ace of the Oakland pitching staff, was felled by injury earlier in the year. Think the A’s didn’t miss Manaea when they had to start another former Royal Liam Hendricks in the most important game of the season?

Watching Cain bound out of the dugout to chase down Moustakas after his game-winning hit Thursday night certainly looked familiar.

You can either watch the 2018 playoffs and be constantly reminded of what recently was in KC. Or you can chose to not watch and avoid the rush of memories. But you can take it as a bit of confirmation just how good those Royals clubs were. Every other team currently in the playoffs seemed to notice.