Royals won't have the worst record of all time

Jim Novak and I have based a friendship of more than 40 years on a mutual love for the game of baseball. When baseball gets you in its grip, there is no letting go short of a summons by the grim reaper.

As a youth I pulled for the Kansas City Athletics (a hopeless enterprise) and the St. Louis Cardinals while Novak rooted for the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs. Two teams. That's kind of the way it is with a lot of baseball fans. You have to have a team in each league. It makes sense because some time in your life they might meet in the World Series as was the case in 1985 when we had our I-70 Series.

As the 2005 baseball season continues along its inexorable march toward October, there seems to be a great deal of talk about the Kansas City Royals having an outstanding chance of being the worst team since the 1962 New York Mets. You can't say the worst team ever because that title goes to the 1899 Cleveland Spiders who fashioned an amazingly horrible record of 20 wins and 134 losses.

The Royals do stand an excellent chance of being the worst team in this century, however.

But losing 100 games in a season is not much of a feat of negativism as all 16 of the original teams, New York Yankees included, have lost 100 games in a season at least once. In fact, the 1932 season featured the Red Sox with 111 losses and the White Sox with 102.

When the Mets came along with their 40-120 mark in 1962, they eclipsed the Philadelphia Athletics' 20th century loss record of 117 set back in 1916. So now we look at a new century and we have a team fewer than 100 miles north of here that could lose an amazing number of games this season.

But I do have one question, which makes me wonder if they will. Novak had a lot of practice following losing teams with the Red Sox and Cubs and taught me some things about the deceptiveness of records. Let me explain. While one year the Cubs were just as bad record-wise as the previous season, Novak explained they were better because their losses were by closer scores.

If you look at Kansas City, an incredible number of losses have been by a run or two and suffered in the late innings. This tells me that if the Royals manage to get some competent relief pitching and learn to throw strikes they could be at last competitive.

I was never a fan of Tony Pena's managing. I never thought he knew a great deal about pitching. I never understood Pena's treatment of Zack Grienke, who should have been the opening day starter, but wasn't. Pena also had a tendency to pull Grienke out of games while he was still pitching satisfactorily and placed the outcome in he hands of relievers who promptly added fuel to the fire. The night Buddy Bell took over, he left young Zach out there until he'd thrown, as I recall, something like 116 pitches. That's fine.

Another thing I never understood was Pena's infatuation with Jose Lima. Heck, if the guy had been decent the Dodgers wouldn't have let him go so easily. But starters with an ERA over 8.00 per game shouldn't even be out there.

But if the Royals do get their relief corps settled down, the next order of the day would be to do something about their awful corner outfielders. These are the people who are supposed to be in the game for their hitting prowess, something neither of the Royals guys has a clue about.

But still, it isn't easy to lose 120 games in a season and I can't see the Royals being that bad.