Since moving to the South where I am hours away from Major League Baseball and the dominant culture here is SEC football, it’s been hard to keep up with the sport I deeply love. Baseball puts most people I know to sleep and some of you are already yawning.

Yet, here I go again.

David Brooks wrote a column on his love for the Mets… and how they are ripping his heart out yet again.

It has to do with the particular Mets ethos. In his scintillating book, “So Many Ways to Lose,” Devin Gordon makes the crucial point: The Mets teams are not bad teams; they are gifted at losing. There’s a difference.

The Mets create imaginative ways to lose that other teams wouldn’t dream of, and they also come up with miraculous ways to win that the laws of probabilities would seem to render impossible. The Mets regularly lose games they absolutely should win, and then they turn around and win games they absolutely should lose.

And this brings me to the team of my childhood, the Kansas City Royals. I grew up in a magical era where at least they could make a run at the playoffs consistently. Yes, they kept losing to the $((#&$#(*!!! Yankees in the playoffs, but it was always hopeful.

Then came 1985 and the World Series win against the Cardinals and it was just too great. This had to keep going!

Thirty years later…

They couldn’t make the playoffs for 29 years. Two amazing years of being in the World Series and beating the Mets in 2015… and then… nothing. No playoff appearances. They have racked up 100 loss seasons like they were raking leaves in the fall.

In the intervening years I lived in Minneapolis. Over my 20 years in Minneapolis I grew to love the Twins, PLUS I was close to the ballpark when they built the new Target Field. My last two years in Minneapolis saw me at the ballpark more than I’d been in a lot of seasons. At least the Twins could MAKE the playoffs. Sure, they were going to lose right away, but here was a team that was constantly working on improving.

But Kansas City… UGH. They are in a brutal fight with Oakland for the worst record in baseball this year. Next year will probably be more the of the same. The sleepy new owner who thinks “cleaning house” means firing the GM and replacing him with the carbon copy assistant GM is jockeying for a new stadium downtown and has almost forgotten there’s a team to run.

I have to come to a hard realization: the Royals don’t find creative ways to lose. They are a bad organization.

And yet, I will find myself at Wrigley Field for the first time in my life in August watching the Cubs… play the Royals. (It was the luck of the draw.)

I am thankful I was able to take in a Braves game this year. It’s rare to be able to catch a MLB game for me. I miss the game. It’s hard to keep up. And it’s harder when I have to admit a team I’ve loved for decades is just plain awful.

But I can’t wait to get to Wrigley!