KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The week I started working at The Star, in June 2013, the Royals hadn’t been to a postseason since 1985 and fell to 23-32 with a loss to Minnesota at the beginning of a nine-game homestand.
Six men were in the lineup that day who would become crucial to back-to-back American League titles the next two seasons; the group largely reflected the beginning of the blossoming of a fertile minor-league system that had been assembled with a radical overhaul by then-general manager Dayton Moore.
There was no way to know what that was building to then, of course. And the fan cynicism properly stoked by decades of futility always was bubbling and largely focused on Moore and manager Ned Yost along with owner David Glass.
