Hawkeyes were No. 1 last time Royals were in playoffs

Many have gone down Memory Lane since the Kansas City Royals clinched an American League playoff berth last Friday night.

The Royals, who will play Oakland tonight in an AL wild card game, hadn't been to the postseason since 1985 when they won the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals.

That Series holds a good memory for me, since I was the first reporter to interview umpire Don Denkinger after Denkinger's famous Game 6 call that almost everyone agrees was wrong and helped the Royals win the Series.

The Cardinals led 3 games to 2 and were up 1-0 heading into the bottom of the ninth inning of that sixth game. Leadoff hitter Jorge Orta of the Royals hit a slow roller to Cardinal first baseman Jack Clark, and appeared to be thrown out by a half-step, but Denkinger ruled St. Louis pitcher Todd Worrell (covering first base) had missed the bag.

The Royals went on to score two runs in the inning to win the game, then routed the Cards in Game 7, 11-0.

So as a kid who wasn't smart enough to be scared to call Denkinger on the phone at his Waterloo home, I did just that a couple days after the Series was over. It was good of him to take my call and speak candidly on the record. The story got picked up by Associated Press, and I saw it in the Columbus Dispatch when I was in Ohio that week for Iowa's football game at Ohio State.

Had it been in the Internet age, my exclusive would have gotten me national fame. I would probably have been working for ESPN by the end of that month, and today I'd likely be the anchor for ABC's World New Tonight.

Oh, well. My loss was America's gain. It's just as well. I've tried to go my whole life without wearing neckties or makeup.

Anyway, here's where the Memory Lane stuff takes the mandatory local angle for you of an Iowa bent:

On Monday, the New York Times had a story citing all sorts of things that were going on the last time the Royals were in the postseason.

For instance, in late October 1985 only six states had laws requiring the use of seat belts in cars. You could still smoke on airplanes. Microsoft was preparing to release Windows 1.0.

Another example the Times gave of how different times were back then was this:

The Iowa Hawkeyes were ranked No. 1 in the Associated Press college football poll. They have not been No. 1 since.

Iowa was No. 1 for five weeks until it went to Ohio State and suffered a 22-13 loss in the rain. The Hawkeyes still won the Big Ten (their last outright league title) championship, and finished the season with a resounding 45-28 loss to UCLA to close with a 10-2 record.

I probably would have covered the all-Missouri World Series for The Gazette, but we had a No. 1 football team to worry about, and you don't exactly get a story like that too often around here.

The year before, I covered Royals playoff games in Kansas City. The Detroit Tigers won Games 1 and 2 in K.C. before finishing the 3-game sweep at home en route to beating the San Diego Padres in the World Series.

'A fractured syntax reminiscent of Stengel,” said ABC's Howard Cosell about Tigers Manager Sparky Anderson in the Royals Stadium press box dining room. That's more than I remember about the games themselves.

The Padres got to the Series by defeating the Cubs in the NLCS when the Cubs lost three straight in San Diego after winning the first two games in Chicago. The Cubs blew a 3-0 lead in Game 5. First baseman Leon Durham let a Padre grounder go through his legs in the seventh inning, keying a 4-run inning and a 6-3 San Diego win.

I heard the fateful end to that via car radio in Osceola, Iowa, on my way home from the Iowa State-Kansas football game the day before. Kansas won, 33-14. I had to look that up to know it.

Anyway, 1985 ... ‘Twas a long, long time ago, eh Royals and Hawkeyes fans? I did cover several No. 1 teams after that, though. All but one were Hawkeye wrestling. The other was Iowa basketball, in 1987.

Come to think of it, that was a long, long time ago, too.