Top-5 Hard-Luck Sports Cities: #5 Kansas City

I've always wondered how it would feel like to have a first-hand account of a sports franchise winning a championship in the city were I live. The Baltimore Ravens winning their second Super Bowl since moving from Cleveland, my hometown, gave me an opportunity to do so. It's a sight to see a community put their cultural differences aside and band together for one cause, all-be-it a superficial one with all the ills in our society, it's nice to see nonetheless.

This prompted me to ponder what city has suffered more heart-breaks at the hands of their beloved sports franchise more than Cleveland, ESPN, the NFL Network and NBA TV make sure to remind us Clevelanders every time we think to feel good about our sports franchises.

Not too many as my memory recalls.

Here's the ground rules:

• The city has to have at least two franchises in the big four professional sports leagues: the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League.
• No expansion teams since 1980.
• No team in that city has not won a championship in the last 20 years.

The closer that city's team(s) was/were to winning championship but could not close the deal the better (or worst).

 Kansas City has not witnessed a championship parade since the Royals beat cross-state rival St. Louis Cardinals 4-3 in the 1985 World Series.  Since then, one of their franchises moved to California and the other two have struggled to make the post season.

 The Royals:

 

The Kansas City Royals have been perennial MLB doormats since winning the World Series in 1985, and has only gotten worse since Hall of Fame 3rd-Baseman George Brett retired in 1993.

  The Royals have not made a post season appearance since. Today the Royals feel more like the New York Yankees Minor League franchise than a Major League franchise.

The Chiefs:

Like the Royals, the Chiefs have sparingly made the playoffs since winning the Super Bowl in 1970, making 10 playoff appearances and one AFC Championship appearance.

The Chiefs have either had a dominant defense and an anemic offense or a prolific offense and a porous defense.

Led by Hall of Fame LB Derrick Thomas and perennial All-Pro DE Neil Smith, the Chiefs made seven playoff appearances in the 1990's, but only managed to make it to one AFC Championship Game in 1993.  Despite adding future HOF QB Joe Montana and HOF RB Marcus Allen, the Chiefs could not manage to average higher than fifth in offensive yards and eighth in scoring offense.


The Chiefs made another run in the mid-00's with a high-scoring offense under HC Dick Vermeil with RB Priest Holmes and QB Trent Green.  But as prolific as their offense was, their defense amounted to a sieve made out of Swiss cheese.

The Kings:

The Kings moved to Kansas City from Cincinnati in 1972 and moved to Sacramento, CA after the 1985 season.  They managed to make the NBA playoffs five of their 12 seasons in KC, but never advanced past the opening round.

Nate 'Tiny' Archibald and current NBA HC's Rich Adelman (Minnesota Timberwolves)and Mike D'antoni (Los Angeles Lakers) were guards on the the '74-75 squad.  Reggie Theus and HC's Larry Drew (Atlanta Hawks) and Mike Woodson (New york Knicks) led the last Kings team that made the playoffs in KC after the '83-84 season.

The Kings moved to Sacramento in 1985, and are currently rumored to be moving to Seattle, WA. according to a NY Times report.

GO SOCIAL:
Follow @coachbmc on Twitter
Like Coach's Speak Fan Page:

Anmijo Communications presents: Coach's Speak

Promote Your Page Too