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PHOTOS: Royals Fans Flock To The K For One More Celebration

About 6,000 fans Thursday made one more trip to Kauffman Stadium, just to celebrate the 2014 Kansas City Royals.

It was cloudy and threatening rain as fans filed into Kauffman Stadium. Almost on cue, the sun came out when the celebration started. 

Fans chanted “Thank you, Royals,” with the familiar cadence. Many were smiling. It was festive. There were little kids dressed as baseball players, cheerleaders, and Sluggerrr, the Royals’ mascot.

Most were smiling, but Mike Arnott stood with eyes puffy from crying. 

“I wouldn’t have missed this for the world,” said Arnott, tears streaming down his face. “It’s just a final touch to say, ‘Thank you, Royals. Thank you for giving us something that we needed.’”

It was a two-way love fest. Royals’ outfielder Nori Aoki overcame his scant English to give just as good as he got. 

“You the best! Thank you so much!,”  he exclaimed, moving toward the crowd with the microphone.

Manager Ned Yost was a little more subdued.

“Nobody wanted to get out of bed today. I know I didn’t want to get out of bed today,” said Yost. “But the reason we got out of bed was to thank you guys.”

Just about everyone at this morning’s celebration seemed to file out feeling great, and looking ahead to a World Series victory next year.

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I’ve been at KCUR almost 30 years, working partly for NPR and splitting my time between local and national reporting. I work to bring extra attention to people in the Midwest, my home state of Kansas and of course Kansas City. What I love about this job is having a license to talk to interesting people and then crafting radio stories around their voices. It’s a big responsibility to uphold the truth of those stories while condensing them for lots of other people listening to the radio, and I take it seriously. Email me at frank@kcur.org or find me on Twitter @FrankNewsman.
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