Royals' remarkable run rewards fans beyond belief

— -- Of all the amazing things I'll remember the 2015 World Champion Kansas City Royals for, the most amazing is this: They turned the story of the 2014 Royals into a prologue.

The 2014 Royals were the biggest story in American sports for an entire month and the greatest story in Kansas City sports in a generation. Before that, the Royals were as connected with being hapless losers as they are associated with being a relentless winning machine of late. They had gone 29 years without reaching the postseason, the longest playoff drought in professional sports. They had just finished a stretch of 17 losing seasons in 18 years.

And then the magic started. In the AL wild-card game, the Royals became the first team in playoff history to win an elimination game after trailing by four runs or more in the eighth inning. They wouldn't lose again for three weeks, sweeping their way through the ALDS and ALCS before falling to the San Francisco Giants and Madison Bumgarner, taking the World Series to a Game 7, and making the final out with the tying run 90 feet from home plate.

It was an enchanted run. It was about as enjoyable a team to root for as any team can be without actually winning a championship. And afterwards, I didn't think there was any chance they could repeat it. I felt like the 2014 Royals were the closest I would get to seeing a championship in a long time, perhaps in my lifetime. Walking to my car outside Kauffman Stadium in the wee hours of the morning after Game 7, I tried to cheer myself up with the memories of the Royals' month-long assault on immortality. But all I could think about was how rare and precious the opportunity to play for a championship is, and having fallen just short in 2014, there was no guarantee the Royals would get that opportunity again. The 29 years the Royals had waited to make the playoffs might not be the norm, but to win a championship, in a 30-team league, it actually is.