Kansas City Playlist: 2026 Royals Losing Streak Life Lesson

Despite a new stadium and so much excitement over development, real estate speculation and the continued "renaissance" in and around downtown Kansas City; the home team remains defined by mediocre play and the inability to escape their "first to worst" journey that's now more than a decade running. 

The reality is that TKC readers knew the 2026 Royals season was kaput by week two BUT that illusion didn't match with so much local development scheming. 

Now that the building boom "sizzle" will be sold to locals until around 2030 . . . Baseball fans seem to be committed to politely ignoring the ongoing and increasingly embarrassing foibles of the home team. 

Tonight's shame . . . The latest losing streak doesn't even merit serious consideration by even the most diehard fans . . . A quote to prove our point: 

"We could go through this game play by play and try to deeply analyze it, but they’ve lost six in a row. For the third straight game, the offense looked completely outmatched by a pitcher who has never shown the ability to dominate a lineup."

And this brings us to a teachable moment . . .

The Kansas City Royals serve as just another symptom of the current era wherein hype and rhetorical showmanship are seemingly more important than REAL WORLD RESULTS.

In fact . . . 

Most Americans have stopped trying to agree upon reality altogether . . .

Is Prez Trump unpopular or worthy of an EPIC golden monument??? No clue . . . It depends on who you ask. 

If the U.S. won the war in Iran . . . Why do government officials have to keep repeating this triumphant declaration after every new attack? Wasn't all of this supposed to be over in 4 to 5 weeks???

Even worse . . .

The Dems couldn't possibly be leveraging antisemitism against MAGA, right?!? Even if some leading progressives fear as much. 

Also . . . 

MAGA is playing "3d chess" but we're not sure if that kind of strategy is required when it seems like former Veep Kamala promising to pack the Supreme Court is the "brain trust" of progressives. 

The point . . .

Garbage politics, culture & social media communication have seemingly turned the world into a ponzi scheme wherein we're all at the mercy of the next rug pull.  

Sadly . . .

We all know this isn't sustainable but there might not be anybody around to complain to when things REALLY start heading south. And given that this whole thing runs on confidence, we wouldn't dare want to cast any doubt to weaken the resolve of our betters. 

Instead . . .  

We simply share tonight's www.TonysKansasCity.com playlist on the topic of losing streaks as we hope for a better day and the next, new shiny thing in order to distract our fellow Americans . . .

Deep nostalgia for tonight . . . "Did I Miss Again" was a 1981 track by Phil Collins that was repurposed in the mid-80s for the NBA's "FANtastic" promotional series that always left an impression with lil' TKC . . . An even better fun fact about the song: "Did I Miss Again" was originally written as a sad ballad about divorce. Titled "I Miss You, Babe," the original lyrics were so depressing that Collins decided to re-write the song with an upbeat tempo and a healthy dose of humor.

This track was long before TKC's time but we've always frequented the local classic rock station and it turned into one of our longtime faves on the topic of losing. From the late 70s studio band era, this bit of music engineering trivia is worth remembering: "The lush, layered vocal harmonies in the opening of 'Lonesome Loser' consist of nine separate vocal tracks. The band essentially triple-tracked the opening chorus and every subsequent chorus to achieve the song's incredibly massive and signature sound."

Memories from the early 2000s: The drumbeat for "Lost!" by Coldplay was directly inspired by Justin Timberlake’s 2002 hit "Cry Me a River". Drummer Will Champion built the beat from scratch on a programming program, and frontman Chris Martin immediately loved it and started playing the song's melody over the top.

For the bridge, here's a bit of history about one of our favorite sad songs: "Producer Mark Ronson revealed that Amy Winehouse initially hated the song's original production. When they first listened to the mix, she loved the vocal and the stripped-back feel, but abruptly told Ronson to take out the harp, comparing it to cheap pop, proving she was never afraid to speak her mind."

Finally, backstory on music history . . . John Lennon wrote "I'm a Loser" during his Bob Dylan-obsessed "Dylan period". It was one of the first times he dropped the cheery "mop-top" public persona to write openly about his deep personal insecurities, famously noting that part of him suspected he was a loser, and the other part thought he was God Almighty.

As always, thanks for reading this week and have a safe & fun Saturday night.