Billy Beane, who robbed the Royals of Jermaine Dye, who gave us a pet rock for Jeremy Giambi, who helped the Royals achieve their dream of owning Roberto Hernandez. Hell, he even took away Kevin Appier, and never mind that it was the right thing for the Royals, it still hurt like hell.

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The Royals finished the season with just three potential free agents, and already had the foresight to re-sign the least enticing one, Brent Mayne. With a midnight deadline looming on December 7, the Royals were able to come to terms with Luis Alicea, for essentially the same money as last year: $800,000 with incentives.

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So at a time when news about contraction and Bud Selig's latest open-faced lie rule the day, I'm going to write about the draft. No, not the one in which teams have a chance to draft Vladimir Guerrero--the one that gives teams the opportunity to select the next Scott Chiasson.

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It was less than four months ago that Allard Baird stood before the baseball world and announced that he had traded one of the best right fielders in the game for Neifi Perez. In one of the great non sequiturs of all time, Baird claimed that because the Royals could not re-sign Rey Sanchez--Rey Sanchez!--Jermaine Dye had to be sacrificed. He spoke about how he could not stand to see the Royals unsettled at a "premium position."

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That chance lasted 14 games. Vito Corleone gave his enemies more of an opportunity to make amends.

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We were not at all prepared for the response the column received. We had no idea there were so many Royals fans out there. Actually, judging from the volume of e-mail, most of our readers weren't Royals fans at all. Why would so many otherwise sane baseball fans read a column that discussed, in excruciating detail, a team they didn't even follow?

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