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The Royals are putting advertising on their uniforms. Plus, Eric Hosmer announces his retirement. Those two things are not connected.

I don’t know if this is the worst thing I’ve ever seen, but it’s probably up there. Witness:

No. It is actually the worst thing I’ve ever seen.

Apparently, the Royals have decided to partner with a regional gas station for their first ever jersey sponsorship. And their logo is red.

Advertising on baseball uniforms was always going to happen. It was inevitable. Teams are continually searching for untapped revenue streams and Major League Baseball is always looking to leverage out a few more corporate partnerships. It’s the same thing with naming rights for a stadium. I’m surprised that the Royals have held out for so long when it comes to calling Kauffman Stadium something like Jungle Law Stadium at Kauffman Field.

My quibble with the ad isn’t that it’s there. It’s that the Royals have always been associated with the color blue. From the royal blue lettering on home whites to the caps to the full powder blue unis, it’s all about the blue. They couldn’t have found a sponsor with a logo that would have blended in a little bit better? A honking red patch on all that blue? Ugly. Wrong. Gross. And incredibly dumb.

Imagine, if you dare, how that patch is going to look on the powder blues. Woof.

Couple this patch with the disastrous rollout of new uniforms from the Nike partnership with Fanatics and this just vibes Tuesday night giveaway against the A’s. It looks cheap. It’s tacky. It devalues the uniform. I can’t wait for the logo to start peeling at the edges.

I wonder if the Royals knew there would be backlash to putting this particular patch on their uniforms so they decided to make it about philanthropy. That could be smart!

Hey, I’m all for helping our community (especially when, you know, small businesses are getting displaced from their homes to make way for a new and unnecessary stadium) and I’m certainly behind increasing literacy rates. The photo from the Tweet doesn’t exactly say how that’s going to happen thanks to a tacky uniform patch, but there’s a press release to help suss out the details:

This partnership will incorporate the launch of “Hit the Books,” a program focused on improving literacy rates across the Kansas City community, including a significant commitment to Kansas City Public Schools as well as a donation for every Royals hit this season and other initiatives.

Ok. Promising. But that feels a little light on the details I’m looking for. Anne Rogers has more:

Other initiatives will include a QuikTrip and Royals adopted classroom program, the establishment of mobile libraries -- which they’ll call Crown Libraries -- across Kansas City, in-game and in-broadcast literary-related activations and others that will lean on the Urban Youth Academy.

I’m on board with these initiatives even if they’re not truly fully explained in the accompanying stories and press releases. I would, however, like to understand more. As in, how much money is enough to ruin a jersey? Does all of the cash go to these community programs? Some? If I’m going to be staring at a logo all summer while I watch baseball, I’d sure like some answers.

As Paul Lukas points out at UniWatch, irony is working overtime when the company you partner with to promote literacy deliberately misspells the word “quick.”

My question is, why does an obnoxious uniform patch have to be part of what is being passed off as a community partnership? Why can’t they agree to some in-stadium signage, mentions on the broadcast and maybe a few callouts on the scoreboard in between innings? There’s a way to promote literacy without messing up a uniform.

Speaking of that…when it comes to advertising in the stadium, how much is too much? Look at this frame from the broadcast on July 29.

I count six different brands. Six! It’s not a ballgame. It’s a billboard. That’s not counting the promotions that are in tiny font on the padding around the larger ads or the Bally Sports logo and whatever they’re pushing in their crawl.

Now imagine one more logo. Or don’t. At this point, it’s basically an all-out assault on the senses. Although you will certainly notice the one ironed on the sleeve. Ugh.

Eric Hosmer said he was calling it a career on Tuesday. He made the announcement as one does in 2024—during the debut episode of his new podcast.

Hosmer’s overall career is a bit of a mixed bag. Good seasons in Kansas City alternating with merely average to mediocre years. Once he moved to San Diego as a free agent after the 2017 season, he was simply mediocre.

With Hosmer officially retiring, I started to wonder about his place in the pantheon of Royals’ history. Of course, the postseason runs in 2014 and 2015 loom enormously large. As they should.

His 12th inning triple in the 2014 AL Wild Card game ignited the greatest comeback I’ve ever witnessed. His 11th inning home run in Game 2 of the 2014 ALDS gave the Royals the lead and a 2-0 series lead. His single in the 8th inning of Game 6 of the 2015 ALCS scored Lorenzo Cain from first and delivered the Royals to their second consecutive AL pennant. Then he almost single-handedly destroyed an entire metropolis in Game 5 of the 2015 World Series, doubling to start a ninth inning comeback and then doing this:

That play also led to one of the finest moments of sports journalism from the New York Times back when they, you know, had a sports section.

The article is a delight. That’s George Brett in the top right, standing up with the top of his head cropped out, by the way.

Of course we remember the heroics, but overall, Hosmer didn’t really perform all that well in the postseason. He hit .308/.349/.333 in 10 ALCS games. In the World Series, his numbers were even worse at .224/.273/.286 in 12 games. But when his team needed him to come through, the dude simply showed up. In the biggest moments for the franchise since 1985, Eric Hosmer was postseason money.

To gain a little perspective on Hosmer’s Royals career, I wanted to look at players who were primarily first basemen and who had at least 1,000 career PAs for the club. It’s an interesting mix to be sure.

The ordering will be apparent in a moment. For counting stats at least, Hosmer ranks tied for third in home runs, second in runs scored, third in RBI and first in steals among Royals first basemen.

This is a fun exercise to just remember some guys. I am not sure I ever knew Pete LaCock’s real name was Ralph. That’s Ralph Pierre LaCock if you’re curious. Then there’s Jeff King who retired the day he reached 10 years in the big leagues and qualified for a full pension. The original Royals World Series hero was Willie Aikens who bashed two home runs in Games 1 and 5 in the 1980 World Series is represented. Of course, there’s Ken Harvey.

I pulled this data from FanGraphs using just their standard dashboard statistics. Opening it up a bit for the more sabermetrically inclined, it’s clear that there have been two exceptional first basemen in franchise history.

Mike Sweeney was a great hitter but adjusted for the era in which he played, he was only 18 percent better than league average. The real stud in this group was big John Mayberry who was the Royals’ original slugger. Both are in the Royals Hall of Fame.

By comparison, Hosmer was only 11 percent better than the league average offensively while he was with the Royals. Of course, his fWAR is depressed a bit because the metrics never really dug his defensive work at first. I always thought he was a good defender just not a great one, and nowhere near as well as the Royals management would try to have us believe.

In doing some research for a project I’ll be sharing with you all shortly, I came across a fun passage in the Kansas City Star from June of 2014 just after the Royals signed Raúl Ibañez.

The addition of Ibanez also provides the team with a viable, veteran insurance policy if they opt to option struggling first baseman Eric Hosmer to Class AAA Omaha. Ibanez played five games at first base for the Angels this season, and has appeared there 136 times in his career. He could also fill in as the designated hitter if the Royals move Billy Butler back into the field.

Hosmer entered Monday’s game batting .193 in June. Yet team officials insist his defense is critical to the club’s success. Yost batted aside a question about a potential demotion.

"That’s so far back off the radar, it’s not even close," Yost said. "Not even on the map. There’s been no consideration, or talk, of doing that. Or even a thought of it."

That’s so Royals isn’t it? Hosmer missed the month of August in 2014 with a hand injury but in July and September he hit .321/.379/.509, leading the Royals to their first postseason appearance in 29 years.

That’s kind of Hosmer’s Royals career in a nutshell, isn’t it? Frustrating at times to the point you wondered if it would all go off the rails, yet ultimately immensely satisfying. Wild how you could say the same thing about the Royals’ postseason exploits. Yet a couple of flags are flying in left field and a trophy is in the case because Hosmer showed up when it mattered the most. He wasn’t the best first baseman in franchise history, but he was the most impactful. That counts for plenty.

I wish Hosmer the best in retirement. Like they did for Cain, I’m sure there will be a well-deserved moment at The K this summer to honor his career.