As the Kansas City Athletics left town following the 1967 season, Kansas City was promised another expansion team. That team would become known as the Kansas City Royals, starting in 1969 at Municipal Stadium.

Owned by local entrepreneur Ewing Kauffman, it did not take long for the Royals to find success. Their first winning record came in just the team’s third season.

The team was also piecing together the framework for a long-lasting baseball club.

With Truman Sports Complex being built, Royals Stadium finally opened in 1973. The stadium still stands as the foundation for Royals baseball today 50 years later.

In the second round of the 1971 draft, the Royals selected George Brett. The Southern California native would go on to be the greatest Royal of all time, leading the Royals to great success over the course of his 20-year Hall of Fame career.

After getting called up in 1973, Brett quickly became a key figure in Kansas City’s seven playoff appearances between 1976 and 1985.

“When your best player can be viewed as the hardest worker and the one that’s trying to get after it every day, that’s always an asset,” Royals Hall of Fame director Curt Nelson said. “He played all out, which could sometimes be a problem because he did miss a lot of games being hurt.”

During this era, the Royals became the first American League expansion team to play in the postseason, to win a pennant and to win a World Series.

The Royals won two pennants during this era. The first came in 1980 under manager Jim Frey when they beat the New York Yankees, who had beaten them in three previous ALCS trips, before losing the World Series to the Philadelphia Phillies.

In 1985, the Royals topped the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games to claim the organization’s first World Series.

“They were a team that was largely a reflection of Dick Howser,” Nelson said, talking about the 1985 World Series champion Royals. “His personality was kind of stoic but fiery.”

After winning the AL West by one game and barely making the playoffs, the Royals came back in the ALCS against the Toronto Blue Jays, winning the series 4-3 after trailing 3-1. In the World Series against St. Louis, the Royals fell behind again 3-1 before rallying to win the championship 4-3.

“There’s a lot of Dick Howser in that ability to come back and not give up after being down with your back up against the wall,” Nelson said.

While Brett led the team with 112 RBI, first baseman Steve Balboni had a team-leading 36 home runs. The team had a little more power than in previous years with a total of six players hitting double-digit home runs.

In search for the best team in Royals history, many don’t believe it was the 1985 team that went 91-71. Many opt for either the 1977 team that set a franchise-best 102-60 record or the 1980 team that went 97-65 and won the pennant.

After claiming the championship in 1985, Dick Howser stepped away in the middle of the 1986 season as a brain cancer diagnosis quickly took a turn for the worst, passing away in June 1987.

The Royals also went into a 29-year playoff drought. During that drought, Brett was still with the Royals until his retirement in 1993 as well as other talented players like Bo Jackson, Mike Sweeney, AL rookie of the year Carlos
Beltran, AL saves leader Jeff Montgomery and Cy Young winner Zach Greinke.

Following the death of Ewing Kauffman and his wife, Muriel, the team was sold to David Glass.

Royals manager Tony Peña was named AL Manager of the Year in 2003 after leading KC to a winning season, but still falling seven games short of the division title.

After nearly three decades of postseason exile, the Royals finally broke in on some October baseball in 2014. The Royals didn’t just participate, they took over the postseason. KC delivered knockout blows to MLB’s top two teams, the Los Angeles Angels and Baltimore Orioles, before losing in seven games to the San Francisco Giants in the World Series.

In 2015, the Royals went on another mission to the World Series. After running away with the AL Central title, their first division title in 30 years, the Royals beat the Houston Astros and Toronto Blue Jays to win the pennant. The Royals were crowned World Series champions for the second time in franchise history after beating the New York Mets in five games.

The team had a fierce hard-throwing bullpen consisting of Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis and Greg Holland during this era. In the field, errors were few and far between. The Royals used craftiness to score runs once a runner was on base.

The Royals remained competitive for the next two years, going 81-81 in 2016 and 80-82 in 2017. By 2018, the core that brought so much success in the previous years had separated and the Royals fell well under .500.

John Sherman became the Royals’ majority owner in 2020 after the death of Glass. Actor Eric Stonestreet and Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes are also members of the ownership group.