Table of Contents
Stadium Guide by Baseball Tripper
History
When it comes to the age of the franchise the Kansas City Royals are in the middle of the pack being founded in 1969, and they have always been a part of the American League. However they have not always been in the same division, starting in the west division up until 1993 since then they have been part of the Central Division. The team name and overall founding of the team, the Royals have a lot of history and a pretty unique start.
As for the name, the Royals pay tribute to two different entities. The first is the American Royal which is a famous rodeo, horse show, and BBQ competition that has been held in Kansas City ever since 1899. This name also goes back to the Negro baseball league where two teams share this name, one of which called Kansas City home during the 1910s. When it came time to pick a name for the team, they simply held a name the team contest which actually resulted in more than 17,000 entries. The Royals got their name from a simple bridge engineer who lived around the area and he defended that the name had nothing to do with royalty but was centered around the American Royal show that was hosted in the town annually. Of course the board of directors still had to approve this name and it won by almost a unanimous decision with the total vote of 6-1. What makes this fact ironic is that the team owner was the only vote that disagreed with the name but he later on changed his decision and decided that the Royals was the best name for the team.
As for how the team came to be in general, it was actually thanks to the help of the U.S. senator who demanded that the city receive a team after their previous franchise had moved to Oakland, California, as you may have been able to guess this team is now the Oakland Athletics.