All championship experiences in sports are not created equal. When a team is a pre-season favourite, or spends the most money, or is stacked with the best players in the game, its never quite as special. This is why the Kansas City Royals, who finally dropped a post-season game by losing 7-1 to San Francisco in the opening game of the World Series Tuesday night, have a chance to go down in baseball history as one of the more remarkable champions of this generation. Already the Royals have made winning look more fun than anyone else in sports. The Royals don’t just celebrate like millionaire athletes. They have that pinch-me-I-can’t-believe-this-is-happening-and-it-reminds-me-of-what-it-felt-like-to-be-a-kid-again kind of fun. They buy rounds of drinks for their fans in bars after games, they have a player who gave out playoff tickets to a fan on Twitter and agreed to go to dinner with him. It’s become fashionable in sports for players to place winning championships above all else in sports. The standard answer as to where an athlete should want to play? Why wherever gives him the best chance to win a championship, of course. Teams such as the New York Yankees have used that selling point since the dawn of free agency in the 1970s, with baseball’s other big spenders such as the Angels, Boston, or the Dodgers also opening their wallets to do what some might call invest in talent, and what others might call buy a winner. Even in a salary cap league like the NBA, we saw The Big Three Found set things up, not just so that they would be able to play together, but so they could win a string of championships. That’s what it was all about and to a degree it worked. But the thrill of victory is never what it could be when one celebrates the accomplishments of a team that had the deck stacked in its favour before the season even began. The Heat winning two championships was maybe good for the NBA. But there was hardly anything magical about it, no sense of witnessing something that made you remember where you were when… It’s just a fact of life that the greatest celebrations in sports are always those that seem the least likely, the emotional energy inversely proportional to the likelihood of it occurring, for both participants and spectators. The greatest celebration I can recall ever seeing in sports? Probably the 1980 US Olympic Hockey Team in what became known as the “miracle on ice,” a scene that appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine without a headline. The scene simply spoke for itself. The Royals aren’t quite that kind of story but their journey thus far does feel different. There’s a little more unbridled joy, a little more enjoy-it-while-it-lasts. Yes the Royals remind us that even in professional sports, there are different degrees of joy. Clearance Kevin Durant Shoes . 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On the day the club activated Casey Janssen from the 15-day disabled list, his return from a strained oblique that cost him the first six weeks of the regular season, it announced Sergio Santos would be placed on the disabled list on Monday with discomfort in his right forearm.MIAMI -- Marcell Ozuna came into Wednesday nights game mired in a slump. He was 3 for 24 in the previous nine games, but hit a grand slam and knocked in five runs to help power the Miami Marlins past the Philadelphia Phillies 14-5. "He needed that," Marlins manager Mike Redmond said. "He needed to lock it in and have a couple good at-bats. Hes definitely had some struggles this month. ... Hopefully this is a spark for him and a spark for us." Christian Yelich, Garrett Jones, and Jarrod Saltalamacchia each drove in two runs for the Marlins, who have the best home record (18-6) in baseball. Nathan Eovaldi (3-2) allowed three runs--one earned--and 10 hits in six innings to pick up the win. "I felt command," Eovaldi said. "I had better command of my fastball this outing and I was able to make the big pitches when I needed to." Ozunas first career grand slam and seventh home run of the season broke the game open in the seventh inning. Miami led 6-3 with two outs before Jeff Manship loaded the bases and Ozuna smacked a pitch over the left-field wall for a 10-3 lead. "When I saw the pitch, I said, I got it. Let me not make a mistake. Just make contact," Ozuna said. Phillies starter Kyle Kendrick (0-5) came into the game with a 10-game winning streak against the Marlins, but lost his 10th consecutive game overall. Kendrick allowed six runs in 5 2-3 innings. "I wasnt good at all, falling behind in counts, missing over the plate, my fastball command wasnt very good," Kendrick said. "Guys scored runs and I gave it right back to them and thats whats frustrating." Domonic Brown homered and drove in three runs for the Phillies, who had their three-game wwinning streak snapped.dddddddddddd Browns two-run home run pulled Philadelphia within 10-5, but Miami scored four runs in the eighth to post their highest run total of the season. Miami slugger Giancarlo Stanton came up with a pivotal defensive play in the fifth inning. With the bases loaded and the Marlins holding onto a 5-3 lead, Cody Asche hit a line drive to the right-centre field gap that looked as if it would clear the bases. Stanton raced to his right making a diving back-handed catch to end the inning. "The great catch in right-centre field was a game-changing play," Phillies manager Ryne Sandberg said. "That was potentially a 6-5 lead and a whole different type of a game." The Phillies scored two unearned runs in the first and the Marlins responded with two in the bottom half. After Stanton drove in a run on a ground out to give Miami a 3-2 lead, Tony Gwynn, Jr. singled to tie the game at 3 in the fourth for Philadelphia. Miami took the lead for good in the bottom of the fourth on RBI singles by Ozuna and Yelich for a 5-3 advantage. NOTES: After the game the Marlins optioned RHP Anthony DeSclafani to Triple-A New Orleans. LHP Randy Wolf (0-0, 1.80) will take DeSclafanis spot in the rotation and start Sunday against Milwaukee. ... The Marlins are averaging 6.0 runs at home compared to 3.4 on the road. ... Phillies SS Jimmy Rollins tied Richie Ashburn (2,217) for the second-most hits in franchise history. ... Kendricks 10-game winning streak against the Marlins was the longest active streak by any pitcher in MLB against one team. ... Philadelphia will send LHP Cole Hamels (1-2, 4.40) to the mound in Thursdays series finale against Marlins RHP Henderson Alvarez (2-3, 3.62). ' ' '