I thought I had gone through all the stages of Royals grief. Denial? Well, of course. I <em>love</em> denial. That has been my default stage as a sports fan most of my life. Hey, maybe Denny Bautista <em>will </em>become a star. Hey, maybe this is the year for Dee Brown. Hey, maybe José Guillen&rsquo;s performance will not fall off a cliff. Hey, maybe Mike Jacobs will not play every day against lefties. And so on. Anger &hellip; I have never really felt much anger about the Royals. I was angry about some of the preposterously cheap moves the Royals have made, and I was angry about the way the organization mistreated Allard Baird at the end, but all that&rsquo;s something else. I suppose the Yuniesky Betancourt trade probably triggered something like frustration, but only because of the Royals&rsquo; continued insistence that it was a <em>good move</em>. It seems pretty clear that Betancourt, because of his striking inability to hit or get on base or field or run or hustle, is not an especially good baseball player, but the Royals continue to say that, no, Betancourt <em>is</em> a very good baseball player, with a chance still to be great. And that makes me worry that maybe I&rsquo;m the crazy one.

Friday, the Royals and outfielder Rick Ankiel agreed to a $3.25 million deal. Several brilliant readers have asked me what I think about this &hellip; and I have to admit complete bafflement on the subject.

So, here it is, Thanksgiving column XIV &mdash; by popular request. To start: I&rsquo;m thankful to all the people who asked me to write this Thanksgiving column, even with a new job.