Dr. Royals Is In

By DAVID MARTIN

Just in time for spring training, our favorite dermatologist and baseball writer has started a new blog dedicated to the Kansas City Royals.

Rany Jazayerli is a skin doctor, husband, father of two and knowledgeable baseball fan who grew up in Wichita, rooting for the Royals. While pursuing a career in medicine, Jazayerli helped found Baseball Prospectus, which has become a trusted authority in the realm of performance analysis (i.e, stat crunching).

For several years, Jazayerli blogged about the Royals on the site maintained by ESPN baseball writer Rob Neyer. (The Pitch awarded Rob and Rany a Best Of award in 2005.) Now Jazayerli is striking out on his own. Yesterday, he published the first entry on his new blog, Rany on the Royals (slogan: “…where we firmly believe that Dan Quisenberry should be in the Hall of Fame”).

The Royals have made a lot of dumb decisions in the 13 years that Jazayerli has written about the team. “I insulted Bob Boone, criticized Tony Muser, mocked Tony Peña, and lost my patience with Buddy Bell,” he writes. “And through it all I’ve somehow maintained my fandom, even as the post-strike Royals have endured the darkest stretch in their franchise’s history, and indeed one of the darkest stretches in any franchise’s history.”

Jazayerli believes the Royals are ready to emerge from the darkness. He’s planning to publish 23 reasons why now is a good time to be a baseball fan in Kansas City. Why 23? It’s the jersey number that talented right-hander Zack Greinke wears, of course.