The Royals’ bid to win the American League Central division championship just died in Detroit, where the TIgers wrapped up a 3-0 victory over Minnesota. Kansas City will have to settle for the first wild card and a meeting with either Oakland or Seattle Tuesday at 7 p.m.

It will be the first postseason game in Kansas City since Game 7 of the 1985 World Series, and the first for the Royals since that night, a span of 10,564 days without playoff baseball for the franchise. The national media will begin its descent upon Kansas City later tonight and continue throughout tomorrow when the Royals work out at Kauffman Stadium. It would have been convenient for the media to drive across I-70 from Kansas City to St. Louis for the NL Wild Card game, but it looks like they will be hopping flights from KCI to Pittsburgh Wednesday morning. Good luck with that. Or I guess those media members will be flying to Anaheim in advance of the wild card game’s winner facing the Angels in the division series.

This leaves the Toronto Blue Jays as the MLB team with the longest playoff drought, which extends back to Game 6 of the 1993 World Series, when Joe Carter hit a three-run home run off of the Phillies’ Mitch Williams in the bottom of the ninth to lift the Canadian franchise to its second consecutive championship. I do not rank that home run anywhere among my top 10, or my top 25. First, it was in Game 6, not Game 7. Second, the Blue Jays were up 3 games to 2, so there was game 7 if Philadelphia won. Third, the Blue Jays were heavily favored. I’m sick of hearing how great Carter’s home run was. Bull.