Best Reason to Believe

As wide as he is tall, Royals rookie Ken Harvey just looks like a slugger. He was born in California and went to high school in Beverly Hills, California, of all places, but he embraced the Midwestern ethic playing college ball at Nebraska. Now he's ours. He won us over early, getting clutch hits back when the Royals were supposed to be terrible. It was Harvey who got us believing when rookie-of-the-year candidate Angel Berroa was booting routine grounders. Harvey kept us believing when our young starting pitchers were hurting themselves and Mike Sweeney was logging weeks on the disabled list. Harvey took Sweeney's place at first base, where he managed to get into the most horrific collisions. We'll remember the 2003 Royals for Harvey's eleventh-inning home run on April 18. The blast to left kept the home winning streak alive and thrilled the crowd, which chanted "Har-vey, Har-vey, Har-vey" into the night.