Fulks Matt - More Than a Season: building a Championship Culture

To Marianne, whos a source of constant love, support, encouragement, and wise counsel. You have helped mold me into who I am today. To our three children, Ashley, Avery, and Robert, who make me proud every day to be your father. One of my core beliefs is that my team is at home I couldnt imagine this journey without the four of you. To my in-laws, James and Christine Bixler, who are great sources of faith, confidence, and strength. To my brother and sister, Duke and Danielle, who are great fans of the Royals and make me proud to be your brother. To my grandmother, Wynona (Riner) Marley, who helped foster my love of the Royals at an early age. To my grandfather, Cecil Marley, who became a huge Royals fan after I became general manager, and passed away at the age of 98 before Game 3 of the 2014 World Series. To my father and mother, Robert and Penne, who supported and encouraged me to pursue this great game of baseball.

Contents

Acknowledgments

As always, it seems like there are too many people to thank, because theres no way a book can be completed without a great amount of support and assistance. That said, we apologize now if we forget to mention you by name. The following people were incredibly instrumental in the authors being able to write this book:

To the team at Triumph Books, who believed in this project, were willing to squeeze it onto their roster, and then showed the patience of Job as this book became a reality: Noah Amstadter, Jeff Fedotin, Alex Lubertozzi, and Mitch Rogatz.

To Bill High of the National Christian Foundation Heartland, who convinced Dayton that this would be a worthwhile project, and then wrote the books introduction.

To Alex Gordon for agreeing to write the foreword. You can read more about Alex later in the book, but besides being a terrific baseball player, Alex is a great person.

To each person who agreed to be interviewed for the book: George Brett, Jeff Davenport, Bill Fischer, David Glass, Rusty Kuntz, Nick Leto, John Schuerholz, Paul Snyder, Art Stewart, Gene Watson, and Donnie Williams. Thank you for your time and willingness to share your thoughts. There are many others who couldve shared stories about Dayton and his time with both the Braves and the Royals, but the ones we talked with offer a solid backdrop of Daytons time in Atlanta and Kansas City.

To Colby Curry and Mike Swanson in the Royals media relations department, for your support and assistance with photos and information. Along those lines, to photographers Don Schmidt and Chris Vleisides. To Brad Hainje with the Braves and Greg Piduch with George Mason University, for helping secure photos.

To Emily Penning, Daytons assistant, whose contributions to this project are immeasurable, from setting up interviews, to helping with contacts, to offering suggestions, to making a mean turkey sandwich. As Dayton says, Emily has a tireless work ethic with an above-and-beyond attitude.

To Dave and Kathy Minich for giving Matt a hideaway in the middle of Missouri so he could work on this project.

Dayton would like to add a personal thanks :

To my college coaches, Joe Slobko and Billy Brown, who gave me an opportunity to continue playing and then fostered my desire to get into coaching.

To my mentors and encouragers in this business: Paul Snyder, Roy Clark, John Schuerholz, Donnie Williams, Bill Fischer, Jose Martinez, Jim Beauchamp, Chino Cadahia, and Art Stewart. As we write later in the book, its important to have gray-haired influences, and these men certainly embody that for me.

To each player with whom Ive shared this incredible baseball journey. It takes a lot of dedication to play this game, and Ive been blessed to be around passionate baseball men who love to compete. Every players story begins with a scout. So, I thank the scouts, who are the lifeblood of the game, as well as each manager, coach, and instructor who supports, encourages, and prepares our players to be their very best.

To Dr. Vincent Key and the entire medical team at KU Medical Center, our head athletic trainer Nick Kenney, assistant trainer Kyle Turner, strength and conditioning coach Ryan Stoneberg, and physical therapist Geoff Blum, all of whom keep our players in the best possible shape and health to perform their best.

To the leaders throughout our baseball operations department whose hard work, dedication to the Royals, wise counsel, and passion to see players reach their ceilings is something on which Ive depended, in particular: Dean Taylor, J.J. Picollo, Rene Francisco, Jin Wong, Lonnie Goldberg, Scott Sharp, Gene Watson, Mike Groopman, Mike Arbuckle, Linda Smith, George Brett, and Jason Kendall. Along those lines, thank you to the spouses and families of the people in our baseball operations department.

To the Glass family, particularly David and Dan, who entrusted me with this job of general manager and then showed patience to allow us to see the plan through.

To Tim Cash and Pastor Christian Newsome, who are spiritual mentors and friends. You are wonderful examples of Christ to me and so many others.

To Marianne and our three children, Ashley, Avery, and Robert, who are never-ending sources of joy and encouragement. Your support is appreciated more than youll ever know.

Finally, from Matt :

Thanks to Dayton for thinking I could pull off this project. The call I received the week of Thanksgiving and the two-plus months that followed will always be one of the highlights of my career. We shared a lot of laughs, a lot of discussions, and a lot of coffee, but Im a better writer and a better person because of our time together.

To Marianne, thank you for your hospitality, willingness to offer editorial suggestions, and encouragement during this project.

To Jim Wissel, Chris Browne, Tom Lawrence, and Tim and Amy Brown, who, as always, served as core support and guidance. Your support is greatly appreciated!

As with past book projects, based on the amount of praying I did during the writing of this, especially during the last two weeks, without Christ this isnt possible.

A final special thanks to my favorite in-laws, Todd and Pat Burwell, and my parents, Fred and Sharon. To Helen, Charlie, and Aaron, who make me thankful each day; and, to my best friend, Libby, who loves me in spite of my quirkiness and shows me that it takes a special person to live with an author on deadline.

Thank you, all.

Foreword by Alex Gordon

What a difference a couple of seasons can make. Two years after losing 90 games in 2012, we were American League champions for only the third time in Royals history and 90 feet away from tying Game 7 of the World Series in the bottom of the ninth inning. Its been an incredible roller coaster.

There were a lot of ups and downs in those three seasons alone, not to mention the years before that. We lost 91 games in 2011. So, after back-to-back 90-loss seasons, we were in range of a playoff berth in 2013 until the last few days of the season. Our record of 8676 in 2013 was the first winning season for the Royals in a decade, and the most wins in a season for the club since 1989.

The architect behind this turnaround is general manager Dayton Moore, whos been my boss since he started with the Royals in June 2006.

At that time I was at Double A Wichita, in my first full season playing for the organization. Ill never forget the buzz around the clubhouse when he came down to see us for the first time. We drew only about two hundred people a game in Wichita, so any type of excitement around the stadium was great. Hearing that Dayton Moore was coming to see us really fired a lot of guys up.