KANSAS CITY, Mo. _ Amid the ongoing pandemonium at Citi Field in the wee hours of Nov. 2, 2015, the embodiment of the most resilient team in Major League Baseball playoff history stood radiant near the pitcher's mound.
That mound had become hallowed ground for Royals pitcher Edinson Volquez, who had used his spikes to subtly etch his father's initials into it.
As he had worked from there hours before, he felt a mystical sense of being looked over himself by a "lot of energy coming from the dirt, from the grass, all the way to your head."
Now the energy was arriving in more tangible waves, through teammates and family and throngs of media.
Manager Ned Yost put a hand to his face and told him how proud Volquez had made his father. Third baseman Mike Moustakas sought him out to hand over the Commissioner's Trophy and leaned into Volquez's ear and said, "I really love you, and we made our parents really proud and excited right now."
Of all the remarkable and indelible images of the 2015 postseason, perhaps none is as compelling and vivid as Volquez's face aglow as he cradled and gazed at the trophy.
He thought of the father who'd died days earlier, the father he considered "one of the greatest men."
"Unbelievable," Volquez said in the moment. "Look at that."
