So I've been waiting all morning for Joe Posnanski's account of the Kansas City Royals' amazing, frustrating, inconceivable comeback in its one-game playoff with the Oakland A's last night. The man didn't disappoint. Among the quotables:

• “The Royals really are the closest baseball thing to a Coen Brothers movie.”
• “I don’t understand the impulses that would make a man think it a good idea to give a rookie pitcher a rare relief appearance on one day’s rest in the team’s first playoff game since Microsoft released its first version of Windows.”
• “The radar gun is such a mesmerizing distraction. 'He threw that pitch 99 mph,' one of them said, and the others hummed their admiration. No one seemed too concerned that it was 99 mph and way above the strike zone, as was the second fastball. No one talked about how fast the third fastball was because Moss deposited it over the center-field wall for a three-run homer.”
• “In the 12th inning, the Royals came back one last time – an Eric Hosmer triple, a Christian Colon Baltimore chop, another stolen base, a ground-ball single yanked down the line by catcher Salvador Perez, who for most of the game had looked so helpless, you weren’t sure if he was even holding the bat right side up.”

I watched half the game at the Quarter Lounge here in Seattle, arriving to a 2-0 score. Not many people were at the bar but the few there were rooting on the Royals. As was I. And they went ahead 3-2. Then the pitching move Posnanski mentions. Me: “A starting pitcher? Don't they have like a legendary bullpen or something? Why not use one of those guys? This kid can't seem to find the plate. What ...?” By which point it was 5-3 Oakland, then 6-3, then 7-3. And so, feeling the beginnings of what turned out to be a nasty cold (it woke me up at 1:30 AM), I walked home, through the autumn chill, and didn't bother to turn on the game at home. But I paid attention via ESPN.com. (BTW, ESPN.com: Please don't go to post-season stats in the first game of the post-season. It's so effin' stupid.) And online I saw the Royals begin to make their comeback. So I turned the game back on in the bottom of the 8th and reveled in the rest.

Welcome back, Royals. We never knew how much we missed you.