Rooting for their ‘hometown’ team

The 111th World Series is underway and for the first time a team from Kansas City, the Royals, are playing a team from New York, the Mets, and this baseball battleground is causing a little consternation for a few Five Towners.
Lawrence resident Rochelle Stern Kevelson grew up in Kansas City, the daughter of a rabbi, who remembers a “wonderful childhood.” “The public elementary schools took us to art galleries, concerts and even the famous Power and Light Company,” she said.
Kevelson grew up in Kansas City before the Royals began playing baseball in 1969, and remembered attending only one baseball game at Wrigley Field, where the Cubs, who just lost to the Mets, play. “I think deep in my heart I would like the Royals to win,” she said. “All my friends who grew up in the Midwest still feel nostalgic about those times.”
Sarah Hammerman, another Lawrence resident who grew up in Kansas City, was not interested in baseball when she was a youngster. Hammerman spoke to her husband about which team they should root for. “We have to root for the Mets,” he said.
Rabbi Don Well, who also lives in Lawrence, also grew up in Kansas City. Not only were there no Royals, but also the Athletics had yet to move to Missouri from Philadelphia, when he was growing up. Now the A’s are in Oakland.
“This is my life in reverse,” Well said, about seeing a team from his original hometown in the World Series. A Jets fan, which also spent time in Chicago, the rabbi, who runs the adult learning program at Young Israel of Woodmere, said he will watch the World Series, but has no passionate rooting interest.
That is a Solomon-like decision considering the heated passion of both teams’ fans.