My earliest baseball memory is Game 3 of the 1980 World Series. I was 7 years old at the time – and not much of a sports fan as a child – but all summer George Brett’s name had been on everybody’s lips as he chased – and fell just short of – a .400 batting average.

This, unfortunately for Brett, was his infamous hemorrhoids year. Baseball Almanac tells me that he underwent minor surgery the day of Game 3; what I remember is that my mom had the game on TV, and I saw Brett hit a first-inning home run.

For one night, at least, the Royals were winners. I went to bed; when my father came home from his late-shift job, he woke me up, and I told him all about it.

They didn’t win the Series that year – that was the Phillies – but five years later they did against the Cardinals. (God bless Don Denkinger.) And for a few years after that, they remained in the running. They never went back to the playoffs, but the Royals always seemed to be in the thick of the postseason hunt throughout the summer.

Somewhere along the line, though, they stopped being competitive: three 100-loss seasons in four years, with a fourth almost certainly in the cards this season.

I’d say they’ve become the Cincinnati Bengals of baseball, except Cincinnati just went to the playoffs a few months ago – heck, the Los Angeles Clippers just won a playoff series in the NBA – so the Royals are quickly becoming the franchise that defines losing in all of sports, not just baseball.

Kansas City Royals manager Buddy Bell, left, heads back to the dugout as he continues to yell at home plate umpire Eric Cooper after a called third strike on Royals' Mark Grudzielanek, during the fifth inning of a baseball game against the Chicago White Sox, Sunday, May 7, 2006, in Chicago. The White Sox won 3-2.

Every now and again, I’ll listen to a game on the radio, just waiting to hear the moment announcer Denny Matthews finally cracks and starts cursing over the air. But that’s the only real entertainment in a Royals game these days.

And it’s kind of driving me crazy. So I give up.

I freely admit it: I’m a bandwagon fan – and the wheels have long since come off this wagon.

I’m not going to auction off my fanhood, like that guy on eBay. I’m not going to follow other teams either. But I’m through paying attention, day-to-day, to the Royals.

I’m not going to be excited when they win. I’m not going to be angry when they lose. I just don’t care anymore.

The opposite of love isn’t hate, after all. It’s apathy. And the Royals have done more than enough to earn it.

It’s too bad, I suppose. But after more than 20 years of waiting for a new Royals memory – a good one, one to replace the Brett highlights – it’s time to move on.