Local baseball fans who have become hooked on watching the Kansas City Royals flash leather as well as any club that ever has played the game need not panic over the Royals having an off day Thursday.

An attractive alternative with a big-time feel to it does exist. Free State High, participating in its seventh Class 6A state tournament in 18 years of existence, opens its quest for a second state title (2006) Thursday at Hoglund Ballpark. The second-seeded Firebirds (18-4) are scheduled to play Wichita-Haysville Campus High (15-7) at 4 p.m, a time subject to change based on weather forecasts.

In many ways, Free State is to Class 6A baseball what the Royals are to major-league baseball.

Firebirds senior center fielder Joel Spain said he and teammates talk a lot about their mutual interest in the Royals, but never compare themselves to them. When asked about what makes both teams tick, Spain couldn’t deny they win with similar styles. The Royals entered Tuesday night’s loss to the Yankees with the best record in the American League, despite ranking 26th in the majors in home runs. Free State ranks tied for last in the world in home runs, still without one.

“They do a lot with their defense and being really aggressive on the bases, which I think we try to be too,” Spain said. “So we do resemble the Royals a little bit, I think.”

Obviously, Spain doesn’t cover the same ground as Lorenzo Cain. Who does? But Spain does run well and consistently takes the right path because he reads the ball off the bat so well, enabling him to get quick jumps. He doesn’t hit home runs, but when you single, steal second, take off for third on a pitch in the dirt and score on a catcher’s throwing error, as Spain did with the winning run against Lawrence, isn’t that just as good as a home run?

“We always were a smaller team,” Spain said of his youth baseball days shared with teammates. “We never really scared anybody coming off the bus. Doing it the small-ball way is pretty fun. That’s what I’ve been accustomed to.”

In the big leagues, scoring has followed the shrinking path of hitters’ muscles, thanks to a decline in performance-enhancing drugs. Free State coach Mike Hill traced the decline in scoring in high school baseball to the deadening of bats four years ago, a move initiated by college baseball. Performance-enhancing bats were outlawed because the exit speed of the ball off the bat became dangerous to fielders.

As scores dropped significantly, so too did attendance numbers in college baseball, which, Hill explained, resulted in college baseball flattening the seams on the baseball, a la the big leagues. That enabled the ball to spin differently and fly farther.

“As soon as they made that change,” Hill said, “there went the home run numbers, not back to gorilla-ball numbers, but to a happy medium.”

High school baseball hasn’t lowered the seams on the baseball yet, but Hill is curious whether that will be brought up in Indianapolis in two weeks when the national high school rules association meets. Hill is starting a four-year team serving the organization.

For now, Hill is happy to take the field with a terrific defensive team that runs the bases aggressively and relies on good starting and relief pitching.

“There always has been a premium on pitching and defense, but when the bat rule changed four years ago, it took those and emphasized them to a much higher degree,” he said.

It makes for a more exciting brand of baseball because it forces teams to put more pressure on defenses.

“Putting my fan hat on, I like it,” Hill said. “It brings in more factors. Hit and run, squeeze, delayed steal. You’ve got to find more creative ways to make runs happen. From a purist standpoint — and I also support the DH, so I don’t claim to be a purist — it makes the game more like it’s intended to be.”

Hill pointed to the team chemistry, particularly among the seniors who have played together since youth baseball, as well as “some of our younger kids who have been together for a long time,” as a key to the 18-4 record.

“There’s a ping-pong table, all sorts of stuff going on (in the locker room),” Hill said. “… Because of where we are offensively and our pitching, we’re going to play a lot of close games. Our kids have learned how to thrive in close games. Some kids don’t respond well to that kind of pressure. These kids do, and the more they do it, the better they get at it.”

Clearly, this is one of those groups that wants to stay together for as long as possible. That desire to make it last can go a long way in the postseason.