Didn't See This One Coming

The Kane County Cougars have ended their affilliation with the Oakland A's and have linked up with the Kansas City Royals for 2011 and beyond.

You can read the article here.

You might be wondering why I say I didn't see this one coming in the headline. Well, usually when an affiliation ends, one party is not happy with the other.

But the Oakland A's have always given the Cougars good players, enough so that they make the playoffs basically every year and have won quite a few championships. And on the flip side, the Cougars draw a good crowd, have a nice ballpark, and provide the players with what they need, so why would Oakland not be happy? Seems odd to me.

Anyhow, this now means that the Burlington Bees are without an affiliate because they were previously with the Royals. I've not seen an announcement yet as to whether they will go with the A's, or if someone else might be available.

One obvious advantage of Kane County going with Kansas City...they both are "KC" teams so it could be a merchandise bonus.