The following is a guest post by my friend, Buddy Biancalana:

With the success of this Royals club, it is kicking up many questions and memories about our 1985 World Series win against the Cardinals. Many are asking my opinion about how the two teams compare and if the club can stay hot. I am really enjoying watching the city come alive and the exhilaration so many are enjoying. What a wonderful time!

As you may know, my notoriety was achieved from one week of my career when I had a zone experience in that ’85 Series, in which I played the best baseball I ever played. After hitting just .188 during the regular season, I hit .278 with a .435 on base percentage and played errorless at shortstop. It was as if the game was in slow motion. I felt like I had more time, I wasn’t thinking and my swing and my defense were more fluid and effortless than ever before. I was told I received the highest number of MVP votes for a position player. (Bret Saberhagen deservedly won the award.)

A big question surrounding the club going into Spring Training the following season whether I could sustain my level of play and keep the shortstop job. The question loomed even larger in my own mind, because I had no idea what took place that allowed me to play so well the previous October, so I really had no idea how to repeat it. I was hoping I could, however I felt quite a bit of anxiety wondering if I really could.

It turned out that I did not keep the job, and was out of the Major Leagues just 18 months later after suffering a career-ending back injury. Regardless, my level of play diminished greatly.
As I look at this current Royals club, I see a team that has a great bullpen, good speed and excellent defense. The biggest thing they have going for them may be the huge wave of momentum they are riding. They and their hundreds of thousands of followers are hoping the wave doesn’t crash over the next week or so, like mine did after the ’85 Series.

Over the years, there have been many great players who have not played well in the postseason. Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds and Prince Fielder are three, who for the most part have not produced in October.
In the first two games of the Royals’ Division Series win against the Angels, the trio of Mike Trout, Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton were a collective 1-25. I’m sure that is not what Angels general manager Jerry Dipoto had in mind when signing the three to contracts in excess of $500 million. The fact that they struggled does not indicate they are not still great players, however it very clearly indicates they do not understand on the most fundamental level what makes them great.

There is a process quantified by Dr. Fred Travis, director at the Center for Brain Consciousness and Cognition, as to what takes place in the brain when any athlete is playing at their best. It is called “The Fluid Motion Factor.” When an athlete is “in the zone,” the information they are processing is moving to a part of the brain called the cerebellum uninterrupted by the prefrontal cortex. It is what I experienced when playing in the ‘85 Series. It is the only way that fluid motion is produced in the body and what many of the current Royals have been experiencing over the first eight postseason games.

Salvador Perez, their All-Star catcher, may be one of the few who is not experiencing the Fluid Motion Factor. Thus far in the postseason, he is hitting just .118 with a .143 on-base percentage, despite a career average of .280 with a .315 OBP. As great as A-Rod, Bonds, Fielder, Trout, Pujols and Hamilton are/were, often in the postseason the Fluid Motion Factor has shut down, which caused their performances to suffer.

The concern for the red-hot Royals is that the Fluid Motion Factor can leave them just as quickly as it came, and like me in the spring of 1986, they may not know where to look to regain it. The good news is that Dayton Moore has not tied up over $500 million in three players.

Buddy Biancalana is a former first-round MLB draft pick and played six seasons as a Major League infielder with the Royals and Astros, winning the 1985 World Series with the Royals. He is the co-founder of PMPM Sports-Zone Training and the co-author of The 7 Secrets of World Class Athletes.