Motherhouse sisters surprised by Royals gift

Sister Rose Marie Dwyer concedes that she wasn’t much of a baseball fan for the first 70 or so years of her life. In fact, for nearly 40 of those years she lived in Brazil and devoted her cheering to soccer.

But when she returned to the U.S. and Kansas in 2006, she started following Major League Baseball and the Royals. And when she discovered that other Sisters of St. Joseph living at the Motherhouse in Concordia shared her delight in the boys in blue, she was thrilled.

As the pennant race was heating up, so was the cheering at the Motherhouse. Through the playoffs, the sisters routinely came together to watch the games and then to celebrate each win.

One problem, though, were televised night games that went late into the evening.

So Sister Rosie, as she’s called by everyone, wrote a letter to the Royals as they were wrapping up their pennant race.

“I’ve been watching all season,” she wrote, “but since I’m 80 years old, I can’t watch the extra innings.”

And while they probably can’t do much about the length of the World Series games, the team did recognize Sister Rosie’s support. On Monday, a package arrived for her with an early 81st birthday card signed by the Royals front office, an oversized baseball card featuring pitcher James Shields and — best of all — a baseball signed by Shields, who was the starting pitcher in Tuesday night’s Game 1.

“But it wasn’t just me cheering,” Sister Rosie added. “It’s been all of us. The entire Motherhouse is rooting for them.”

That rooting has included a couple of Motherhouse parties for all the Royals fans, plus song lyrics Sister Rosie put together with a help of a few sisters she says are most musical than she is.

It was sung (of course!) to the tune of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”