She’s a Royals Fan? Now I’m Officially In Love With Hayley Atwell

Last year, shortly after Major League Baseball’s Kansas City Royals won their first American League Pennant since 1985 local-boy-turned-celebrity Paul Rudd was interviewed on the field, jumping up and down with joy because the Royals were going back to the World Series!!! He jokingly invited everyone in the stadium to his mom’s house for an after-party, a self-deprecating joke about how although he’s from the area (Overland Park, KS to be specific) he doesn’t actually live there and crashes with his mom when he’s in town. Plus, it was a knowing reference to the way the Royals players had invited everyone in the city to party with them at a local bar after they won the first round of the playoffs. Not everyone got the joke, and some people did indeed show up at his mom’s house, giving Rudd funny stories to tell on the talk show circuit.

The whole thing doubly delighted me as a huge Royals fan and lover of comic book movies. That was Ant-Man hobnobbing it with the Royals!  Prior to that, the only time the Royals had popped up in connection, however vague, to the comic book movie universe was when Henry Cavill wore a Royals shirt in Man of Steel. 

Well, Rudd is not the only Royals fan in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, not that I had any idea about this until this morning.  Peggy Carter herself, British born Hayley Atwell, also cheers on Alex Gordon, Mike Moustaskas, Eric Hosmer and the gang.  As Peggy in the two Captain America films and the Agent Carter limited series on ABC, she is arguably Marvel Studios’ shining achievement in depictions of female characters, so fierce and intriguing as Cap’s love interest that she got her own short movie and then her own TV show.  However, I actually know very little about Atwell, greatly admiring her work without ever having seen her interviewed or reading her Wikipedia page.  Her father is apparently from Kansas City, and as a result, she spent a fair amount of time in Kansas City growing up.  When the Royals recently played the St. Louis Cardinals, their cross-state rivals, Atwell took to Twitter to announce, “I consider myself a Missouri girl at heart, but if I have to choose one team it’s the Royals.”

That caught the attention of the Royals, and she was invited to throw out the first pitch at yesterday’s game against the Cleveland Indians (who beat us 2-1, dangit!).  Thankfully, she has mastered Twitter, and used it to chronicle her whole experience with the team at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri:

Here she is throwing out the first pitch:

https://twitter.com/HayleyAtwell/status/605891188462227456

Taking pics with the team’s mascot, Slugger, and his low-grade Captain America shield which he used to deflect her first pitch:

https://twitter.com/HayleyAtwell/status/605889803314298880

And posing for a picture with catcher Salvador Perez and third baseman Mike Moustakas:

https://twitter.com/HayleyAtwell/status/605890635946586112

And balancing a baseball on her head because, well, why not:

https://twitter.com/HayleyAtwell/status/605922919521198081

The sight of Peggy Carter in a Royals uniform has thoroughly overloaded my brain.

This is just the latest Twitter moment for Atwell.  She also posted hilarious live-updates of a recent experience being in an airport and waiting for a flight while the nearby TV just happened to be showing Captain America: The First Avenger, no one around her appearing to care that they were mere feet away from a woman who was in the movie they were watching.

Other famous Royals fans include Eric Stonestreet (Modern Family), Jason Sudeikis (SNL, We’re the Millers), his fiance Olivia Wilde (House, Tron: Legacy), and David Koechner (Champ from Anchorman).  They’re all from the area (well, not so much Wilde), and along with Paul Rudd they always gather in the city once every summer for a series of charity events, including a softball game at Kauffman Stadium.  Perhaps they should invite Hayley Atwell next time now that she has outed herself as a Royals fan.  At the very least, should Atwell and Rudd bump into each other at some sort of Marvel event they’ll have something to talk about other than their respective contributions to comic book cinema.

Source: EW