KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The first time I interviewed Rob Riggle was in June 2014 ... smack in the middle of the decades of mourning before it became morning in Kansas City sports.

At the time, you may vividly remember or, by now, be learning for the first time, the Chiefs hadn’t won a playoff game in two decades and the Royals hadn’t appeared in a postseason since 1985.

No wonder he’d been “eating it” from a lot of people for a long time, the actor and comedian from Overland Park said then.

“That’s all right,” he said. “I know who I am. I know where I came from. I’m still very proud.”

With a certain raw comedic touch, he added, “and they can suck it.”

So Riggle considered the state of affairs freshly accented that January by the Chiefs’ mind-boggling bungling of a 28-point second-half lead at Indianapolis en route to their eighth straight playoff defeat.

And … embraced it?

“Look,” he said, laughing, “Here’s the deal: The Chiefs’ fate and the Royals’ fate, that’s my fate.”

That’s quite a contrasting statement to remember now, of course, after the great awakening about ever since:

Starting months later with back-to-back World Series runs for the Royals, who won it all in 2015, and three Super Bowl championships for the Chiefs among their five appearances in the last six years — after playing in zero for a half-century.

It’s light years from the seemingly cursed ground Kansas City sports fans had come to feel, not as a birthright, but as a birthwrong.

Back then, any surge of optimism often was mixed with the dread of daring to dream and having it dashed.

Riggle lived it as much as anyone.

He was 5 years old when he went to his first Chiefs game in 1975, the season after Hank Stram was fired to signify the end of their initial glory days. And he was at Kauffman Stadium for Game 6 in 1985 — when Don Denkinger made what Riggle likes to say was an “awesome” call at first base — and launched fireworks from home after Game 7.

So he no doubt speaks for many, or at least to many, as he ponders this essentially polar opposite end of the spectrum.

Simply put ...

“We deserve championships,” Riggle said, smiling, Thursday in an interview with The Kansas City Star in advance of the annual Big Slick Celebrity Weekend to benefit Children’s Mercy.

Because enduring the pain and punishment should have a payoff.

And who would have guessed it ever could have gone like this?

“I honestly never knew if the Royals would ever get back,” he said. “Just because of the way baseball is structured. Not because of the heart or desire or anything like that, but just by the way the money works.

“And then when they put together a Dream Team, that wonderful team, for the (2014) and ‘15 seasons. It was the best. It was the absolute best.”

It took a little while longer for the Chiefs, whom Riggle recalled always picking to win during his “Riggles’ Picks” segments on Fox NFL Sunday.

Heck, he even remembered predicting victory every week he could during a 2-14 season.

“And they were all laughing at me,” he said. “But I didn’t care. Because this is my hometown, and I’m a homer.

“And that means I don’t care what the odds are. I don’t care what’s going on. I’m always going to pick my home team. That’s just the way it is.”

Along the way, he’d do what he could on behalf of Chiefs fans.

In the weeks after Tennessee’s Marcus Mariota’s touchdown pass to himself symbolized another signature postseason meltdown, Riggle emceed the NFL Honors banquet at which Mariota was among those being recognized.

Riggle’s young son strategically was placed at a seat behind Mariota … and proceeded to kick his chair repeatedly as Mariota kept bucking in his seat.

Yes, Mariota was in on the joke.

But the sentiment was plenty real.

Then everything began to change the next season with the advent of Patrick Mahomes as QB1 — and the Chiefs falling just short of a Super Bowl berth in a 37-31 overtime loss to New England in the AFC championship game.

They’ve won 16 playoff games since that Patriots’ loss — 10 more than they had in the entire previous history of the franchise.

To watch that unfold, Riggle said, has been “one of the most wonderful experiences ever.”

With it has come what he calls a “weird ripple effect.”

Not exactly in the sense that it’s odd … though, sure, it takes some getting used to.

Mostly, though, it’s because it’s invisible even as it’s ever-present.

“It’s an intangible, hard-to-define thing, but it does have an impact,” he said. “It does make you lift your head up higher, makes you put your chest out a little more, makes you want to engage more.

“It makes people go, ‘Oh yes, I’m familiar with Kansas City. … Oh yes, Kansas City.’ ”

Call it coincidence, but that rise nicely parallels the ever-rising prominence of Big Slick.

The event was launched in 2010 on what basically was a whim of Riggle’s to host a poker tournament with Paul Rudd and Jason Sudeikis to raise $50,000.

As of the end of the celebrity-stocked Big Slick Party & Show last year at the T-Mobile Center, Big Slick had raised more than $25 million through its first 15 years.

“To watch it grow from where we started to where we are now, 16 years later, that’s a testament to Kansas City,” he said.

Along with that, the celebrity guest list has gone from four or five to approaching 50 — many of whom are annual returnees now.

It all says something about the city and region, but it also says something emphatic about the cause.

Especially after the guests visit the hospital and pediatric cancer patients.

“It’s going to change you. It’s going to affect you. … It’s going to hit your heart like a thunderbolt,” Riggle said. “And from that moment on, it’s really hard to turn your back. It’s really hard not to get involved. …

“If we do nothing else in this life, let’s do that.”

This year’s finale, the show on Saturday night, no doubt will have a bittersweet element to it in the wake of the recent death of George Wendt. The actor best known for his role as “Norm” in the TV show “Cheers” is the uncle of Sudeikis and had been part of it all from early on.

“He auctioned off items. He was on stage. He was an umpire at our softball games,” Riggle said. “He loved being here. He loved this town. He loved supporting his nephew. He loved supporting the cause and the hospital.”

Last year, Wendt was about the funniest part of an epic reprisal of the old “Saturday Night Live” skit best known as “Da Bears.”

“It was really just killer,” Riggle said, later adding, “I hope this weekend … we celebrate his life. And I think we will.”

Among plenty of other things to celebrate.

Especially in the context of from where it’s come.

“I’m very proud of this town, and I want people to know about it,” he said, smiling and adding, “I don’t necessarily want them to move here, but I want them to know about it, right?”

In an entirely different way than they did both not so long ago even as it’s forever back.

“Now that we’re winning, everybody’s hating on us,” he said, with a particularly loud laugh. “Which, to me, that doesn’t bother me a lick. I’m, like, fine.

“Because there will be a time, and then the time will go. And then the time will come and the time will go. It ebbs and flows. Right now, we’re loving it. So let’s love it, you know?”

©2025 The Kansas City Star. Visit kansascity.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.