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The history of parades or rallies for sports champions is long, champagne-soaked and full of meaning for the athletes and places that celebrated their wins. Kansas City's long-suffering fans will get to share the moment with their team Tuesday afternoon when the Royals parade through the city after winning their first World Series championship since 1985. Here, in chronological order, are 10 of the most memorable victory celebrations: 1936 New York parade for Jesse Owens: Owens' four-gold-medal performance at the Olympic Summer Games in Berlin was credited with helping explode Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's myth of Aryan supremacy. But it took guts. And Owens was under duress from the start. Owens retreated back onto the train he took into Berlin when thronging fans heckled him and even snipped at his clothing with scissors. From that point on, he didn't leave the Olympic village without American soldiers as bodyguards. Yet he still won gold in the 100 and 200 meters, the 4x100 relay and the long jump.  Owens was celebrated when he returned home, becoming one of the few individuals to have a New York ticker-tape parade thrown in his honor, but his life after the Games was often difficult. He was also late to support the '68 Black Power salutes of Mexico City Olympians John Carlos and Tommie Smith Jr. But Owens changed his mind by 1972, writing in his autobiography, "I realize now that militancy in the best sense of the word was the only answer where the black man was concerned, [and] that any black man who wasn't a militant in 1970 was either blind or a coward." 2. 1968 Detroit Tigers: The '68 Tigers are remembered as the group that helped Detroit mend from the devastating five-day riots of 1967 that caused 43 deaths and more than 450 injuries, resulted in more than 7,200 arrests and left 2,000 buildings being burned down. Tensions were re-ignited in the city, and the rest of the country, after the 1968 assassinations of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy. Detroit never threw the Tigers a full-blown parade, but that doesn't mean they weren't celebrated. When Detroit beat Bob Gibson and the Cardinals in St. Louis in the World Series clincher, fans poured into the streets and hundreds drove out to meet the Tigers' plane when it landed at a suburban airport. "I had a slogan," Tigers outfielder Willie Horton said. "'God put us here to heal this city.'" 3. Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, Super Bowl III parade for Joe Namath: After Namath famously backed up his guarantee that the New York Jets would upset the NFL champion Baltimore Colts in January 1969, only Namath's small Pennsylvania hometown threw Broadway Joe a parade.  Although the Jets became the first AFL team to win the Super Bowl, New York didn't bother to honor the team with a ticker-tape celebration like it would for the World Series champion Mets later that year. But why? As New York Daily News columnist Denis Hamill wrote last year, the rumor was that then-mayor John Lindsay caved in to Giants owner Wellington Mara's private threats to move his team from Yankee Stadium to New Jersey if the city honored the upstart Jets with a parade. Namath didn't complain. As he once said, "It's never been cool to reach." 4. 1988 Los Angeles Dodgers: Photos of the Dodgers' victory parade show almost-unbeatable ace Orel Hershiser hoisting the World Series trophy on a tinsel-laden float. But it was Kirk Gibson who made the biggest thunderclap of the Series by the limping to the plate in Game 1. Gibson wasn't expected to play at all because of a strained hamstring, but he belted a two-strike, two-out, two-run walk-off homer off Oakland A's Hall of Fame-bound closer Dennis Eckersley. It was the spark that launched the underdog Dodgers to a five-game Series win. Gibson, who is now battling Parkinson's Disease, told Bleacher Report two weeks ago that he still listens sometimes to the radio broadcast of the game when he's having a tough day. "You get embarrassed, because you want to be humble," Gibson said. "But at the same time, I'll listen to that s--- any day. You know? 5. 1991 Chicago Bulls, Michael Jordan's first NBA title parade: When word slipped out that Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley and some city aldermen were arguing before the Bulls even won the title over the exact route a potential motorcade should follow, Lakers guard Byron Scott smirked and joked, "Those people are like rookies ... [they] don't know how to accept being in the championship series." Chicago quickly got the hang of it. The Bulls won that year's title -- Jordan's first -- and then five more. As Jordan told the crowd at rally No. 4: "When I leave this city and when I leave this earth, there's one thing that I will know: that I've been in a city that truly loves me, and I love them." 6. Goran Ivanisevic's 2001 Wimbledon victory: Until his win as a wild-card entry, the free-spirited Ivanisevic was a three-time loser in the All-England club final. One of the 29-year-old's many running jokes throughout his charmed run to the title was that there were actually three Gorans -- the "Good," "Bad" and "911" Goran, with the last one appearing "only in emergencies."  But after Ivanisevic's upset of two-time major winner Pat Rafter in the Wimbledon final, the Croatian star was an instant national hero. Folks in Ivanisevic's hometown of Split ran into the streets, honked car horns and waved flags. Some even dove into the harbor to celebrate. The next day, a crowd estimated at 150,000 -- or about half the city's population then -- turned out for a victory rally. "This is unforgettable," Ivanisevic said at the beginning of his speech. "We are the craziest people in the world!" And at that, Ivanisevic took off his jeans and threw them into the crowd -- followed by his shoes, his scarf and finally his T-shirt -- leaving him standing for a moment in nothing but his underpants. 7. 2004 Boston Red Sox "Idiots": Red Sox fans had been waiting so long for a World Series title that many New Englanders cried tears of joy and wished long-gone family members had lived to see the club that began reversing the curse with its comeback from an 0-3 ALCS deficit against the Yankees. Boston then beat St. Louis for its first championship in 86 years. One of the team's unofficial theme songs was "Dirty Water," a paean to Boston that was played often that year. During the parade itself, one of the funnier moments came when slugger Manny Ramirez held up a fan's handwritten sign that read: "Jeter is playing golf today. This is better."  8. Dallas Mavericks' parade that wasn't/was: The 2006 Mavericks were tweaked after they took a 2-0 series lead against Miami and word leaked that city officials were already working out the victory parade route. The Mavs lost the series in six games. Five years later, it was Miami that made the same gaffe. According to a Dallas Morning News blog post, a "nationwide special event firm" placed a Craigslist ad for sales help related to a Heat victory parade. This time, Dallas won behind series MVP Dirk Nowitzki. "We've had a lot of ups and downs," Nowitzki told fans who finally got to celebrate. "This is the top of the iceberg and it feels amazing." 9. 2014-15 New England Patriots: Pats fans had heard quite enough about how the team hadn't won a Super Bowl title since its 2007 Spygate scandal. So when the 2014 Patriots ignored the weeks-long feeding frenzy about Deflategate and roared to a title win over the Seattle Seahawks, one fan at the parade through Boston couldn't help gloating. "Deflate This!" his sign read. Team bon vivant Rob Gronkowski wore a yellow crocheted "Minions" hat for part of the parade and at one point jumped out of duck boat motorcade to take selfies with fans, guzzle a can of beer and drop to the pavement and do some pushups as bystanders roared. "Craziness! Great times! Unreal fans!" Gronkowski recalled Thursday night after the Patriots' drubbing of Miami. "That [parade] was awesome. That was the best part of the offseason, just everyone going crazy. It's not like everyone was chillin'. Everyone was going crazy." 10. 2015 U.S. Women's World Cup champs: Though individual female athletes such as gymnast Mary Lou Retton and basketball star Cheryl Miller were among the 1984 Olympians honored with a New York ticker-tape parade, this past summer marked the first time any women's team was invited to make the 13-block ride down Broadway's Canyon of Heroes.  "It's about time, isn't it?" presiding New York mayor Bill de Blasio said. Fans began lining up for the 11 a.m. parade at 3:30 am and chanted "U-S-A!" as the motorcade rolled by. Awestruck U.S. coach Jill Ellis called the scene "mind-blowing," and veteran star Abby Wambach said, "All of this, for us, started when we were little and we had a dream ... [then] kept believing in that dream." ESPN.com's Mike Reiss contributed to this report.
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