Today is the George Brett’s 61st birthday! Today, we’re going to mainly examine his
early career, right up to the day he unfortunately got high on bath salts, hit
a home run, and damn near killed Tim McClelland.
Brett was drafted in the second round (29th
overall) of the 1971 draft by the Kansas City Royals out of El Segundo High
School, in
Upon his signing, the Royals assigned Brett to rookie ball Billings ,
where he was more than likely always cold, he hit .291 with eight doubles, five
triples, five home runs and 44 RBIs, with 32 walks and 38 strikeouts. Those are pretty solid numbers for an 18 year
old. However, at a fielding rate of
.890, there was certainly progress to be made.
In 1972, Brett was promoted to a more pleasant climate in A
ball San Jose , where he would again
produce solid if not spectacular numbers, hitting .274 with 13 doubles, five
triples, 10 home runs and 68 RBIs, with 53 walks and 53 strikeouts. Playing mostly third base now, he improved
his fielding percentage to .913, but he still made 30 errors at third base.
The Royals saw it fit to promote him all the way to AAA
Omaha for the 1973 season. At age 20, he
was nearly five years younger than league average, but he would hit .284 with
16 doubles, four triples, eight home runs and 64 RBIs, with 48 walks and 45
strikeouts. Now playing full time at
third base, his fielding percentage improved again to .923.
The Royals would promote him to the big club on August 2nd,
where he would start at third base, going 1-4 with a strikeout in a 3-1 victory
over the Chicago White Sox. He got his
first major league hit in the fifth inning that day off White Sox’ starter Stan
Bahnsen. His short stint with the Royals
were certainly not a sign of things to come, as he only hit .125 with two
doubles and five strikeouts across 40 at bats in 13 games.
Brett would start out the 1974 season again at AAA
Omaha. There, in 16 games, he would hit
.266 with two doubles, two home runs and 14 RBIs, with six walks and ONE strikeout. ONE strikeout
in 70 plate appearances. The 21 year old
Brett would never return to the minors.
Brett would get his first career home run on May 8th of that
year, off of Texas Rangers’ starter Fergie Jenkins. Brett’s major league line for that season was
.282 with 21 doubles, five triples, two home runs and 47 RBIs, with 21 walks
and 38 strikeouts. His batting average
wouldn’t go lower than that for another 17 years. His efforts earned him a third place finish
in the AL Rookie of the Year voting behind the Rangers’ Mike Hargrove and the
White Sox’ Bucky Dent.
Brett’s first full season in the big leagues in 1975 was
exceptional, and even more so when you break it down. At the end of April, he was only hitting .250
with four extra base hits – three doubles and a triple – and eight RBIs. From that point on, he hit .315 with 55 extra
base hits and 82 RBIs. He hit .358 in
the final month of the season! Overall,
he hit .308 in a league leading 634 at bats, with a league leading 195 hits, 35
doubles, a league tying 13 triples, 11 home runs and 90 RBIs, with 46 walks and
49 strikeouts. He even had 13 stolen
bases, although he was also caught 10 times.
He would finish a distant 11th in the AL MVP voting, which
was won by Rookie of the Year Fred Lynn.
Even though 1975 was impressive, Brett would get even better
for the 1976 season. He would lead the
league with a .333 batting average, again leading the league with 645 at bats, and
again, he led the league in hits with a career high 215. To go with those numbers, he had 34 doubles,
a league leading 14 triples, seven home runs and 67 RBIs, with 49 walks and 36
strikeouts. He also added another 21
stolen bases. He finished second in the
AL MVP race to Thurman Munson, and he started his 13 year streak of All Star
appearances.
Brett missed about 20 games during the 1977 season, and
about 30 the next season, but he still put up good numbers. He hit a combined .304 with 77 doubles
(including a league leading 45 in ’78), 21 triples, 31 home runs and 150 RBIs,
with 94 walks and 59 strikeouts. He made
the All Star squad both years, and finished 13th in the MVP voting
in ’77, and 19th in the MVP voting in ’78.
In 1979, he played a full season again, and showed flashes
of being a Hall of Fame player. On five
separate occasions, he missed hitting for the cycle by one hit (needing three home
runs and two doubles in those games).
Then there was the day that he DID hit for the cycle; the day after I
was born, May 28th. In that
game, a Royals 16 inning, 5-4 victory over the Baltimore Orioles, he went 5-7
with a double, a triple, TWO home runs and a walk, and had four RBIs and three
runs scored. Deciding it was seriously
time to go home, Brett led off the bottom of the 16th with his
second home run of the day off of Orioles’ reliver Sammy Stewart.
Then, on July 22nd, Brett had THREE home runs in
a 7-6 victory over the Rangers. Don’t forget the two games where he had two triples on June 20th and August
20th. Overall for the 1979
season, he hit .329 with a league leading 212 hits, 42 doubles, a league
leading 20 triples, 23 home runs and 107 RBIs, with 51 walks and 36 strikeouts. Again an All Star, he would finish third in
the AL MVP voting behind Don Baylor and Ken Singleton. Tired of getting votes but not winning, Brett
decided to do something about it.
 |
| Uh... |
In 1980, Brett missed a month of the season from June 11th
to July 9th. He also missed a
handful of games in early May and mid-September. Still, as of September 19th, he was
still hitting an even .400. When he was
healthy, he was carrying the Royals into the playoffs, and eventually, the
World Series, where they would lose to Schmidt’s Phillies. That season, Brett hit a league leading .390 with
33 doubles, nine triples, 24 home runs and career high 118 RBIs, with 58 walks
and 22 strikeouts. He also led the
league in OBP at .454, SLG at .664, and OPS at 1.118. Along with the All Star appearance, he
finally won the AL MVP besting Reggie Jackson, and he won a Silver Slugger
award.
Brett came back to earth somewhat in 1981 and 1982, where he
hit a combined .306 with 59 doubles, 16 triples, 27 home runs and 125 RBIs,
with 98 walks and 74 strikeouts. He
finished 27th in the AL MVP voting in ’81, and 20th in
the voting in ’82. This leads us to the
1983 season…
In 1983, Brett exploded out of the gate. In 16 games, he hit .460 with 12 doubles, one
triple, five home runs and 20 RBIs, with nine walks and five strikeouts. On April 20th, in an 8-7 win over
the Detroit Tigers, he went 4-5 with THREE home runs (including the go ahead
two run shot off of Howard Bailey in the top of the ninth) with SEVEN
RBIs. He cooled off in May, “only”
hitting .299, then in June, he missed about 20 games but hit .321.
Let’s just fast forward to July 24th of that
year. Coming into that day, Brett was
hitting .352 with 25 doubles, two triples, 19 home runs and 62 RBIs. You wouldn’t think that Brett would do
something like take bath salts, but that’s pretty much the only way you can
explain this:
 |
| Note the ump attempting to give Brett the crossface chicken wing. |
The Royals were down 4-3 when Brett stepped to the plate
with two outs in the top of the ninth inning at Yankee Stadium. Thank goodness U.L. Washington singled off of
Dale Murray, or we wouldn’t have experienced any of this madness. Billy Martin made the call to the pen to
bring in Goose Gossage. Brett promptly
took Gossage deep. After rounding the
bases, Martin had the umps check his bat for pine tar. When McClelland called him out, which would
end the game, he seeming almost paid with his life.
 |
| Guidry, with his normal post-game routine of spare ribs and coffee while icing his arm. |
Ultimately, the Royals protested, and the home run was upheld. The game would be completed almost a month later on August 18th, and if you didn’t know what happened, you
would see some weird things on the interwebs.
Like, why would all of these changes happen just because Brett hit a
home run? Don Mattingly is now playing
second base?! RON GUIDRY IS IN CENTER
FIELD. Fortunately for both of them, George
Frazier struck out Hal McRae, sparing both of them at most injury, and at
least, a spot on the blooper reel.
Brett was either still mad about the whole thing, or was
feeling the side effects of the bath salts, for the final two months of the
season, only hitting .247 after August 1st. For 1983 and 1984 combined, he hit .298 with 59
doubles, five triples, 38 home runs and 162 RBIs, with 95 walks and 76
strikeouts.
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| HE'S ON BATH SALTS AGAIN!!! Oh, wait. |
In 1985, Brett would lead the Royals to a World Series
victory of the St. Louis Cardinals in the I-70 series. His .335 batting average and 112 RBIs were
the second highest totals of his career, and his 103 walks were the only time
he walked more than 100 times in a season.
Additionally, he hit 38 doubles, five triples, and a career high 30 home
runs, only striking out 49 times. He
finished second in the AL MVP voting to Don Mattingly, and he won his first
Gold Glove and second Silver Slugger award.
The last eight years of Brett’s career were still very solid,
as he closed his career hitting .288 with 265 doubles, 29 triples, 124 RBIs and
618 RBIs, with 481 walks and 464 strikeouts.
His .329 average in 1990 led the AL ,
making him the only player to ever win a batting title in three different
decades. He finished 12th in
the AL MVP voting in 1988, and seventh in the voting in 1990.
In his Hall of Fame career, Brett hit .305 with 3154 hits
(16th all time), 665 doubles (6th all time), 137 triples,
317 home runs and 1596 RBIs (34th all time), with 1096 walks and 908
strikeouts, adding 201 stolen bases.
Also, his defense improved greatly over the years, as his career
fielding percentage was .970. His career
WAR of 88.4 is 30th all time.
Of his 1096 walks, 229 of them were intentional, good for seventh all
time.
While today we have some very good third basemen playing, it’s
hard to imagine David Wright, Ryan Zimmerman or Evan Longoria ever being remotely
as good as Brett was. Had Scott Rolen
managed to stay healthy, he may have been able to get close.
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