Third Baseman—George Brett
(with Royals from 1973-1993)
84.6 fWAR, 88.4 bWAR
.305/.369/.487, 2707 G, 11625 PA, 135 OPS+ (with Royals)
In the long history of baseball, there are only a few players who are the undisputed face of the franchise. Ask a baseball fan who comes to mind when they think of the San Diego Padres and the automatic response will be “Tony Gwynn.” For the Phillies, it’s Mike Schmidt. As good as Babe Ruth was, the Yankees have so many all-time greats that he might not be the undisputed face of the Yankees. It could be Mickey Mantle or Joe DiMaggio or perhaps Derek Jeter, for a more recent generation of fans. Statistically, Honus Wagner was the best player in the history of the Pittsburgh Pirates, but Roberto Clemente is the first Pirate that comes to mind for many baseball fans.
For the Kansas City Royals, George Brett is The Man. In the history of baseball, there are two players who have more than twice as many Wins Above Replacement as the next-best player on their team. One is Tony Gwynn and the other is George Brett.
Brett was born to a family of athletes. He was the youngest of four boys. His second oldest brother, Ken, pitched more than 1,500 innings in the major leagues for 10 teams over 14 years. His other two brothers, John and Bobby, each spent one year in the minor leagues. In 1985, the four brothers purchased a minor league team in the Pacific Northwest called the Spokane Indians.
Brett played with another future major league player, Scott McGregor, in high school before being drafted in the second round of the 1971 draft by the Royals. He started his career as a shortstop, but 20 errors in 47 games his first year in the minors got him moved to third base. He played two full seasons and most of a third in the minor leagues before getting into 13 games with the Royals in 1973.
The 1974 season was when Brett established himself as a big leaguer, but he came into his own in 1975 when he led the league in hits and triples and hit over .300 for the first of 11 times in his career. He led the league in hits, triples, and batting average the following year, while also making the all-star team for the first of 13 consecutive times. He finished second to Thurman Monson in AL MVP voting even though he had 7.5 WAR to Munson’s 5.3 (rookie sensation Mark Fydrich had 9.6 WAR, according to Baseball-Reference.com).
The Royals went to the playoffs five times in six years from 1976 to 1981 and Brett was the driving force behind those playoff teams. They faced the Yankees three years in a row in the ALCS from 1976 to 1978 and Brett hit a combined .375/.400/.768 in those games. Unfortunately, the Royals lost all three series.
The 1980 season was peak George Brett. Everything came together for him that year. It didn’t start out well, though. At the end of April, Brett was hitting just .259. Aprils can be cold in Kansas City and Brett didn’t like to wear batting gloves. He heated up a bit in May, but it wasn’t until the final day of the month that he got his average over .300. He went into a game against the Yankees on June 3 hitting .300, but after going 15 for 29 over the next seven games, he was up to .337 on June 10. Unfortunately, Brett hurt his ankle and would miss the next month of the season.
As the thermometer rose in Kansas City in July, so did Brett’s batting average. He came back from his injury to hit .494 in 21 games in July, even as the temperature made playing on the stadium AstroTurf almost unbearable. Players would have ice buckets in the dugout so they could submerge their feet, cleats and all, between innings during day games. By the end of the month, his batting average for the season was .390.
He kept it going in August. A 4-for-4 day against the Toronto Blue Jays on August 17 put Brett over .400 for the first time. He stayed over .400 for six glorious days, but an 0-for-3 on August 23 dropped him to .399. He wasn’t done, though. After going 2 for 4 against the Milwaukee Brewers on August 25, Brett went 5-for-5 on the 26th and his average was up to .407. George Brett was hitting .407 on August 26. Imagine if someone is hitting .407 in late August during the upcoming season. Social media would explode.
No player had hit .400 since Ted Williams in 1941, yet there was George Brett attempting the impossible. As Joe Posnanski wrote, when Brett was making a legitimate run for .400, there was nationwide hysteria. The reporters swarmed his locker and Brett did his best to accommodate them. He had always been good with reporters. He was a good-natured guy with a great sense of humor. But hitting .400 with a month left in the season changed things.
The coverage wore on Brett. He grew angry and resentful at the constant questions. It was just too much. He dropped to .396 after going 0-for-3 against Cleveland on September 6 and then missed 10 games with a wrist injury. He came back from the wrist injury on a hot streak by going 6-for-12 and his batting average was up to an even .400 on September 19. With two weeks left in the season, there was still a chance.
Brett was 1-for-8 in two home games, then the Royals flew out to Seattle for a three game series in which Brett was 2-for-11. Next up was a trip to Minnesota for the Royals final road series of the season. Brett went 1-for-8 in the first two games. His batting average had dropped to .384. After the game, he refused to talk to the press. When Kansas City Star columnist Mike McKenzie complained, Brett turned to teammate Darrell Porter and exploded, saying, “Darrell, one (bleeping) day I want to go without the same questions. One (bleeping day). You think there’s anything wrong with that?”
Royals manager Jim Frey gave Brett the next day off, but Brett wanted to pinch-hit in the sixth. He came up with the bases load and hit a pinch-hit grand slam to put the Royals ahead. Over the next five games, Brett was 9-for-18 but it wasn’t enough. He finished at .390. Crash Davis said in Bull Durham that the difference between hitting .250 and .300 was one extra hit a week, “one extra flare a week, just one, a gork, you get a ground ball, you get a ground ball with eyes, you get a dying quail . . . just one more dying quail a week and you’re in Yankee Stadium.” For George Brett, the difference between .390 and .400 was five hits. Five flares, five gorks, five ground ball with eyes, five dying quails, and he would have hit .400.
Along with Brett’s run for .400, the big news in Kansas City in 1980 was the Royals making it to the World Series for the first time in their existence. They got there by finally beating the Yankees in the ALCS, after losing to them three times in the previous four seasons. The Royals lost the World Series in six games to the Philadelphia Phillies, but Brett did his part by hitting .375/.423/.667.
Brett’s quest to be the first .400 hitter in nearly four decades put him in the national spotlight in 1980. He would be there again on July 24, 1983 when he hit a two-run home run in the top of the ninth to (seemingly) beat the New York Yankees. After the home run, Yankees manager Billy Martin asked the umpires to inspect the bat. The umps ruled that Brett had too much pine tar on the bat and ruled him out, nullifying the go-ahead home run. Brett went ballistic.
The Royals got back to the World Series in 1985. Brett hit .335/.436/.585, with a career-high 30 home runs during the regular season. He was second to Don Mattingly in AL MVP voting even though he had 8.3 WAR to Mattingly’s 6.4 (Rickey Henderson and his 9.9 WAR should have won the MVP Award that year).
Brett then hit .348/500/.826 in the ALCS and won the MVP Award. The Royals won the series in seven games over the Toronto Blue Jays. That put them in the World Series once again. This time, they beat the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games to win their first world championship, with Brett hitting .370/.452/.407.
That was the last time the Royals would make the playoffs during Brett’s career. He led the league in hitting for the third and final time in 1990 and picked up his 3,000th hit in 1992. He retired after the 1993 season and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1999 with 98.2% of the vote.