George Brett

George Howard Brett played 21 seasons for the Kansas City Royals, batted .390 in 1980 for the highest average in the American League since Ted Williams hit .406 in 1941, won batting titles in three different decades, collected 3,154 hits, and became the center of the most famous umpire argument in baseball history when an umpire tried to take a home run away from him because of pine tar on his bat. He played his entire career in Kansas City, from his debut on August 2, 1973, through his final game in 1993, and the Royals never had a player who meant more to the franchise. The BBWAA elected him to the Hall of Fame in 1999 with 98.2 percent of the vote, the fourth-highest percentage in history at the time.

Glen Dale to El Segundo

Brett was born on May 15, 1953, in Glen Dale, West Virginia, the youngest of four brothers. His father Jack grew up in Brooklyn, enlisted in the Army during World War II, was shot in the leg in France, and became an accountant for Mattel Toys in California. The family moved to El Segundo, outside Los Angeles, when George was two. All four Brett brothers played professional baseball. Ken pitched 14 seasons in the majors with ten teams and appeared in the 1967 World Series at 19. John reached Class A ball. Bobby played one minor league season and later co-owned minor league clubs with George.

Brett arrived at El Segundo High School standing five foot one and weighing 105 pounds. He broke his wrist as a freshman and sat out the season. He grew six inches and added 50 pounds over the next three years, and by his senior year in 1971 he was a left-handed hitter with a quick bat and a reputation for delivering in pressure situations that his teammates captured with the nickname "Mr. Drama." El Segundo went 33-2 that year and won the CIF championship. Six players from that team were drafted. Brett went to the Royals in the second round, the 29th pick overall. No college offered him a scholarship.

Kansas City

Brett spent two and a half years in the minors before making his debut at Comiskey Park on August 2, 1973. He went 1-for-4 with a broken-bat single. He batted .125 in 13 games that first September and returned to the minors. In 1974 the Royals traded third baseman Paul Schaal and gave Brett the job. Hitting coach Charley Lau rebuilt Brett's swing that summer, teaching him to extend through the ball and drive it to all fields. Brett finished at .282, and the adjustment became the foundation for everything that followed.

Brett broke through in 1975, batting .308, leading the league with 195 hits and 13 triples, and making the first of 13 consecutive All-Star teams. Whitey Herzog replaced Jack McKeon as manager midseason and brought Lau back to the coaching staff. In 1976 Brett won his first batting title at .333, finished second to Thurman Munson in MVP voting, and helped the Royals reach the ALCS for the first time, where they lost to the Yankees in five games. Brett hit a three-run homer in Game 5, but Chris Chambliss ended the series with a walk-off homer in the ninth.

The rivalry with the Yankees defined Brett's late twenties. The two teams met in the ALCS three consecutive years, from 1976 through 1978, and Brett was at the center of all of it. In Game 5 of the 1977 ALCS, he hit an RBI triple off Ron Guidry and was kicked in the face by Graig Nettles during the slide, which triggered a bench-clearing brawl. In Game 3 of the 1978 ALCS, he hit three home runs off Catfish Hunter, becoming only the third player to hit three in a postseason game, after Babe Ruth in the 1926 and 1928 World Series and Bob Robertson in the 1971 NLCS. Kansas City lost all three series to New York. In 1979 Brett broke his right thumb in an offseason charity basketball game but came back to lead the league with 212 hits and 20 triples, bat .329, and produce a season with 42 doubles, 20 triples, and 23 home runs. He finished third in MVP voting, but the Royals missed the playoffs for the first time in four years.

The .390 Season

In 1980 Brett put together a season that made people talk about .400 for the first time in 39 years. He tore a ligament in his right foot in June and missed time, but when he returned he went on a 30-game hitting streak from July 18 through August 19. On August 17 he went 4-for-4 against the Toronto Blue Jays with a bases-clearing double in the eighth inning that pushed his average to .401. He was still above .400 on August 26 after going 5-for-5. A difficult September, where he missed ten days and hit .290 for the month, brought him back to earth, but he finished at .390 with 24 home runs and 118 RBI in only 117 games. He struck out just 22 times in 515 plate appearances. He led the league in on-base percentage (.454) and slugging (.664) and won the AL MVP award.

Brett carried the .390 season into October. In the ALCS against the Yankees, the team that eliminated the Royals three years running, Brett hit a three-run homer off Goose Gossage in the seventh inning of Game 3 to put Kansas City ahead 4-2, and the Royals swept New York in three games to reach the World Series for the first time in franchise history. Brett hit .375 in the Series against the Philadelphia Phillies, including a home run in Game 3 that he hit just hours after hemorrhoid surgery at St. Luke's Hospital. "My problems are all behind me," he told reporters afterward. The Royals lost in six games, but Brett proved himself the best hitter in the American League.

The Pine Tar Game

On July 24, 1983, at Yankee Stadium, Brett came to the plate in the top of the ninth inning with two outs and a runner on first, the Royals trailing 4-3. He hit a two-run home run off Gossage that put Kansas City ahead 5-4. Yankees manager Billy Martin immediately came to the plate and asked home plate umpire Tim McClelland to examine Brett's bat. Rule 1.10(c) required that pine tar extend no more than 18 inches from the knob of the bat. McClelland laid the bat across home plate, which measures 17 inches across, and determined that the pine tar reached approximately 24 inches. He called Brett out and nullified the home run.

Brett erupted from the dugout and charged McClelland with a fury that became one of the most replayed scenes in baseball history. Teammates and umpires restrained him. Royals manager Dick Howser protested the game. Four days later, AL President Lee MacPhail upheld the protest, ruling that the bat should have been removed from the game but the home run should stand because the pine tar had no effect on the flight of the ball. The game resumed on August 18 at Yankee Stadium, and the Royals held on to win 5-4.

1985

Two years after the pine tar game, Brett delivered his finest postseason. He batted .335 with 30 home runs and 112 RBI during the regular season and won his only Gold Glove at third base. In the ALCS against the Toronto Blue Jays, with the Royals down two games to none, Brett went 4-for-4 with two home runs in Game 3 to keep Kansas City alive. Toronto won Game 4 to take a 3-1 series lead, but the Royals won the final three games, and Brett earned the ALCS MVP award. In the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, Brett batted .370 with a four-hit performance in Game 7 as the Royals won their first championship, rallying from another 3-1 series deficit. It was the crowning achievement of his career.

The Third Batting Title

Brett moved to first base in 1988 and kept producing, batting .306 with 24 home runs and 103 RBI in 157 games. He slowed in 1989, and by early 1990 he considered retirement. Instead he stayed, and by late July his bat came back. He hit .386 after the All-Star break, caught Rickey Henderson for the league lead, and finished at .329 to win his third batting title at 37, making him the only player in major league history to win batting titles in three different decades. He reached 3,000 career hits on September 30, 1992, with a single against the California Angels, though the moment was undercut slightly when he was picked off first base by Gary Gaetti immediately afterward. He played his final season in 1993, mostly as a designated hitter, and singled up the middle off Tom Henke of the Texas Rangers in his last at-bat.

Brett finished with 3,154 hits, 317 home runs, 665 doubles, 137 triples, a .305 batting average, and a .487 slugging percentage across 2,707 games, all of them in a Kansas City uniform. He was one of only four players in history with 3,000 hits, 300 home runs, and a career average above .300, alongside Stan Musial, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron. The Royals retired his number 5 on May 14, 1994.

After retiring, Brett served as a vice president of baseball operations for the Royals and worked as a minor league instructor and interim hitting coach. He co-owned minor league teams with his brother Bobby, including the Tri-City Dust Devils and the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, and ran a baseball equipment company with Bobby and Ken. Ken Brett, who pitched alongside George briefly when the Royals signed him in August 1980, died in 2003.

Brett preferred pine tar over batting gloves, chewing tobacco over the weight room, and cold beer after games over carefully managed nutrition plans. He played the game with a plainness that matched the city he represented, and he never left. In a sport where free agency scattered careers across half a dozen rosters, Brett wore one uniform for 21 years and became the franchise. The Royals voted him their greatest player in a 2006 fan poll that drew more than 400,000 votes. He still lives in the Kansas City area.