KC Royals: Five Most Influential Players In Franchise History

The KC Royals have had many great players in their 48 years of existence. Which five players have had the greatest impact on franchise history?

In this article, I’m not concerned with who are the greatest players in Kansas City Royals history. Instead, I’m looking for five guys that impacted not only their teammates, but the entire history of the franchise. What I’m interested in is both what players made the KC Royals who they are today, but also players who impacted the sport of baseball.

In short, who are the five players that you can’t really tell the history of the Kansas City Royals without including their story?

Before we begin, I’d like to give a shout out to my Twitter follower Krystal @kryslynmo who is both a big KC Royals fan and also gave me the idea for this piece by asking readers of her Twitter feed to name the five most influential players in baseball history.

I’d also like to issue some apologies to some great players who did NOT make my list.

 Who are the five players that you can’t really tell the history of the Kansas City Royals without including their story?

Probably the most painful oversight was Frank White. He defined defense for the Golden Era Royals from the team’s first division winner in 1976 through their World Series title in 1985. In that span, White collected seven gold gloves (with an eighth coming in 1987) and progressing from a no.9 hitter to becoming the first second baseman to hit cleanup in the World Series in 1985.

Frank White is one of three members of the Kansas City Royals fraternity to have his number (20) retired by the club, along with team icon George Brett and former manager Dick Hoswer.

Other KC Royals greats who didn’t make the cut include two-time Cy Young winner and 1985 World Series MVP Bret Saberhagen, submarine-style closer Dan Quisenberry, a pair of players with marginal Hall-of-Fame cases in Carlos Beltran and Johnny Damon, and the most unheralded great starting pitcher in club history: Kevin Appier.

I also excluded current players like Eric Hosmer and Wade Davis, because the long-term impact of their contributions is hard to measure at this time. All of the above players enjoyed great Kansas City Royals careers, but did not affect the franchise like the five players that follow:

Next: The Mid-Season Pickup That Changed Royals History

4.) BO JACKSON

Bo Jackson might not have been a great player in major-league baseball, but he certainly was remarkable.

For fans of a certain age, Bo Jackson is a legend they will never forget. Thirty years ago, Bo Jackson won the Heisman Trophy as a running back at Auburn. However, Jackson refused to join the Tampa Bay Buccaneers despite getting taken no. 1 overall in the NFL draft, due to a dispute with owner Hugh Culverhouse. Instead, Jackson called the defending World Champion Kansas City Royals and told them he wanted to play baseball.

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• KC Royals: The Top 5 Kansas City speedsters, Part 2
• KC Royals: Top 5 Kansas City speedsters, Part 1
• KC Royals: Ranking the club’s 4 Rookies of the Year
• KC Royals: Dayton Moore’s top first round draft picks

Though Bo Jackson was an outstanding college baseball player at Auburn with unprecedented raw tools, no one had believed he would choose baseball over football. At 6’1″ 220 pounds, Bo Jackson possessed the power of a football player combined with the speed of a sprinter. Add in a cannon arm, and Bo Jackson was an athletic phenom that hasn’t been seen on a baseball diamond before or since.

Really.

He had tools like you wouldn’t believe.

Just take a look at this video:

Unfortunately, Bo Jackson had never focused on his baseball skills and thus had a lot to learn when he joined the Kansas City Royals after the team drafted him in the fifth round of the 1986 June draft. Still, The Bo Show ran from 1986 through 1990 in Kansas City, and starting in 1987, in Oakland after Jackson decided to play in the NFL as an offseason “hobby” when his baseball season ended in Kansas City.

Bo Jackson was an athletic phenom that hasn’t been seen on a baseball diamond before or since

Among his many firsts, Bo Jackson became the first player to ever earn an All-Star nod in baseball and make the Pro-Bowl in the NFL in the same season.

However, despite Bo Jackson’s undoubted greatness, the KC Royals never made the playoffs during his time with the club. Even so, Jackson’s impact on the sports world is still felt today. Along with NBA star Michael Jordan, Bo Jackson became the model for athletes marketing sports apparel. Nike built a media phenomenon around Bo Jackson’s multi-sport abilities by launching the “Bo Knows” campaign:

Bo Jackson and Michael Jordan showed Madison Avenue that sports figures had as much media power as movie stars and TV heroes in the era of ESPN’s 24-hour sports coverage.

Next: The Pitcher That Woke Up A Down-And-Out Franchise

3.) JAMES SHIELDS

When Dayton Moore accepted the general manager job with the Kansas City Royals in 2006, the franchise hadn’t made the playoffs in 21 years. The KC Royals were so bad, many baseball men advised Moore not to take the job for fear that the “impossible” task of turning around a hopeless franchise would destroy a promising career.

However, Dayton Moore grew up a Kansas City Royals fan and believed he could turn his childhood team around. He set out to rebuild the KC Royals organization from the ground up, beginning with the farm system.

Betsided

By 2011, Moore’s reconstruction project had begun to bear fruit. Baseball America rated nine KC Royals farmhands among the top 100 prospects in baseball, more than any team in history. Baseball America believed the Royals had built a historically great farm system and were ready to achieve great things on the field.

However, the Kansas City Royals lost 91 games in 2011, and 90 games in 2012. Moore had brought up a horde of talented young players, but the team failed to gel. He decided they needed a clubhouse leader that could teach the team how to win. Moore got that leader by trading for Tampa Bay starting pitcher James Shields in the winter before the 2013 season.

Moore surrendered four good young players to land Shields (and Wade Davis) from the Tampa Bay Rays. Baseball analysts across America blasted Moore for giving up Wil Myers, Jake Odorizzi, Mike Montgomery, and Patrick Leonard in the deal, saying he gave up too much. They also questioned obtaining a veteran pitcher with only two years remaining on his contract, because they doubted the KC Royals had enough talent to win.

They were wrong.

James Shields immediately became the clubhouse leader. He led post game celebrations after wins to keep things loose. He taught young pitcher Danny Duffy to harness his energy, and desire to win, into success on the mound.

James Shields legacy lived on in Kansas City Royals squad who broke a 30-year championship drought to win the 2015 title

But, more importantly, James Shields had headlined a Tampa rotation that had won multiple post-season series in the recent past. When he told the young Kansas City Royals that they had the talent to win, they believed him.

He also helped build a Tampa-Bay like team chemistry in the KC Royals clubhouse. It worked well enough that the team won 86 games in 2013, and then earned a wild card bid in 2014. That team had enough self-confidence to become the first playoff team to rally from a four-run. eighth inning deficit in an elimination game and win. The emotional victory over Oakland propelled the Kansas City Royals to sweep both the Angels and Orioles before falling to the Giants in the 2014 World Series.

Yes, James Shields left after the 2014 season when Dayton Moore chose not to match a $75 million offer from the Padres. But, Shields’ legacy lives on in Kansas City Royals squad who broke a 30-year championship drought to win the 2015 title.

Next: He Taught The Royals To Play Like The Big Red Machine

2.) HAL McRAE

When then Kansas City Royals general manager Cedric Tallis traded outfielder Richie Scheinblum and pitcher Roger Nelson for 27-year-old outfielder Hal McRae and pitcher Wayne Simpson in 1973, he was in a position much like his distant successor Dayton Moore was in 40 years later. 

More from KC Royals All-Time Lists

• KC Royals: Some interesting uniform number facts
• KC Royals: The Top 5 Kansas City speedsters, Part 2
• KC Royals: Top 5 Kansas City speedsters, Part 1
• KC Royals: Ranking the club’s 4 Rookies of the Year
• KC Royals: Dayton Moore’s top first round draft picks

Tallis had built a franchise from scratch in 1969, and needed a leader to show a talented young team how to win. Hal McRae, who had grown up in a Cincinnati system that would soon produce a dynasty remembered as “The Big Red Machine” today, was that guy.

McRae bought a hard-nosed National League brand of baseball to Kansas City, which was the perfect fit for the massive outfield expanse and fast artificial turf of what was then called Royals Stadium. He taught the young KC Royals to go from first to third, to slide hard into middle infielders to break up double plays, and how to scratch for every little advantage available.

Hal McRae had learned this brand of baseball from Cincinnati legend Pete Rose, along with future Hall-of-Famers Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, Tony Perez, and manager Sparky Anderson. In many ways, the Kansas City Royals became a National League team that played in the American League.

McRae was so aggressive on the basepaths, that MLB created the McRae rule prohibiting base-runners from crashing into infielders far away from the bag after McRae demolished Yankee second baseman Willie Randolf in the 1977 playoffs:

Along with teaching the young KC Royals how to win, McRae also became the early prototype for the new designated hitter rule that the American League adopted in 1973. Though surpassed by later designated hitters like Seattle’s Edgar Martinez and Chicago’s Frank Thomas, McRae showed the value that a poor defender with a good bat could bring to the DH role.

But, Hal McRae’s true legacy is he created a Kansas City Royals style of baseball that influenced a teenage Dayton Moore, who grew up a fan of that team. Much of the way the current KC Royals plays today can be traced to the franchise model that Hal McRae established in the mid-70’s.

Next: The Franchise Icon

1.) GEORGE BRETT

Really, who else could be no. 1 on this list?

There’s a good reason why Brett’s statue stands in front of Kauffman Stadium. George Brett is the model for Kansas City Royals baseball, like Babe Ruth is for the New Yankees, and Stan Musial is for the Saint Louis Cardinals.

Perhaps Alex Gordon, or Eric Hosmer (if he returns to Kansas City after hitting free-agency in 2018) can claim a spot next to Brett in the KC Royals pantheon, but they’ll never be able to displace him. George Brett was the first home-grown Kansas City Royal to earn induction into the Hall-of-Fame. Anyone else to earn the honor will follow the trail he blazed.

George Brett was a 21-year-old rookie when he got a September call-up in 1973. Yes, Hal McRae was beginning to teach the KC Royals to play Big Red Machine baseball. But, George Brett was the sponge.

Not only did he learn winning baseball from Hal McRae, Brett became hitting coach Charlie Lau‘s prize pupil. After a rough rookie season in 1974, Brett gave himself over to Charlie Lau’s hitting philosophy and became a baseball superstar.

Brett became the model for an entire style of hitting that spread across baseball in the 70’s. Even today, many hitting coaches use elements of the Charlie Lau hitting school to instruct players.

Hal McRae and Charlie Lau might have been the mentors, but George Brett became the engine that drove the Kansas City Royals to win six American League West titles, two AL pennants, and one World Series from 1976-85. He defined the Golden Era of Kansas City baseball, and was the leader of what was then considered the model franchise for expansion teams to follow.

Brett seized the spotlight at age 23 by winning his first of three batting titles in 1976, then following it with a clutch three-run home run in deciding Game 5 of that season’s ALCS. Brett’s eighth-inning home run terrified a star-studded Yankee team by knotting the score at 6-6, before Chris Chambliss blasted a walk-off dinger to win the AL pennant.

Brett followed that debut on the national stage with more clutch playoff heroics than any player of his generation. George Brett was an October menace, hitting .337/.397/.627 in nine playoff series in his career. Remember, this was in an era before wild cards or divisional series. Back then, the two division winners in each league met in a championship series (that was only best five games) to earn a trip to the World Series.

In George Brett’s day, nine playoff series was a lot.

George Brett’s career is really a book-length story. I’m just hitting a few highlights. You can read more about his five greatest moments in a KC Royals uniform here. There’s also an ocean more material available on the web.

But, in the end, it’s that statue in front of Kauffman Stadium that shows what George Brett meant to the Kansas City Royals franchise.

Next: Conclusion

CONCLUSION:

The 2016 Kansas City Royals are the heirs to a great legacy created by their predecessors. Yes, the franchise suffered through a dark age of almost 30 years before finding their way back to baseball relevance. But, to put the current achievements in perspective, the KC Royals have won more playoff games in the last two years than the Chicago Cubs have in the last 100.

That’s crazy.

And, even during what seemed like lost years, general manager Dayton Moore remembered enough about the Golden Era teams to create a similar style today. Moore earned his front office stripes in the Atlanta Braves executive suite under John Schuerholz, who learned his trade under Cedric Tallis and Joe Burke in Kansas City.

I expect that Dayton Moore’s current KC Royals team will also leave a long legacy. The tremendous situational baseball that has allowed the 2015 Kansas City Royals to pull off more late-inning playoff comebacks than any team in history will get passed down by players on the current team who choose to become coaches and mentors to the next generation of players.

Next: Kansas City Royal All-Time Roster

Stick around, KC Royals fans. You’ll be telling your grandchildren about these days.