Kansas City Royals History: 1985 Team Completes ALCS Comeback

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KANSAS CITY, MO – OCTOBER 22: Hall of Famer George Brett throws out the ceremonial first pitch for Game Two of the 2014 World Series between the Kansas City Royals and the San Francisco Giants at Kauffman Stadium on October 22, 2014 in Kansas City, Missouri. (Photo by Ed Zurga/Getty Images) /

On this date in 1985, the Kansas City Royals completed a comeback from down three games to one to win the ALCS. The Game 7 victory over Toronto sent the franchise to its second World Series.

(Editor’s note: This is one of several on-this-date posts that KoK will publish throughout the 2017 postseason. They will highlight the postseason success of the Kansas City Royals over the years with particular emphasis given to 2014 and 2015—given the strong ties to the current squad.)

In hindsight, it’s fair to question whether Toronto got the memo. It sure seemed the Blue Jays thought they were headed to the World Series with their Game 4 win over the Kansas City Royals in the 1985 American League Championship Series.

In every previous edition of the ALCS, they would have been off to the Fall Classic. From 1969 to 1984, the ALCS (and NLCS) was a best-of-five series. Starting in 1985, it became the same as the World Series—a best-of-seven format.

The change couldn’t have come at a better time for the Kansas City Royals—a considerable underdog to a team that won 99 games in the regular season (eight more than the Royals). The switch seems to have worked well for the franchise. Prior to the change, Kansas City won just one out of five ALCS in which it featured. Since the extended format came to fruition, the franchise is 3-0.

Two of those victories (1985 and 2015) have come at the expense of the Blue Jays. We’ll focus on the first meeting now, as Monday marks the 32nd anniversary of the Kansas City Royals completing their historic comeback with a Game 7 victory up north. But don’t worry, we’ll have plenty on the 2015 series, too, which ironically opened with Game 1 exactly two years ago.

KANSAS CITY, MO – OCTOBER 14: Former Kansas City Royals player George Brett talks to Alex Gordon /

Series Recap

With a series this crazy, it’s best to explain how this matchup reached the point of needing a winner-take-all Game 7. As you know already, Toronto jumped out to an early lead. The Blue Jays scored six runs within the first four innings of Game 1 to cruise to a 6-1 win.

In Game 2, the Kansas City Royals let a 3-0 lead slip away to the point where they needed a run in the ninth inning off a solo homer from Pat Sheridan to send the game to extra innings. The road team then took the lead in the top of the 10th when Willie Wilson scored on Frank White‘s single. However, Toronto scored twice in the bottom half to take a healthy two-games-to-none lead to Kansas City.

The Royals got back into the series with a massive 6-5 victory in Game 3. Trailing 2-0, the Blue Jays scored all five of their runs in the top of the fifth inning. A solo homer from Jim Sundberg and George Brett‘s second blast of the night—a two-run shot—tied the score after six innings. In the eighth inning, Brett also scored the go-ahead run on a bloop single by Steve Balboni.

Toronto moved to the verge of winning the series with a ninth-inning rally to win Game 4 by a 3-1 score. That’s when the wheels came off for the Blue Jays. The Kansas City Royals completed the shutout they almost had in Game 4 in a 2-0 Game 5 win.

The series returned to Ontario with the Blue Jays still needing just one win to reach their first World Series. An even Game 6 fell the visitors way by a 5-3 score, as Brett hit his third home run of the series that gave the Royals the lead for good.

It also helped him win ALCS MVP honors.

KANSAS CITY, MO – SEPTEMBER 01: The Kansas City Royals Franchise Four, Janie Quisenberry (widow of Dan Quisenberry), Frank White, Bret Saberhagen, and George Brett, are honored prior to the game against the Detroit Tigers at Kauffman Stadium on September 1, 2015 in Kansas City, Missouri. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images) /

Game 7

Entering the high-stakes finale, the Kansas City Royals clearly had the momentum. Toronto clearly, though, had home-field advantage—although road teams had already won twice in six games. Either way, the winner-take-all scenario after six hard-fought games proved the new format worked.

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The AL’s Cy Young award winner in 1985, Bret Saberhagen started on the mound for the Kansas City Royals. However, he lasted just three innings—albeit scoreless ones—before making way for Charlie Leibrandt, who had suffered two defeats already in the series. On the other side, Toronto started Dave Stieb, who had won his two previous starts in the series.

It didn’t seem to faze the Royals, though. Sheridan scored single runs in the second and fourth innings—the latter being a solo home run—for a 2-0 lead. Meanwhile, a Toronto offense that hadn’t scored more than three runs in a single game since Game 4 continued to struggle. The Blue Jays finally got on the board in the fifth inning, as they cut the deficit in half.

But the Royals came right back and jumped on Stieb in the sixth inning. Sundberg drove in his second, third and fourth runs of the day on a bases-clearing triple that hit literally the top of the wall and bounced back into play. He came in to score on White’s single for a commanding 6-1 lead.

Leibrandt kept things that way until Dan Quisenberry replaced him with two on and one out in the ninth inning. An RBI-groundout cut the deficit to 6-2, but Quisenberry forced another groundout to finish things off and complete the miraculous comeback.

The victory sent the Kansas City Royals to their second World Series—the other coming in 1980. It also famously set up an all-Missouri World Series. The St. Louis Cardinals had clinched the NL pennant earlier that same day with a win over the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 6.

Next: Best Outfielders in Franchise History

The highly anticipated World Series started on Oct. 19, but we’ll have more on that soon enough.

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