KC Royals: Anniversary of George Brett’s 3rd batting title

Winning multiple batting titles is not an easy feat to accomplish.  This KC Royals Hall of Famer did it in three different decades.

In October of 1990, I was in my first month of high school, songs by Nelson, Phil Collins and Bell Biv DeVoe were at the top of the charts. Ghost, Goodfellas, and Marked for Death were box office hits.  On the 3rd day of that month, George Brett was wrapping up his third and final batting title for the KC Royals.  The 2020 season is the 30th anniversary of this historic accomplishment.

Several players have won more titles overall than Brett including those you would expect like Tony Gwynn, Ty Cobb, Rod Carew, and Ted Williams.  But he did join a club with only two other players who won three or more batting championships without doing it consecutively.

A list of all-time Royals batting leaders is dominated by Brett as he put in 21 seasons with the Kansas City franchise.  Some of those include games played, doubles, triples, home runs, base on balls and for us Sabermetric nerds, offensive wins above replacement (WAR), and win probability added (WPA).

Much had changed for the Royals from 1976 to 1990.  In the late ’70s through the mid-80s Kansas City was a consistent winner and earned multiple trips to the playoffs including trips to the World Series in 1980 and 1985, winning the latter.  Sadly the team had finished 19 1/2 and seven games behind the division leader the previous two years and would fall a depressing 27 1/2 behind first in ’90.  But one consistent was that Brett was always in the lineup creating havoc with his bat.

We will take a look at all three seasons in which Brett led the American League in hitting as we celebrate the 30th anniversary of his last one.

The first of his hitting titles came in the same year the KC Royals first made the playoffs.  There is little coincidence in this fact.

After being awarded an expansion franchise in 1969, the Royals quickly became competitive finishing second in their division in 1971, 1973 and 1975.  The following year, America’s bicentennial celebration also ushered in the dominance of the Kansas City franchise.

By this point, Brett was already showing flashes of greatness to come.  He was third in Rookie of the Year voting in 1974 and led the league in hits and the majors in triples in 1975.  He would explode the next year batting .333, collect more total bases (298) than any other American Leaguer and led the majors in hits (215) and triples again (14).  A runner-up finish to the Most Valuable Player, Thurmon Munson, capped the season off.

The team battled the New York Yankees, in what would become an epic rivalry, to a fifth and deciding game in the American League Championship Series.  The Royals fought back to tie the game with three runs in the top of the eighth thanks to a blast by Brett. The Yankees would walk off in the ninth, however, sending the Royals home.

As if all these statistics were not impressive, a picture taken by a National Geographic photographer of #5 during the season eventually led to the song “Royals” by Lorde.  Hard to choose between the terrific season and this nugget as your favorite 1976 Brett memory right?

While leading the majors in hits and triples in 1979 did not secure a batting title for Brett, it was good enough for a third-place MVP finish and set the stage for his historic chase the next year that also propelled the Royals to their first World Series appearance.

An ankle injury almost cost the KC Royals third baseman a shot at history.

In order to keep integrity in calculating percentage statistics like batting average and earned run average (ERA), baseball rules set a minimum number of plate appearances (PA) or innings pitched (IP) to determine the best in the league.  Officially rule 10.22(a) specifies a player in order to qualify, must register at least 3.1 times at the dish per game during each of a team’s regular seasons games. For a typical 162 game year, that equates to 502 plate appearances.

During the summer, Brett missed 35 games with an ankle injury.  He finished with 515 plate appearances, just barely surpassing the limit. What a magical ride it was though.  As late as May 21st he was only hitting .247.  He then went on a 35-for-73 tear (.479) that pushed him to .337 before the injury derailed him.

He picked up were in left off when he returned, batting a crazy .494 in July and .430 in August.  The pinnacle was August 27th where Brett’s average stood at .407 after a game in Milwaukee.  As the calendar turned September a “slump” began and his average would last see the .400 mark on September 19th.

When the regular season ended Brett led the majors in average (.390), OBP (.454), SLG (.664), OPS (1.118) and OPS+ (203).  Not surprisingly he captured his only MVP award and first Silver Slugger.

More importantly, the Royals finally beat the Yankees in the postseason to advance to the World Series against the Philadelphia Phillies.  They swept New York and who else would lead the way but Brett.

While the Phillies bested the Royals, Brett was still in top form hitting .375 with a home run and 3 runs batted in along with two doubles and a triple in the World Series.

The last batting title was one I followed as a teenager who had grown to love the Royals and, of course, #5 was my favorite player.  It was fun to see the aging veteran with bad legs still take us on one more exciting ride.