KC Royals Rewind: The final games of George Brett

The KC Royals were lucky to have George Brett for 21 seasons. What were the final few games of his career like?

George Brett’s timing, an essential element of his superb ability to hit a baseball, was, as usual, at best perfect and at worst very good when, on Sept. 25, 1993, he announced his retirement from the KC Royals.

You could see it coming, this bittersweet end to Brett’s marvelous 21-season career, one spent entirely with his Royals. No player was more responsible than Brett for the baseball renaissance the franchise worked in the city Charlie Finley abandoned because he believed it couldn’t support the game.

Yes, you really could tell it was time. Brett, a career .305 hitter who thrilled baseball with his pursuit of .400 in 1980, hit over .300 11 times and won batting titles in three different decades, had, in 1993, exceeded .300 only twice since his .335 paced the club to its first World Series title in 1985. He hadn’t hit 20 home runs since ’88. He no longer played third base, having moved primarily to first in 1987 to ease the strain of the hot corner, then to DH in ’91. And he was 40.

But realizing it was time for him to close out his career doesn’t mean Brett waited too long. He didn’t. He could still hit, still produce. Although he’d hit only .255, the lowest full-season average of his career, two seasons before, he’d sandwiched that conspicuously un-Brett-like campaign between a league-leading .325 in 1990 and .285 in ’92.

But you knew Brett wouldn’t hold on too long or allow himself to deteriorate into a dispiriting shell of himself. Retirement would come on his terms, timed his way.

So it was that on Sept. 25, he announced at Kauffman Stadium that the time had come. He would step away from the game after the Oct. 3 season finale at Texas.

Here are his last few games.

On the day George Brett announced his retirement, he and his KC Royals lost to California. Brett made sure they wouldn’t lose the next night.

In a way, it wasn’t surprising the KC Royals lost the day George Brett told the baseball world he was done. Brett didn’t play the night before, but he was back in the lineup the night of the announcement.

The Royals lost to California 6-2 in front of almost 25,000 fans; presumably, most of them got their last glimpse of Brett that evening. For those who didn’t leave early to beat the traffic—the Royals trailed 6-1 going into the bottom of the ninth—Brett didn’t disappoint. He accounted for half of KC’s runs with a two-out RBI single before Mike Macfarlane struck out to end the game.

Brett finished the night 1-for-5 with his average at a respectable .270 with seven games to go. The loss left the club, already eliminated from the playoffs a few games before, 10 games behind Chicago in the AL West; the headlines the rest of the way would belong to Brett.

So would the next game.

Brett, even at 40, wasn’t so old that he needed to take the following game, an early afternoon affair following a night contest, off. The designated hitter, he hit third; Gary Gaetti was at third base, Brett’s position for so many years until a move to first and then DH became the cost of years playing the hot corner on artificial grass. John Farrell, who later managed the Blue Jays and Red Sox and whose son Luke pitched briefly for the Royals, started on the mound for the Angels.

Brett quickly pleased the fans by doubling home Felix Jose in the bottom of the first to give KC a 1-0 lead. Then, with the Royals down 3-2 with one out in the fourth, Brett belted a 1-0 pitch from Farrell for a three-run homer; the blast gave Kansas City a 5-3 lead and knocked Farrell out of the game.

But California roughed up Chris Haney, John Habyan and Stan Belinda for five combined runs over the next two innings and the Royals entered the bottom of the ninth three runs down. Batting second in the inning meant Brett couldn’t win or even tie the game, but he reached base when Steve Frey plunked him with a 1-0 pitch. Brett then scored on a bases-loaded walk to Greg Gagne and Mike Macfarlane’s two-run single sent the game to extra innings.

Late September Sunday afternoons and baseball are not a perfect match, especially for teams and fans with no postseason to look forward to—the weekend is winding down, vacation is in the past, kids have school the next day and players, weary from a long season without reward, are ready for a winter off. But for the fans who paid to see his last Sunday home game, Brett made the day worth it.

The Angels didn’t score in their half of the 10th, giving the Royals the chance to end it in theirs. California reliever Paul Swingle got Brian McRae on an 0-2 swinging strike and Keith Miller on a 1-2 fly. He then threw a first-pitch ball to Brett, the last pitch of the day to find catcher Greg Myers‘ mitt. Brett, the master of Royal heroics, launched Swingle’s next offering out of the park to walk the Angels off 9-8.

It seemed only fitting that the homer was the last of Brett’s career, a stunning cap to the weekend he announced his retirement.

He had six games left.

Always a man for the moment, George Brett came through in his last game for the KC Royals.

Oct. 3, 1993 wasn’t the last October day the KC Royals wanted to play. A season-ending so early in the month is one without playoffs—a completed, yet incomplete, campaign. Such was the case that day for the Royals, a third-place team with nowhere to go after the game but home.

But the otherwise irrelevant contest between KC and Texas—the Rangers’ season was also ending—had purpose beyond the fact it was the final game to be played at Arlington Stadium before the Rangers headed for new digs, and the ballpark the wrecking ball, the next season.

It was George Brett’s last game, the 2,707th of a 21-season career that began Aug. 2, 1973 when he played third base and singled off Stan Bahnsen for the first of his 3,154 hits. His first double came later that season—he’d finish his career with 665—but the first of his 137 triples, 317 homers and 1,596 RBIs wouldn’t come until 1974.

Manager Hal McRae, Brett’s former teammate turned Royals coach then skipper, penciled DH Brett into the third spot in the day’s lineup. Had fate controlled, Brett would have faced Nolan Ryan, a future Hall of Famer ending his career the same day, but Ryan pitched his last game several days before and would watch the game from the Texas dugout.

Instead of Ryan, Steve Dreyer drew Brett’s final game. He retired Brett on an 0-1 liner to left-center to end the first inning, then got him on a 1-1 fly to left in the fourth. Brett went after Dreyer’s first pitch to lead off the seventh but grounded out to second. It was the last Brett would see of Dreyer, who left after the eighth with his team down 2-1.

Wanting to keep the game as close as it was, Texas manager Kevin Kennedy replaced Dreyer with closer Tom Henke to face Brett to start the ninth.

The noise started from the 41,039-member Texas crowd with Brett still in the on-deck circle and grew louder as he walked to the plate. Ranger fans—and the Rangers—stood and gave Brett a long send-off ovation; catcher Ivan Rodriguez, who later joined Brett and Ryan in the Hall of Fame, gave Brett a quick hug as he approached the box.

Brett previously told writers in Texas how he wanted his career to end. He wanted to hit a grounder to second and see if he could beat the throw…to have a runner on second and move him over, with the next batter hitting a run-scoring sacrifice fly to win the game.

But it didn’t work out that way. Instead, the final at-bat of George Brett’s career ended the way others wanted it to—he coaxed a ground ball up the middle, by shortstop Manuel Lee and second baseman Doug Strange, for one last hit.

He then scored his 1,583rd and final run on Gary Gaetti’s homer and the KC Royals won 4-1.

With the end of the season and his career, Brett became the Royals’ Vice President for Baseball Operations, a position he holds to this day. He served a short stint as interim hitting coach in 2013 and still works with players in spring training and before home games.

He’s unchallenged as the greatest of all Royals, a status well-earned, well-deserved and unlikely to ever be lost.

Almost 27 years have passed since George Brett played his last few games for the KC Royals. He left us with fond memories of how he played those final contests.