The KC Royals and Home Run Derby through the years

Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game, which pits stellar players from the American and National Leagues against each other, has been an annual tradition since 1933. In addition to the All-Star match, there are other festivities fans are always eager to watch, including the Home Run Derby, which began in 1985. The Derby features prolific power hitters in the game competing with one another, and though the KC Royals aren’t known to be a power-hitting team, Salvador Perez will participate in this year’s event.

Perez will also be the AL’s starting catcher July 13 after locking up the role by beating out Martin Maldonado and Yasmani Grandal with 62% of the final vote. 

Perez is definitely deserving of his seventh All-Star selection and first spot in the Derby, slashing .284/.311/.521 with a .832 OPS so far this season. He has 49 RBIS and has smashed 20 home runs to earn his Derby nod.

Perez’s Derby selection makes him the fourth KC Royal in history to participate. But what of the other three Royals who made it into the Derby? How did they fare in the competition? Let’s go through the years and the numbers and see how they performed.

Bo Jackson was the KC Royals’ first participant in 1989, then won the ASG MVP.

Bo Jackson was an absolute phenom who hit for major power in the few years he played in the major leagues. During his four-year stint with the KC Royals, Jackson smashed 109 homers with 313 RBIs. He had 141 total home runs in his career.

Jackson was chosen to participate in the fourth annual Home Run Derby in 1989, having hit 21 home runs by the All-Star Break. He finished the 1989 season knocking 32 total homers for Kansas City.

But Jackson only managed to hit one homer in the Derby. The reason? From 1985-1990, the Home Run Derby allowed each player to have two chances to bat with five outs per chance, with balls not hit for home runs deemed outs.

There is little doubt that, if able to hit in today’s bracket-style format, Jackson might have been able to muster up more than one home run. But that didn’t matter—during the All-Star Game, Jackson led off with a 450-foot homer, which helped him win the contest’s Most Valuable Player award for leading the AL to a 5-3 victory over the NL.

Danny Tartabull, the 1991 Derby participant who peaked with the KC Royals.

Danny Tartabull originally started out as a shortstop with the Seattle Mariners before being traded to Kansas City in exchange for Scott Bankhead, Mike Kingery, and Steve Shields prior to the 1987 season. During his years as a Royal from 1987-1991, Tartabull—nicknamed “The Bull”—proved to be a great power hitter like Bo Jackson.

Tartabull homered 124 times for the Royals. He hit over 30 home runs in three of his five seasons with the ball club, his best year being his first with Kansas City in 1987 when he cracked 34.

As a right fielder and DH, Tartabull slashed .290/.376/.518 with a .894 OPS. During his 1991 All-Star season, Tartabull slugged 31 homers and slashed .316/.397/.593 with an OPS of .990. His .593 slugging percentage led the majors, topping Cal Ripken Jr.’s .566 mark that same year.

Needless to say, ’91 was when Tartabull hit his peak before falling off and hitting .252 after leaving Kansas City as a free agent after the season.

Although he only hit two home runs and didn’t advance to the second round of the ’91 Derby, there’s no doubt Tartabull was a monster hitter during his Kansas City tenure, including the time he hit three home runs in one game right before All-Star weekend: