The 3 best hitting KC Royals pitchers before the DH

Assuming recent reporting holds, Major League Baseball will make new economic proposals to the Major League Baseball Players Association today. The two sides—clubs (including the KC Royals) and players—will presumably chat a few minutes, then withdraw into the cloak of secrecy that’s enveloped their mutual combat for months.

How the union reacts remains to be seen, but even cautious optimism is difficult to muster at this point of the MLB lockout. Before all is said and done and baseball resumes, however, the parties seem destined to finally reach agreement on the designated hitter—look for its extension to the National League.

With limited exceptions, the DH has been an American League hitters-only fixture since 1973, the first year the Royals played in Kauffman (then Royals) Stadium, so its pitchers batting regularly lasted only the four seasons the club played at old Municipal Stadium. The sample size is small, but who were the club’s top hitting pitchers before the DH?

An obscure KC Royals hurler made a bit of a splash at the plate in 1971.

Easily lost in the excitement of the Royals achieving their first winning record in 1971 were the efforts of a little-known lefthanded pitcher who hit about as well as he pitched. Lance Clemons made his big league debut against the old Washington Senators in mid-August, starting and throwing two scoreless innings and striking out famed Washington slugger Frank Howard before giving way to Roger Nelson. Clemons appeared in nine more games and finished 1-0.

Looking back, his biggest Royal moment, other than beating Boston for his first and only big league win, came when he slammed a solo home run against Milwaukee’s Ken Sanders to give the Royals their sixth run in a 6-4 win.

Clemons ended his blink of a KC career with a .286 average (2-for-7), but it and the important homer merit declaring him one of the club’s best pre-1973 hitting pitchers.

Kansas City traded Clemons and pitcher Jim York to Houston that December in the deal that brought John Mayberry to the Royals. Clemons pitched only nine more times in the majors. (York hit one of the KC pitchers’ seven pre-DH homers).

The early KC Royals had a starting pitcher who was a bit of a slugger.

Count Jim Rooker among the original Kansas City Royals. The club picked him up from the Yankees in the 1968 expansion draft just a couple of weeks after Detroit sent him to New York to complete a trade that sent former KC A’s pitcher John Wyatt from The Bronx to the Tigers. His first appearance for the Royals came in their 16th game; after that, he became a regular rotation member until Kansas City dealt him to Pittsburgh for reliever Gene Garber after the ’72 season.

Rooker is perhaps better known as a Pirate than a Royal—after all, he was 82-65 for the Bucs from 1973-1979 and appeared twice in the World Series they won in ’79. He went 21-44 in four KC seasons.

Rooker also knew how to hit home runs. He clubbed two for Pittsburgh, but his best power days were with Kansas City, where he hit five in his first two years with the team.

Four of those homers came in 1969, including two Rooker slammed in one game. He tagged KC nemesis and future Hall of Famer Jim Kaat for both those latter blasts July 7 against Minnesota, then hit his third home run of the season nine days later off the Angels’ Andy Messersmith, and his fourth off Detroit’s Mike Kilkenny in September.

Rooker’s fifth and last Royal home run came the following season against Cleveland’s Rich Hand.

The lefthander also hit seven doubles and drove in 23 runs in 157 Kansas City at-bats.

Jim Rooker, Al Fitzmorris and Lance Clemons pitched for the early Royals, but they could also swing the bat.