The Sweet Swing of George Brett
His George Brett
George Howard Brett was born on May 15, 1953. You could look it up, but you might as well trust me. You can also trust me when I tell you that George Brett hit .390 in 1980 for the Kansas City Royals, or that Brett had 175 hits in 449 at bats that same year, every single one of which was a thing of beauty.
I might know more about George Brett’s career than George Brett, a peculiar body of knowledge I began cultivating at age 11. I won’t attempt to justify or explain why a young boy growing up in Topeka, KS would idolize a baseball player he never met. You either understand that kind of thing or you don’t. All I know is every team I ever played on featured heated battles over who would wear Brett’s number 5 on their own jersey.
And that was just in Topeka. Imagine how it was in the actual city Brett played in.
Some athletes transcend their sport. They become something more than just great players who come through in the clutch, or players who accumulate impressive statistics or championships over the course of a career. Some become heroes because they allow us, in some way, to imagine their exploits before they happen—and then they go ahead and make them happen anyway.
Michael Jordan was that way. We saw him do the impossible so many times we came to expect it. Seeing Jordan miss a turnaround jumper or not leave his man behind on a drive to the rack left one wondering who wasn’t following the script, because Jordan always did those things. And it made you just that much surer that the next two Jordan shots were going to go down.
Brett was that way. I can still see him in my mind’s eye at the plate, with his weight shifted far back on his left leg, bat level over his shoulder. You’d see him in the box and you knew that it didn’t matter what pitch the pitcher threw—Brett could do whatever he wanted with it. He was hardly ever overmatched; in the 14 years I watched him play, I don’t remember him checking his swing once.
Of course, it wasn’t the day-to-day exploits of Brett that made Number 5 something more than what comes after 4 and before 6. Brett had so many heroic moments in big games I can’t list them all. Well, I could, but I’ll spare you. After awhile, kids and adults alike in Royals Country just knew: George Brett was the man. Whatever needed to be done, he would do it. And if he didn’t do it, it couldn’t be done. It was as simple as that.
You’d think that with such a glowing testimonial I could point to something more than one World Series victory for the Royals during Brett’s tenure. Alas, all we have is the 1985 victory over the Cardinals. The thing is, greatness isn’t always about winning. Don’t get me wrong; the Royals over Brett’s tenure won as many games as any other team out there. They were constant fixtures in the playoffs from 1976 to 1985, Brett’s peak years. But Brett represented a certain way to play sports. He played hard, every game. Brett was one of those rare players in any sport that brought cheers from the crowds in their team’s road games.
More than that, he played for the fans. Or, at least it seemed that way. There were never flirtations with other teams--he was a Royal for life. He never bad-mouthed the fans, never had an ugly contract dispute. We always knew he would be in the #3 spot in the batting lineup, and that he would give the opposing pitcher hell.
Why are great athletes special? They aren’t eternal, like a book, painting or movie. The nexus of skill and ability only comes together for so long as an athlete reaches a peak age. You’re either there to see it in person as it happens, or relegated to learning about it second hand. When a great one, in any sport-a Larry Bird, a Kevin Garnett, a Walter Payton-does their thing, all you can do is soak it in and enjoy it before it goes away. Because it always goes away. Hall of Famers and journeymen alike have to face the end, and Brett’s came in a tearful ride around Royals Stadium at the end of the 1993 season. The Royals haven’t sniffed the post-season since Brett retired, and I haven’t stepped foot in the ballpark in Kansas City since he hung up his uniform.
It just wouldn’t be the same.
I still think about George Brett. I look at players today, and I wonder who my George Brett would be if I were a young boy just falling in love with the game. I’m a Twins fan at this point in my life, and while I like a lot of Twins players, there’s no George Brett on that team. There are players to root for, good guys who play the game the right way. But it takes more than that to be a legend. Heck, how many teams do have a sure Hall-of-Famer with a swing of beauty that will spend his entire career with one underdog team in a small market? Not many.
It’s a free-agent world now. Guys that stay with a team for anything past 5 years are rare. Ten years or more, rarer still. Natural talents with sweet lefty swings don’t just grow on trees, either.
Lately, I wonder: Who will be my son Linus’s George Brett? Not that he has to have a George Brett. I won't make him have one. I'm just thinking, you know, I'm going to be watching a lot of baseball in the years to come, probably with Linus, and playing a lot of baseball, probably with Linus, and...oh, what the hell. I'm going to make him have a George Brett.
Joe Mauer, meet Linus. Linus, meet Joe Mauer.
Joe Mauer was born on April 19, 1983. That makes him 16 years older than Linus. George Brett is 16 years older than me. Mauer’s a St. Paul boy, played his high school ball about six blocks from where Linus is growing up. And what team would you imagine Joe Mauer is going to debut for at catcher this spring, at the ripe young age of 20? The Minnesota Twins, naturally. Did I mention that Brett debuted for the Royals when he was 20?
Now, I know what you’re thinking. I can’t choose Linus’s heroes for him. For that matter, Linus might not give a damn about baseball or sports, period. He’s his own boy, after all. But chances are, when you grow up the son of a sports fanatic, a guy who still plays whiffleball and Nerf basketball like his next meal depends on it, some of that is probably going to rub off on the son. Even if I don’t want it to.
Aw, but who am I kidding? I do want it to rub off on him. Why wouldn’t I? In addition to the obvious physical exercise, coordination and discipline benefits, modern sports teaches us about success, failure, economics, the dangers of gambling and drugs, and the special dynamics of blackmail and public subsidies for wealthy corporate patrons. What’s not to like?
Thing is, when you’re a young boy watching a George Brett, you don’t care about any of that. You concentrate on the greatness. On how they do what they do, or how they work with their teammates. All the other stuff that has gone so wrong with sports goes away when you boil it all down to a pitcher trying to get the ball past a great hitter. Nothing else matters but that at-bat. The potential greatness of any hitter is made up of thousands of moments that consist of nothing but those at-bats.
Can Joe Mauer inspire Linus in the way George Brett inspired me and so many of my contemporaries? Who knows? Age 20 is awfully early to start making such lofty comparisons. But Mauer is a special case. He was the first pick in the national baseball draft, turning down an opportunity to be the starting quarterback for college football powerhouse Florida State. He was the USAToday national high school baseball and football player of the year. That’s happened, like…never. And he was a damned good basketball player, too.
Mauer tore through the minors with great work behind the plate, “plus” emotional makeup and gaudy batting averages. He hasn’t developed much of a power stroke yet, but power tends to come late to a lot of young hitters. He doesn’t strike out much at all, and with a 6’4” frame, he figures to hit a lot of home runs in his career. When the Twins dealt starting catcher A.J. Pierzynski to the Giants this winter, they took the extremely rare path of handing a starting catcher’s role to a kid barely out of high school.
There’s going to be a lot of pressure on Joe Mauer this year. The Twins and the Twin Cities will hold their breath as they root for one of their own to help carry the hometown team. And there’s no doubt that it’s waaaaay too early to put this burden of comparison on Mauer. And yet, for someone who wants to look for the comparisons to a player like George Brett, there are more than enough to satisfy.
In my household, there will be some extra loud cheering for Joe Mauer. Is it because I want Linus to have his George Brett?
Or is it because I want another George Brett for myself?
I suppose it’s both. I remember sitting with my dad at a Royals game when I was 11, in September of 1980. Brett was in the midst of his historic chase for .400, struggling to stay above .390. It wasn’t my first time at a Royals game; that was earlier that summer. But Brett was hurt that first game, and this was my first chance to see my favorite player in front of a packed house. The crowd went crazy every time Brett came to the plate that day (and every other day he played). In his first at-bat, Brett hit a high drive to left field off of Oakland’s Mike Norris. As it cleared the wall, I remember looking at my dad, grinning almost as much as I was. It was like he made that happen: Take boy to game, show boy hero, hero hits home run.
The Royals lost that game, 9-3, but I didn’t care. That was the first of many times that George Brett didn’t let me down. Those things don’t happen every day, you see. I’ll remember going to that game with my dad for as long as I live. I didn’t remember it because of Mike Norris, or freaking Rickey Henderson stealing four bases. I remember it because I saw George Brett with my dad.
Linus and I can’t see George Brett. But we might be able to see Joe Mauer for a long, long time together. Maybe Joe Mauer will even hit a home run for us.
1:27:40 PM 
|
