It is indeed a rare October Sunday when a football team can virtually be eliminated from the 1986 Super Bowl before a baseball team can win the 1985 World Series. But the sporting consumers of Tampa will have to wait their turn, just as did the fans at this end of I-70.
When the Kansas City Royals are hailed as only the second expansion franchise to claim North America`s most honored athletic crown, we tend to forget previous tortures inflicted upon these fine and decent citizens, who blithely assumed they were being awarded an established club upon arrival of the transplanted Philadelphia Athletics in 1955.
”Does Spook Jacobs ring a bell?” Lou Boudreau was saying Monday. ”He was one of my infielders. And one of my pitchers was Tommy Lasorda. He kept wanting to use a knuckleball. Finally, I give him the okay. So one day he tries it and throws it up on the screen behind the plate. Almost decks the guy in our radio booth. Does that give you an idea what kind of chance we had?”
Yes, Boudreau, currently a broadcaster for the mighty Chicago Cubs, managed that conglomeration to a sixth-place finish, two notches higher than they were to finish the next year. when the A`s amassed 52 victories, or 45 fewer than the hated New York Yankees. Hated the Yankees were because they treated Kansas City not unlike a cowtown farm club, regularly fleecing it whenever another pennant meant first inducing the A`s into another lopsided trade.
The list of insults is too long to recount and would serve no civic purpose at this cheerful moment. You might remember, however, a typical maneuver. In 1959, the A`s acquired three Yankee expendables, with the return package including a promising outfielder, Roger Maris. A couple of summers hence, Maris hit 61 homers in New York, which were as many games as the duped- again A`s won, which were 48 fewer than the Yankees amassed. And so it went. Soon, Charles O. Finley purchased the A`s, presumably for profit but more for fun. Lacking enough ambulatory bodies of the two-legged variety, Finley acquired a gaggle of sheep as diversionary tactics. Showing his team spirit, Finley dyed them green and gold, but, like many of his players, the animals were hopelessly out of condition. One dropped dead after being chased up a hill by a relief pitcher, and another checked out after being hit in the head by a home run ball, presumably off an opposing bat. The records are unclear.
Not surprisingly, when Finley, an astute collector of talent, finally produced the likes of Catfish Hunter, Reggie Jackson and Bert Campaneris for Kansas City to behold, he bolted for Oakland in 1968. Finley since has rued the departure as one of his worst mistakes, though whiplashed customers in these parts were happy to forgive him and even happier to see him go. With 1969, a new era began, and Sunday night, the Royals punctuated seasons of effort and excellence to win a World Series.
The tale is not without its woes, for in 1983, the Royals` organization was unhinged by what then passed for a major drug scandal. Four active players –Willie Wilson, Willie Aikens, Vida Blue and Jerry Martin–served prison sentences for cocaine, and the conservative, trusting community was utterly rocked. But what was to be a rebuilding season in 1984 brought an American League West first-place finish, and this season, the Royals were the only incumbent to repeat.
The 1985 World Series resembled a movie that you attend with few expectations. But gradually it grows on you because the plot thickens, and players become more than simply names. Because home runs were replaced by one- two-three innings, the event was widely reviewed as too bland. Because it was all-Missouri, it was criticized as too flat. And so on. If the stage had been Canada instead of cornfields, that would have ignited another siege of cutesy putdowns.
However, any observer with an ounce of appreciation for baseball`s nuances had to savor it as unique and entertaining. Should the Royals not be remembered as the best team of 1985 ”on paper,” so be it. Such is the fate often suffered by teams so dominated by one facet of the game, especially the department that carried Kansas City, pitching. The sport today does not require a superstar at every position, and that fragile footing is the very circumstance denying any dynasties. Witness the 1984 Detroit Tigers, the team that had everything. Except the ability to do it again.
”Complacency,” George Brett was saying during Sunday night`s bath.
”Now that we`ve made it to the top, that`s what we`ve got to guard against.”
The St. Louis Cardinals deteriorated within the space of one week, let alone one season. Taking bad swings and careful pitches, they batted a frail .185 for seven games, a tournament record low. The top third of their order was 13 for 76, renewing beliefs that Ozzie Smith is a defensive specialist, after all. Still, they might have won in six games but for first-base umpire Don Denkinger`s awful call during Saturday evening`s electric ninth inning. If the Cardinals went too far with their tantrum one night later, so did they go too far into October to sustain such a glaring mistake.
Perhaps reflecting their feisty (but peerless) manager, Whitey Herzog, the Cardinals didn`t seem to savor the Fall Classic all that much. A .185 batting average will do that to you. Plus, the Cardinals had this grudge about never receiving proper praise throughout the summer. Everything was Mets, Mets, Mets, or so grumped the Cardinals. The Royals, liberally populated with engaging and deserving types–such as Brett, Jim Sundberg, Charlie Leibrandt and the repentant Wilson–just went about their business, which was winning only, and always, when they absolutely had to.
Maybe that reserved disposition mirrors the personality of Dick Howser, the likable Kansas City manager. On Sunday afternoon, ironically enough, those despised Yankees were naming yet another skipper, Lou Piniella, who knocked in the winning run for the Royals` first-ever victory. Howser, too, managed in the Bronx Zoo but was fired after winning only 103 games in 1980. He soon found employment in Kansas City where, Sunday night, justice was served.
