Brett Is Poetry in Motion

One of my most prized possessions is a phony. It is a George Brett baseball bat that is totally bogus. I bought it in a store.

Louisville Slugger manufactured it and I am looking at it right now. It is short, light and bears Brett’s signature. The wood is stained a dark brown from the handle to the trademark. That’s the cute part. The rest of the ash is blond.

The bat is engraved:

“Pine Tar Special

“7-24-83”

I meant to take it to Anaheim Stadium to show to George. He was going after his 3,000th hit and I thought he might get a kick out of this reminder of a hit that got away--the one at Yankee Stadium that umpires disallowed because they found too much pine tar slathered on Brett’s bat.

That was the day that gave us our everlasting image of George--the one we will see forever on film whenever anybody presents a cavalcade of highlights from his distinguished career.

It’s the one that shows him charging from the dugout like a mad rhinoceros. I hate temper tantrums as a rule. They make grown men--not as many women, I have noticed--resemble spoiled brats, set a poor example for adolescents and undermine the integrity of others who are doing the best they can.

But Brett’s was different. That day George snapped his cap, it was somehow endearing. He has never been a hothead or crybaby, although, yes, he has had his moments. Brett is not some notorious umpire-baiter who makes a public spectacle of himself, like John McEnroe or the late Billy Martin, indifferent to the feelings or dignity of others.

Almost anybody would have blown a gasket the way George did when that pine-tar verdict went against him. It was so unexpected, so unusual, so costly. One minute, it was the bat that broke the backs and hearts of the damn Yankees. Next minute, it was the bat that was never even swung.

It became so famous that Louisville Slugger put out a limited edition of replicas. I forget what I paid for it--less than 10 bucks. But I’d rather have it than the real thing that Kirk Gibson used to hit that World Series home run.

Why? Because I admire George Brett. Because I appreciate him as a person and as a player. And because I will miss him when he goes, and evidently he is going.

I wish that I could be there when George gets back to Kansas City, which, in case you don’t know, he owns.

I wish that I could have been there when Brett went double-single-single-single against the Angels to raise his hit count to an even three grand. George, you weren’t supposed to do that. You were supposed to get two or three and wait for me to get out there Thursday afternoon.

Just like Robin Yount, who got his 3,000 hits for one team, Brett has gone 3,000-for-Kansas-City. Never has that city seen a better batter.

George Brett is, when you get right down to it, K.C. at the Bat.

OK, so he didn’t get his 3,000th hit at “home.” Or did he? Where Kansas City is concerned, George Brett is an angel from California. Although the crowd was Anaheim’s smallest in 13 seasons, George’s friends from the South Bay and from El Segundo High were there. So was his mom. And so was his brother, Ken, an Angel broadcaster who--take it from me--would have gotten around 2,000 hits of his own if he hadn’t been a pitcher.

What kind of hitter has George Brett been? On Sept. 19, 1980, his two hits against Oakland gave George a season batting average of .3995037. Now remember, this is mid-September we’re talking about.

Brettmania began. President Jimmy Carter publicly waved a bumper sticker that read: “George Brett for President.” By then, nothing surprised Brett anymore, not even when the Mormon church surprised him that day with a gift of his genealogical history, tracing the entire Brett family back to the Middle Ages in Denmark.

George got, understandably, a little crazy. There were demands on his time, and questions, questions, questions. One woman asked Brett if he believed in sex before a game. He replied: “Not in the on-deck circle.” When his average tumbled to .389, Brett said the baseball “used to look like a volleyball, but lately it’s been looking like a marble.”

George Brett never did hit .400. I don’t care. George did hit 3,000.

Good player, good hitter, good guy to have around and be around--that’s George Brett. He has never been a pain in the butt, although he once had a rather famous one. And he never needed pine tar to hit a baseball. George Brett only needed one thing to hit a baseball.

Someone to pitch it.