It’s Hard to Stop a Love for Game

You are George Brett and all the cheering has about stopped. The music is muted, the hour is late and they will be taking the banners down and emptying your locker any minute now. As the late Jimmy Cannon would say it, all your bats are broken.

You are going to the Hall of Fame. You belong to the ages. You were as good a striker of the ball as the game has seen. There wasn’t a pitcher in the league who could get a 3-and-2 pitch past you.

You were the last guy in the game with a legitimate shot at .400. In 1980, you needed only five hits to become the first in 40 years to hit .400. Five measly hits. If you had a weakness, it was aggression. You went after the pitcher’s pitch, not the hitter’s pitch. Most of the time, you hit it anyway. There was no such thing as the unhittable pitch with George Brett at the bat.

Your numbers are staggering. Only 11 players in the history of the game have more hits. You’re one of only six players--the others are Henry Aaron, Stan Musial, Carl Yastrzemski, Willie Mays and Al Kaline--to have 3,000 hits and 300 home runs. Only four players have more doubles--Ty Cobb, Stan Musial, Pete Rose and Tris Speaker, no less. Whatever could be done with a bat, you did it.

Now, you’ve got a problem. How long do you stay at the fair? When do you take the final curtain?

Do you take the money and wave at major league fastballs? Do you settle for hitting mistakes, for popping up pitches you would formerly drive to the wall and over it? A guy who once hit .390 and came within five hits of .400, do you now accept .266?

How do you want to address posterity? With a .300 batting average, with the cheers still ringing--or do you want the Hall of Fame plaque to note that George Brett makes Cooperstown as one of the under-.300 brigade?

In a way, it’s a problem other generations had. In a way, it’s not.

Look at it this way: It was, if not easy, at least not hard for a ballplayer to walk away from a $35,000 contract. Even though that was relative wealth for its time, it was way below the millions today’s Hall of Famers (and sub-Hall of Famers) command.

Do you hang ‘em up now? Or do you squeeze out another year or two even though they’re not George Brett years?

You’re batting .266 as of now. That gives you .305 for life--down two points from last year. How many points off the average is a million dollars worth? Do you settle for .297--or even .287--to get another year in the high-income brackets? Do you embarrass yourself for another Mercedes or two, or do you want to be one of the elite who go into Cooperstown with the big boys, the .300 hitters?

The real George Brett contemplated the problem as he sat in a locker room at Anaheim the other night. “It’s frustrating for a career .350 hitter to be going up there and be hitting .250,” Brett acknowledges. “You know, a lot of people go through life hitting .250, but I always marveled that a person could stand to do that, could stand to accept that. I don’t think I could have stood that--and I don’t know that I can.”

You are George Brett and when you get your pitch, you pounce on it--but it dies at the warning track. Four years ago, it would have been out.

You are George Brett and, for the first time in your life, you are overmatched by some pitchers. Your manager sits you down against them. You are George Brett and you remember when no pitcher in the league would challenge you. Even the best pitched around you.

The real George Brett nods. “I remember when Harmon Killebrew and Orlando Cepeda came to Kansas City in the sunset of their careers (Killebrew, a Hall of Famer, batted .199 that year, Cepeda .215). It hurt to look. I always said I wouldn’t go out like that.”

You are George Brett and you are playing character roles. You are not the star anymore. You are the star’s best friend. Supporting player.

But they still pay to see you. You are still the guy who almost hit .400 a few years ago.

“I could have hit .400,” Brett recalls. “I came within five hits of it. What happened? Well, I made a mistake. I tried to hit .400. With only six weeks to go, I was over .400. The media started following me. Then, I started to look for .400 every game. If I went 0 for two, I’d say, ‘Uh-oh, I’ve got to go two for three the next three at-bats to hit .400 today. I felt I had to make two for five every day. I started pressing. Then, I went down to .383 with a week to go and I stopped thinking like that. I went out to be George Brett again, to hit the way I always did. And in the last week, I hit over .500! The way I look at it, I could have been doing that all along. I got out of my rhythm. Five more hits would have done it.”

Or 10 more walks.

You are George Brett and you got your team in six playoffs and two World Series. You batted .373 in the Series and .340 in the playoffs.

You are George Brett and you would like one more time in that Series spotlight. Go out with flags flying, bands playing. Go up there one more time with the pennant or Series on the line and try to remember how you did it when every pitcher in the league would close their eyes and pray when you came up and half-hope they would take him out.

One more Series. Then you could take that final curtain. Go out like George Brett, not some shell batting .215 against rookie pitching. “I never did play baseball for money,” Brett says. “I played baseball for baseball. I played baseball for love.”