Throughout his 2,707 regular-season games over 21 seasons with the Royals, George Brett tended to get restless during daily marathons, so he’d walk around, climb down the dugout steps to cool off or retreat to the locker room to chat with his clubhouse buddies.
That is, unless Bo Jackson is up to bat.
“I never left,” Brett said.
That memory came to mind the other day because he still feels the same sense of anticipation and wonder when Bobby Witt Jr. steps up to bat. Even when he’s watching from home, Brett said he stays in his room when Witt steps up to bat.
“I just sit and watch,” he said.
As the only former Royals member to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame and the only player in franchise history to have a season comparable to what Witt will have in 2024, Brett looks at Witt with a clarity that few others can.
He’s excited to have found a young man with more talent than himself and to have signed him to one of the rare long-term, mega-contracts in Royals history.
“I’m very pleased that the Royals made the wise decision to invest in him,” Brett said.
Never mind what would have happened if Witt had played his entire career in Kansas City.
“I’m done with numbers,” Brett told The Star with a laugh in a phone interview.
Of course, sustaining that over an extended period of time is the mark of true greatness, and for the 24-year-old to surpass Brett, he’ll need years and years of incredible consistency – so much so that at 71, Brett thinks he’ll be gone or too old to know by then.
But one intriguing number came to the fore on Friday at Kauffman Stadium as the Cardinals beat the Royals 8-5 in Kansas City’s 117th game of the season.
As my ever-helpful colleague Blair Kerkhoff pointed out to me the other day, that’s the same number of games Brett played (due to injury) during what we’ve come to call “The Summer of George,” a 1980 season in which George batted .400 (eventually .390) en route to being named the American League MVP.
While Brett’s batting average was much higher than Witt’s (.346 on a hitless Friday night), many of the statistics bear an eerie similarity.
In 117 games in 1980, Brett recorded 175 hits, 33 doubles, nine triples, 24 home runs, 118 RBIs and 87 runs scored.
In as many games this season, Witt has 162 hits, 33 doubles, 10 triples, 22 home runs, 84 RBIs and 99 runs scored (leading MLB in hits, batting average and runs scored).
Those are MVP-worthy numbers, and they’re compounded by the fact that entering Friday’s games, Whitt leads MLB with an 8.1 fWAR, good for fourth-best by a position player in franchise history behind Brett (9.1 in 1980), Brett (8.3 in 1985) and Brett (8.3 in 1979).
“You know how amazing it would be for him to win (the MVP) at such a young age,” Brett said. “It’d be incredible.”
As I began talking to Brett about Whitt the other day, I mentioned that I’d been astounded by some of his recent play, including Whitt’s .489 batting average in July, second only to Brett’s .494 batting average in July of 1980 in franchise history.
“A lot of us are stunned,” Brett said.
Brett said he believed in Witt from the first time he saw him in spring training in 2021 and would have bought his stock and futures then.
But what has happened since has been far more than Brett, or the Royals, could have ever expected.
Brett still couldn’t believe what he saw a few days earlier against the White Sox when Witt’s fourth hit of the night was a grand slam that gave the Royals an 8-5 lead that Witt held on to with two superb defensive plays in the ninth inning.
“He made an unbelievable play to start the inning, flying hard to the right over the outfield grass, catching the ball at shoulder height, turning around and making a big throw to first base. It was a perfect throw,” Brett said, pointing to Witt’s diving stop to end the game. Witt rose to his feet in almost one motion and made a laser-beam throw to first base.
“It’s hard to believe how complete a player Whitt is,” Brett said.
And one of the reasons Brett respects Whit is undoubtedly his old-fashioned sensibilities, especially his work ethic and hard work.
“Every time he hits the ball, he’s thinking double from outside the box,” he said. “You don’t see that anymore. You don’t see that at all.”
What Brett calls “burn and turn” is another way Whit changes the dynamics of the game itself: adding so many bases, forcing outfielders to compete more frequently with hops up the middle for threats, and inspiring fans and teammates alike.
As the saying goes, the game knows the game.
Brett estimates that about 100 of his 665 career doubles came as a result of his “going for the extra bases” attitude.
And he knows a thing or two about how Witt was able to keep up such a groove.
It’s counterintuitive… but once you get there, it’s easy.
Because when he’s in such good form, Brett says, “there are no negative thoughts going through your mind. … When you’re swinging the bat that well, your mind goes blank.”
Getting there is an adventure in itself, but that state of mind is easier to explain by what’s not happening than by what is.
“You don’t have to think about the fundamentals because the fundamentals are locked in,” Brett said. “Basically, when a player is in a slump, I think they think about the fundamentals. And they might stand there and say to themselves, ‘Okay, I’ve got to step back, I’ve got to step back, I’ve got to step back. OK, I’ve got to extend my arms. OK, I’ve got to get in rhythm. I’ve got to do this.'”
“The thought of swinging is always lurking in the back of their minds. If they get even the slightest thought of swinging other than watching the ball, they’re (damned). You can’t read the ticker tape (on the TV news) and listen to it at the same time, how can you? Your mind can only do one thing at a time.”
To illustrate this point, Brett had me practice reciting random numbers from 1 to 5. For each number I said, I was asked to hold up my right hand and hold up a different number of fingers.
“Just keep doing it and let me know if you can do it,” he said.
I didn’t really understand what he was talking about so I kept breaking the drill and, as he said, I couldn’t keep it going for more than a few revolutions.
“Exactly,” he said, “or some people can’t say a word because they have their finger up.”
But if you’re wit now…
“Nothing to think about!” Brett said.
But for the rest of us, including Brett, there’s plenty to think about as we watch an irresistible phenomenon unfold.
