The following is a detailed history of the Kansas City Royals, a Major League Baseball team that began play in 1969 in Kansas City, Missouri. The team is currently in the American League Central Division. The franchise has won two wild card berths, seven division titles, four league championships, and two World Series titles.
Baseball returns to Kansas City
When the Kansas City Athletics moved to Oakland after the 1967 season, Kansas City was left without major league baseball, or professional baseball at all, for the first time since 1883. Athletics owner Charlie Finley explored many relocation plans and essentially shunned Kansas City before the franchise even left. An enraged Senator Stuart Symington threatened to introduce legislation removing baseball's antitrust exemption unless Kansas City was granted a team in the next round of expansion. Major League Baseball complied with a hasty round of expansion at the 1967 winter meetings. Kansas City was awarded one of four teams to begin play in 1971. However, Symington was not satisfied with having Kansas City wait three years for baseball to return there, and pressured MLB to allow the new teams to start play two years earlier than the original plan in 1969. Symington's intervention may have contributed to the financial collapse of the Royals' companion expansion team, the Seattle Pilots, who had to begin play in 1969 before they were ready (unlike in other sports, baseball leagues need an even number of franchises to preserve symmetry for scheduling purposes).
Pharmaceutical executive Ewing Kauffman won the bidding for the new Kansas City team. He conducted a contest to determine the best and most appropriate name for the new franchise. Sanford Porte from Overland Park, Kansas submitted the name Royals, in recognition of Missouri's billion-dollar livestock industry. His suggestion was that the American Royal best exemplified Kansas City through its pageantry and parade, so the new team should be named the Royals. The name was selected out of 17,000 submissions and the Royals Board voted 6–1 to adopt the name. The one dissenting vote was Kauffman's. He eventually changed his mind after the name grew on him. (Some sources say it was in honor of the Kansas City Monarchs, a Negro leagues team.) The team's logo, a crown atop a shield with the letters "KC" inside the shield, was created by Shannon Manning, an artist at Hallmark Cards, based in Kansas City.Forr, James. Crowning Achievement: The Man Behind the Kansas City Royals Logo Seamheads.com, 7 December 2011.
1969–1979: Taking off
The Royals began operations with General Manager Cedric Tallis, who soon developed a reputation as the best trader in the league. The first big trade was with fellow expansion team Seattle, which brought in 1969 Rookie of the Year Lou Piniella. In their inaugural game, on April 8, 1969, the Royals defeated the Minnesota Twins 4–3 in 12 innings. Two pitching stars from the Baltimore Orioles team that won the 1966 World Series pitched for the Royals in the inaugural game: Wally Bunker threw the franchise's very first pitch, and Moe Drabowsky won the game in relief. After finishing the season in 5th place, the Royals' next trade cemented a reputation as a speedy team. Third baseman Joe Foy was traded to the New York Mets for speedy outfielder Amos Otis, who would become the Royals' first star. Further one-sided trades brought to the Royals second baseman Cookie Rojas, bullpen ace Ted Abernathy, shortstop Fred Patek, first baseman John Mayberry and left fielder Hal McRae. The Royals also invested in a strong farm system and in the early years developed such future stars as pitchers Paul Splittorff and Steve Busby, infielders George Brett and Frank White, and outfielder Al Cowens.
In 1971, the Royals had their first winning season, with manager Bob Lemon guiding them to a second-place finish. In 1973, under Jack McKeon, the Royals adopted their iconic "powder blue" road uniforms and moved from Municipal Stadium to the brand-new Royals Stadium. The stadium had deep outfield walls and artificial turf, and gave future young stars the opportunity to build a playing style involving aggressive baserunning and good defense. The stadium, part of the Truman Sports Complex, was built alongside Arrowhead Stadium, the home of the Kansas City Chiefs of the National Football League (NFL). Unlike many of the new stadiums going up at the time, Kansas City chose dedicated stadiums for their sports teams over one multi-purpose stadium.
Manager Whitey Herzog replaced McKeon in 1975, and the Royals began their ascension to the top of the American League West. They finished 1975 with a 91–71 record, second to the Oakland Athletics. That season, John Mayberry finished second to Boston's Fred Lynn in the MVP voting. The 1976 season brought secured dominance to the Royals. First, George Brett defeated his own teammate Hal McRae to win the batting title on the season's final day. Second, the Royals won the first of three straight Western Division championships. They lost to the New York Yankees in three straight American League Championship Series encounters, despite winning more regular season games in two of those years. In two of those years, they lost the AL Championship Series in the ninth inning of the fifth and final game. However, the three playoffs series helped George Brett become a superstar, as he homered three times in a losing effort in the final game of the 1978 playoff series. In addition to a nucleus of Brett, White, McRae, and Cowens, these Royals teams featured pitchers Dennis Leonard and Larry Gura, closer Dan Quisenberry, and position players Willie Wilson, U.L. Washington and Darrell Porter. The 1977 season, however, ended on another sour note as Herzog demanded that John Mayberry be traded or he would threaten to leave the team. This resulted in Mayberry being traded to the Toronto Blue Jays.
1980–1984: From pennant to pine tar After the Royals finished in second place in 1979, Herzog was fired and replaced by Jim Frey. Most believe that the firing was due to Herzog's strained relationship with the Royals front office including General Manager Joe Burke, owner Ewing Kauffman, and Kauffman's wife, Muriel. Under Frey, the Royals rebounded in 1980 and advanced to the ALCS, where they again faced the Yankees. The team was led by Brett, who flirted with a .400 batting average and won the AL MVP, and Willie Wilson, who electrified crowds with stolen bases and inside-the-park home runs.
In the 1980 ALCS, the Royals finally vanquished the Yankees in a three-game sweep punctuated by a George Brett home run off Yankees' star closer Goose Gossage. Frank White was named the playoffs MVP for all-around steady play and heroics. However, after reaching their first World Series, the Royals fell to the Philadelphia Phillies in six games. The Phillies featured future Hall of Famers Mike Schmidt and Steve Carlton, as well as all-time hits leader Pete Rose. In the series, Willie Aikens became the first player in World Series history to homer twice in two separate Series games.
The Royals returned to the post-season in 1981, losing to the Oakland Athletics in a unique divisional series resulting from the split-season caused by the 1981 Major League Baseball strike.
In 1983, the Royals were headed for a second-place finish behind the Chicago White Sox when they were rocked by scandals. The first event added another chapter to the team's heated rivalry with the Yankees. In a July game between the two teams, third baseman George Brett hit a go-ahead home run in the top of the ninth inning. After Brett crossed home plate and returned to the dugout, Yankees manager Billy Martin complained that Brett had more pine tar on his bat than baseball's rules allowed. After inspecting the bat, the umpires disallowed the home run and called Brett out, ending the game. The signature image from the event was Brett storming angrily out of the dugout to argue the call.
The second scandal of the 1983 season was far more serious, involving a truly illegal substance and several Royals players. Leadoff hitter and center fielder Willie Wilson, power-hitting first baseman Willie Aikens, power-hitting outfielder Jerry Martin, and starting pitcher Vida Blue, who had been released on August 5, were charged with attempting to purchase cocaine. The four were charged in October 1983, pleaded guilty, spent three months in prison, and were suspended by commissioner Bowie Kuhn for the entire 1984 season. The four appealed and were permitted to return on May 15. In response to the scandal, owner Ewing Kauffman founded the Ewing Marion Kauffman foundation to give back to the community, allowed Martin to depart via free agency, and traded Aikens, retaining only Wilson's services.
The 1983 season was also notable for some transitional changes in the Royals organization. First, owner Ewing Kauffman sold 49% of his interest to Memphis developer Avron Fogelman. Second, John Schuerholz was named general manager. Schuerholz soon bolstered the farm system with pitchers Bud Black, Danny Jackson, Mark Gubicza, David Cone, and Bret Saberhagen, as well as hitters such as Kevin Seitzer.
Under the leadership of manager Dick Howser, the Royals – relying on Brett's bat and the young pitching of Saberhagen, Gubicza, Bud Black, Danny Jackson, and Charlie Leibrandt – won the franchise's fifth division championship in 1984, although they were swept by the eventual World Series champion Detroit Tigers in the American League Championship Series
1985: "The I-70 Series"
In the 1985 regular season the Royals topped the Western Division for the sixth time in ten years, led by Bret Saberhagan's Cy Young Award-winning performance. In the last week of the season, Brett put on an amazing hitting streak that led the Royals climb from behind to overtake the California Angels in the standings. Throughout the ensuing playoffs, the Royals repeatedly put themselves into difficult positions, but improbably managed to escape each time. With the Royals down two games to zero in the American League Championship Series (ALCS) against the Toronto Blue Jays, George Brett put on a hitting show in Game 3, homering in his first two at bats and then doubling to the same right field location in his third at-bat. After falling behind 3–1 in the series, the Royals eventually rallied to win the series 4–3 (notably, the LCS had been expanded to a best-of-seven format for the first time in 1985, which allowed the Royals to survive at all). Brett was named ALCS MVP.
1985 World Series
In the 1985 World Series against the cross-state St. Louis Cardinals – the so-called "I-70 Series" because the two teams are both located in the state of Missouri and connected by Interstate 70 – the Royals again fell behind 3–1. The key game in the Royals' comeback was Game 6. Facing elimination, the Royals trailed 1–0 in the bottom of the ninth inning, before rallying to score two runs and win. The rally was helped by a controversial call at first base by umpire Don Denkinger, which allowed Royals outfielder Jorge Orta to reach base safely as the first baserunner of the inning.
Following Orta's single, the Cardinals seemingly lost their concentration, dropping an easy popout and suffering a passed ball, before the Royals won with a bloop base hit by seldom used pinch hitter Dane Iorg, a former utility player for the Cardinals. Following the tension and frustration of Game Six, the Cardinals came undone in Game 7, and the Royals won 11–0 to clinch the franchise's first World Series title.
1986–1994: Staying in the picture