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Jeff Passan, ESPN
BALTIMORE — On the day the (*106*) City Royals resuscitated a rivalry that has lain dormant for almost a half-century, the man who embodied the crew in the Seventies strolled by the one who personifies it immediately.
“You think he's any good?” George Brett requested.
He was trying at Bobby Witt Jr., the hero of the Royals' Game 2 victory that expelled the Baltimore Orioles from the American League wild-card spherical — and the hero, to be extra correct, of the baseball renaissance at present happening in (*106*) City.
“He's got a chance to be a good player,” Brett continued, and Witt flashed a figuring out grin in his path. As Witt has inherited the mantle of face and voice of the franchise, he has grown to perceive Brett's import — not simply as the Royals' lone Hall of Famer, however as its swaggering, swashbuckling avatar, a job finest expressed as perpetual tormentor of the New York Yankees.
Over a six-year stretch from 1976 to 1981, the Yankees and Royals dominated the AL; they met 4 occasions in the ALCS. Though the Yankees received the first three sequence, (*106*) City swept New York in 1980. And maybe the most well-known incident of Brett's profession — charging to confront an umpire after being known as out for utilizing an excessive amount of pine tar — got here towards the Yankees in 1983. In his playoff profession towards New York, Brett hit .358/.389/.791 with six homers and solely two strikeouts in 72 plate appearances.
“Hatred,” Brett mentioned. “If you talk to anybody that played in the '76, '77, '78, '80 playoffs, it was hatred. I mean, you despise them, you abhor them. Does abhor mean hate?”
Yes, he was knowledgeable.
“You abhorred them,” Brett continued. “And they abhorred us.”
Now the rivalry is renewed, with Witt trying to tackle Brett's position at the middle of it. After a pair of hard-fought, one-run wins in Baltimore, the Royals are in the Bronx to face the Yankees in Game 1 of the AL Division Series on Saturday. Witt drove in the solely run in the first win, and in a postseason profession that's two video games deep, he owns two game-winning RBIs. The final particular person to plate the go-ahead run in his first two profession playoff video games was Jimmie Foxx — an inner-circle Hall of Famer who did it nearly 100 years in the past.
None of this registers as notably stunning, as a result of the 24-year-old Witt has spent the 2024 season vaulting himself into the sport's tippy-top echelon. The goal attributes scream celebrity: the .332 common that received him his first batting title, the second consecutive 30/30 season, the Gold Glove-caliber protection at shortstop — no matter you add to the checklist, if it has to do with baseball, he is good at it.
His need for extra evinces itself with each significant recreation Witt performs. And there's substantial that means to these, not solely as a result of they're the first postseason video games for the Royals since they received the World Series in 2015 however as a result of they herald one of the nice turnarounds in baseball historical past. Last 12 months, the Royals misplaced 106 video games. Now, they're making an attempt to mimic their neighbors at the Truman Sports Complex.
“Seeing what they're doing across the street with the Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes, I'm just trying to do my part and bring back what Kansas City needs and what they love,” Witt mentioned. “You see it with the Chiefs, and you saw it with what the Royals did in '14, '15. We want to create our own legacy.”
The Venn diagram of these Royals' legacy and Witt's is a circle. He joined the group as the No. 2 general decide in the 2019 draft, blew away the crew's executives at (*106*) City's alternate website throughout the COVID-19 shutdown, received each Minor League Player of the Year award in 2021, hit 20 dwelling runs and ripped 30 luggage as a rookie in 2022, flashed celebrity bona fides in 2023 and put himself in the best-player-in-baseball dialog with Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani this season.
And in his first alternative for postseason baseball, he shone. In the backside of the fifth inning of Game 2, the Orioles tied the rating on a solo dwelling run, then loaded the bases. Royals supervisor Matt Quatraro went to the mound to make a pitching change, and the crew's infield gathered on the mound. Witt mentioned, very merely, “This is our game.” By the finish of the mound go to, all of them had been saying it. They believed.
They escaped that half-inning with out ceding one other run. And in the subsequent, Witt got here to the plate with runners on the corners and two outs. He hit a 109 mph pea up the center, just for Baltimore second baseman Jordan Westburg to dive and snag it. Westburg sprung to his ft, made a superb throw — and Witt nonetheless beat it by greater than a step for an infield single, scoring a run that will be the final of the recreation.
“The reason we won the game is the Kansas City Royals played baseball the right way,” Royals reliever Will Smith mentioned. “Bobby booked it out the box, and his speed took over. He could easily have coasted. But he didn't.”
Smith is 35 years outdated and holds a particular distinction amongst his friends: an incontrovertible winner. Smith captured a World Series with the Atlanta Braves in 2021. He was traded to the Houston Astros in 2022 and bought one other ring. He signed with the Texas Rangers on the eve of the 2023 season and, yup, a 3rd consecutive championship. And now this, the place he will get to bear Wittness.
Witt can solely dream of such a résumé, for now. He's in his debut, nonetheless inexperienced, feeling privileged to have the alternative to face a crew like the Yankees in an MLB postseason. He appreciated the spirit at Camden Yards, has found a signature fashion for his postgame celebrations, donned after their clinching recreation and the wild-card win: ski goggles over his eyes, one Bud Heavy on both facet of his head — held by the goggle strap — and a cigar hanging from his lips.
“Excitement, electricity,” Witt mentioned. “Even here, it was great to hear the boo birds, hear 'em yelling at you, getting on you. You just learn to be comfortable and live in that present moment and enjoy it.”
Witt and the Royals will get pleasure from taking the discipline behind Michael Wacha, one of their super free agent signings, in Game 1. Ace Cole Ragans — who shut out Baltimore for six innings Tuesday — is lined up to pitch Game 2 in addition to a possible Game 5.
For all of the pitching the Royals have between their starters and a bullpen that has morphed into amongst the hottest in baseball, it comes again to Witt. And now, he has taken them to the most storied stadium in baseball with an opportunity to change into the newest (*106*) City crew to come out of nowhere, introduce itself to the world and do precisely what Brett appeared to do each time the Yankees and Royals bought collectively: battle.
