Butler more focused on baseball in his return to the Royals
BY SAM MELLINGER
The Kansas City Star
Billy Butler 2.0 walks down the familiar stairs to his happiest place on earth. He’s carrying two bats in his right hand, a first baseman’s mitt in his left, the tools of his craft.
When he reaches the Kauffman Stadium field, it is sunny and warm. Just how he likes it, the way it felt during the summers back home in Florida. This is about the time the old Billy Butler would say something like, First pitch, I’m raking, but that was the old Butler — the version that got sent down to Class AAA Omaha.
Butler 2.0 puts his bats down and takes ground balls in silence.
“I’m trying to be a better teammate,” he says. “I think I have a different demeanor.”
Even now, as Butler is hitting .260 with infrequent displays of power — his 15th extra-base hit came Wednesday night — he is one of the game’s better hitting prospects. He is three months past his 22nd birthday, won two batting titles in three minor-league seasons, and plenty of scouts think he’ll win one in the majors, too.
Talent has never been the question with Butler, and neither has his good heart. There is a boyish innocence about Butler that’s impossible to miss and hard not to like. The first time Buddy Bell met Butler, he told friends, They’re gonna love this kid in Kansas City.
The questions with Butler are about something else, perhaps best illustrated by the time he announced the launching of BillyButler.com with a Kansas City media tour — before he ever saw a pitch above Class AA.
Privately, some of his teammates expressed, shall we say, displeasure with the hotshot rookie.
“There’s a maturing process we all go through in this game,” says general manager Dayton Moore, who made the decision to send Butler down and call him back up. “Billy’s maturing as a major-league player.”
•••
In spring training, in the corner of the clubhouse next to Ross Gload’s locker, hung a sleeveless BillyButler.com T-shirt. A black Sharpie clung to the collar, and all over the front, in the handwriting of various major-leaguers, read some choice Butler quotes.
And that’s the day I tied A-Rod’s record, 6 RBIs.
I’ll probably hit the Holiday Inn.
I’m on the elevated workout plan.
Katie Butler likes to say her husband’s role on the team is like the little brother everyone likes to pick on. That’s true, and it was always in good fun. But sometimes, when a teammate chides Shut up, Billy, he really means, Shut up, Billy.
Some of this is inevitable. Rookies are always ridden the hardest, and talented rookies get it even harder. Butler probably missed a lot of that last year, when Mike Sweeney and Reggie Sanders formed the team’s prominent veteran presence.
Neither one was the guy who’d make José Guillen’s “babies” rant, for instance.
“(Butler) was fortunate here last year. When he came up the few veterans we had were really as nice as you could have in the game,” Mark Teahen says. “Not to say Guillen’s not as nice or anything, but it’s a different approach. A lot of other teams treat rookies like rookies and take offense to it when a guy comes in and acts like he’s been around a long time.”
Butler knows this now. He’s been talked to, had it explained to him. He’s making an effort. Everyone sees that.
He knows there were times the team lost, but he was happy he had two hits, and times the team won but he was upset he went hitless. A lot of that comes from the minor-league system, where it truly is all about yourself and trying to get to the next level. Butler’s not the first to struggle with that transition.
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To reach Sam Mellinger, national baseball reporter for The Star, call 816-234-4365 or send e-mail to smellinger@kcstar.com
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