Seven things you may not know about new Royals slugger Brandon Moss

It’s official. First baseman/outfielder Brandon Moss is a member of the Royals, as the team announced the two-year signing on Wednesday.

Royals introduce Brandon Moss at press conference 

Moss, 33, has been in the majors since 2007. Here are a few things you may not know about him:

1. Moss hit his 100th career home run at Kauffman Stadium while playing for the Indians in 2015. The ball went into Cleveland’s bullpen in right field, and the pitchers made a ransom note (ranging $5,000 to an Apple Watch) if Moss wanted it back.

2. He nearly quit baseball in 2012 to become a firefighter. Moss told MLB.com that he was worried that his chance to stay in the major leagues was over and he contemplated a career change rather than play in Class AAA.

“Coming from baseball, that’s the kind of job you’re looking for,” Moss told Jennifer Langosch. “To where what you put into it, you can get out of it.”

3. Moss is a distant cousin of country music star Alan Jackson.

4. Moss was once described as the most-talkative first baseman in Major League Baseball. Does that sound harsh? Maybe, but when he was with the A’s, the team made a season-preview commercial revolving around this trait:

5. While an avid hunter, Moss had a bad experience during a trip to Montana.

“Twice on this 11-day trip, I feared for my life and the guy that I was with didn’t help,” Moss told the MLB Network in 2014. “I was close to getting eaten by a grizzly bear twice.”

Moss talks about it in this fun video:

6. As a kid, Moss and a friend once pretended to be homeless ... to get free pizza. Moss recounted the story to Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle:

“I was maybe 10 and we used to live a block away from a Pizza Hut. So my next-door neighbor and I, we got this idea to dress in old clothes and take a tent and put it behind Pizza Hut and pretend we were homeless kids.”

It worked, too.

7. In his career, Moss has hit more home runs off current Royals pitcher Chris Young (five) than anyone else. The Rangers’ Yu Darvish is second on the list (four), followed by Jeremy Guthrie (three), a former Royal.

This story was originally published February 1, 2017 at 2:24 PM.