Once rivals, Royals great George Brett is now close friends with Goose Gossage
George Brett had arguably the biggest home run in Royals history and the most famous one.
Those are not one in the same.
The former came in the 1980 American League Championship Series when Brett crushed a three-run homer off Yankees star Goose Gossage that ultimately finished the Royals’ three-game sweep. That sent the Royals to their first World Series.
Nearly any baseball fan knows the most famous home run, which also came against Gossage. This one was in the Pine-Tar Game in 1983.
For a decade, the Royals’ rivalry with the Yankees was one of the most intense in baseball as they met in the playoffs four times in a five-season span. Perhaps nothing epitomized the thought of those clashes than Brett vs. Gossage.
Brett had a .286 average against Gossage in the regular season and hit .333 in the postseason. But Gossage got the better of Brett in the 1978 ALCS, retiring him twice.
These days, the animosity is long gone and the two are close friends, as Brett noted in the Road to Cooperstown podcast with Jon Paul Morosi.
“When we’re around other people, we play golf together and somebody will always bring it up,” Brett said of the Pine-Tar Game. “Goose doesn’t like to have any alcohol but I do and people will come up, and you know, I’m having a beer and he’s having a Coke or whatever he’s drinking.
“And the next thing you know that will come up and he says, ‘That son of a (gun) I was trying to hit him right in the frickin’ neck. I said I want to drill that son of a (gun) right in the neck and I didn’t get it there. The ball was up and in and I’ve never seen a guy get on top of a fastball like that.’”
Brett added that Gossage laughs when recalling that story. And Brett is glad Gossage’s pitch was in the zone rather than in, you know, the neck.
“When you faced him, it was elbows, knees, hips, everything,” Brett said. “And it was as hard as he was going to throw it every pitch. ...
“I knew the best player I could be was not trying to hit home runs. I was just trying to hit the ball hard. If I were to try to hit a home run off Goose on either of those swings, I would have swung and missed or popped it straight up in air.”
The Yankees beat the Royals in three straight ALCS matchups from 1976-78, but thanks in part to Brett’s home run, Kansas City got its revenge in 1980 and won the pennant.
There were some epic brawls between the clubs, particularly Brett’s fisticuffs with Graig Nettles in the 1977 ALCS and Hal McRae’s hard slide into Willie Randolph.
“I never thought he would and I would be close friends, but we are,” Brett said of Gossage. “Reggie Jackson, who I always disliked as a player, he and I have become extremely, extremely good friends. I’ve flown from Arizona to Florida, the last two years, for one day just to play in his golf tournament. He and I have really struck a great friendship.
“Some of the older guys that are no longer there, I was really good friends with Yogi (Berra). I never thought I’d be good friends with Yogi. But they would always put me and him on the same golf team every year on Saturday. And we had so much fun together and his lovely wife Carmen.“
Challenged by Royals owner
One of the few seasons in which Brett struggled came in 1984 when he batted .284 with 13 home runs. He played in just 104 games because of a hamstring injury.
The Royals won the AL West but were swept in the ALCS by the Detroit Tigers. Brett, who hit .231 in the playoffs, recalled on the podcast that he was approached by Avron Fogelman, who was the minority owner.
“I guess I could say I thought my career was on cruise control,” Brett said. “I was very successful, never working out in the offseason and not paying much attention to what was going on around me. And all of a sudden it was brought up to me by a guy that owned 49% of the Royals, Avron Fogelman, that I let him down because he was paying me more than anybody else on the team, and I couldn’t stay healthy. And it looked like I didn’t care if we won or lost and I wasn’t taking a lot of pride in myself.
“And he kinda let me know that. And so that winter, I hired a guy that I went to high school with and we worked out every day and kinda refocused on my career. ... That drive to be the best wasn’t there. … So I rededicated myself in the winter of ’84.“
The following season, Brett batted .335 and led the league in slugging percentage (.585) and OPS (1.022). He finished second the AL MVP voting to Don Mattingly.
“In ‘85, played (155) games and I thought it was the best year I ever had. I hit 30 home runs and a hundred and some (112) RBIs and scored a hundred (108) runs,” Brett said. “And we were last in the league in, I think, runs scored and home runs, the Royals in ‘85, and we won the World Series. But we did it with pitching and defense and some timely home runs.
“Avron Fogelman said (in ’84), ‘You owe me more than that. I went to bat for you, gave you that contract.’ And sure enough, I rededicated myself. Maybe instead of playing four or five more years, I got a chance to play eight more years. I started working out and I still workout.”
Brett played through the 1993 season and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame five years later.
This story was originally published June 26, 2024 at 8:59 AM.
