Thirty years later, Darryl Motley remains entwined with Royals history

Soon, Ned Yost will win his 404th game as the Royals manager to tie Dick Howser for second place on the franchise career managerial wins list, six behind Whitey Herzog at No. 1.

Yost never knew Howser, he said last year in Cleveland when he passed Howser as the organization’s most enduring manager, but he carries an indelible impression of him as a “heck of a guy.”

When Howser died from brain cancer in June 1987, less than two years after guiding the Royals to their only World Series triumph, Yost was finishing his playing career in a nine-game stint with the Class AAA Richmond Braves.

Former Royal Darryl Motley was a teammate during those few days. And a day after Howser died, Yost recalled last year, Motley got a letter from Howser.

“He wrote all his players right before he died,” Yost said.

As it happens, there is more — and less — to the story.

It starts with Motley’s astonishment that it had been remembered by Yost, who enters Tuesday night’s game against Cleveland with 402 wins with the Royals.

“That is crazy,” said Motley, 55, who believes he received the letter shortly before Howser died, not after.

Howser, though, apparently didn’t write all his former players.

Maybe he didn’t even write any others.

John Wathan and Frank White, for instance, said last week he hadn’t written them, and Motley says, “I haven’t had any of the other guys tell me he sent them a letter.”

Motley, who now is back in the area, moved a zillion times after receiving the letter. His baseball career included stops in Japan and Mexico and lasted until he was 42, but he never again played in the majors after 1987.

With all the moving around, a few items “got away from me over the years,” he said, laughing.

He thinks, though, that he can “almost say I still have the letter.” And he knows he can still recite it verbatim.

“The letter said, ‘Darryl, in life sometimes things have to change. Look at me,’” he said. “It said, ‘I hope that you’re able to straighten this whole thing out and get yourself back to the big leagues.’”

Motley remembers standing in the clubhouse in Richmond as he read those words the first time, feeling “genuinely shocked” that Howser had found it within him to undertake such a gesture as he was about to die.

To this day Motley wonders, “Why me?”

He respected Howser and considered him a good man and a good manager. He remembers sharing a poignant moment with him late in the 1986 season as Howser’s sickness was evident from his hair and weight loss and as Motley was becoming the subject of trade rumors.

As Howser was making the rounds in the clubhouse one day, he asked Motley how he was doing.

“‘I’m alright, Dick; I’m still here,’” Motley recalled saying. “And he said, ‘Yeah, me, too, Mot.’ I’ll never forget it.”

Yet Motley never was quite sure that Howser embraced him. And he believes that skepticism figured in why he was sent to Class AAA Omaha for some of 1986 and traded to Atlanta late in the season just after Bo Jackson had made his Royals debut.

So … why him?

One who perhaps would know is Howser’s widow, Nancy, but she was not able to be reached.

Most likely, why Motley always will remain shrouded, lies somewhere between the mysterious and the mystical.

Or as Motley puts it, “You never know about life.”

One way or another, though, it might be surmised that Howser either was trying to make up for something or simply offer him encouragement and appreciation for what he’d done in a Royals uniform.

And if his letter to Motley was a singular act, well, Motley has a singular signature in Royals — and even Major League Baseball — history.

That’s because of what he did on Oct. 27, 1985, in the Royals’ 11-0 clobbering of the Cardinals in game seven of the World Series.

Motley has spoken most over the years about catching Andy Van Slyke’s fly for the final out of the game in right field, about how he maybe was saying something to himself like “come to papa” as the ball descended and Willie Wilson was crashing his way, wanting the ball, too.

He kept his grip on the ball long after the game, stashed it carefully in his locker and took it home.

When he found his young daughter, Shamaria, starting to draw on it one day, he figured it was best to start keeping it in a safety deposit box.

The ball is completely brown now, he says, but if you look closely you can see the date he wrote on it.

The only thing missing now is that everyone on the team was supposed to contribute $100 to the guy who made the final out.

“I never got my money,” he said, laughing.

The closure and ensuing explosion of emotions after that catch, of course, are what many treasure most about that game.

Given his choice of highlights, though, Motley favors the “home runs.”

It only counted as one, of course, the first of them being ruled foul.

But the plural distinction is essential to the magic of the moment that was the springboard to the romp.

The Royals might well have won game seven without him, of course, but who’s to say for sure?

Certainly, they weren’t going to lose after what he did in the second inning.

As he thought back nearly 30 years to how it came together, Motley revealed details he said he had shared only once before publicly — at a Kansas City Baseball Historical Society meeting a few weeks ago.

On his drive from Leawood to Kauffman Stadium that day, Motley did what he often did then: He stopped at Bannister Mall for a bite to eat — he doesn’t remember what.

Motley always felt like he could unwind there and that nobody would recognize him or mess with him even if they did.

Even on the day of game seven of the World Series.

“It was a peaceful place; it was where I could just sit back, watch the world go by and think about what I had to do,” he said.

In this case, he was thinking in part of what his agent, Steve Fehr, had told him: “If you do something good tonight, you’ll remember this for the rest of your life.”

To Motley, that came to mean trying to hit a home run — despite knowing that wasn’t a good way to think.

“It doesn’t happen on cue,” Motley said, laughing. “Usually when you try to, you pop it up.”

Risks notwithstanding, in a scoreless tie in the second inning against John Tudor of the Cardinals, he was swinging for the fence.

But that was just the beginning of the scene you could follow through YouTube with what might now constitute annotation from Motley.

His mammoth blast down the left field line curled foul … or at least was ruled foul after going over the pole.

“I was kind of skipping down the first baseline going, ‘stay fair, stay fair, stay fair.’ Then it hooks a little foul. I went ‘doggone it,’” he said, laughing and adding, “Well, that’s not what I said, really.”

In frustration, Motley picked up the bat and smacked it on the Astroturf. As he walked back to the plate, he saw a hairline fracture on the handle.

“I tried to ignore it,” he said. “I said, ‘I’m going to use it anyway,’ because it felt real good in my hand, it was balanced. It was the right weight and everything.”

But as he stepped in the box, scratching around as he started to lock in on the next pitch, he suddenly heard teammate Hal McRae’s voice.

Not from the bench … but in his head.

Not in the moment … but from years before.

“‘Look,’” the voice said, “‘you never use a cracked bat.’”

For a millisecond, Motley fought the voice. Then he thought, “Don’t be hard-headed.”

Suddenly, he called timeout, stepped back and called a bat boy over.

He brought Motley two bats, one clear and unfinished, another that was black and said 1985 World Series on it.

“I chose the black one, and I went up there and the next pitch was right there — bang,” he said. “If I close my eyes, I can still see the flight of the (pitch), like it was slowed down.

“It was like I couldn’t miss it.”

Had he not heard McRae in his subconscious and changed bats, of course, the bat probably would have shattered upon impact and the ball would have fizzled out somewhere.

Had he not been of a certain mindset, too, he would have just made the predictable out after being deflated by a would-be home run.

Instead, he hit a two-run homer that set the tone for the blowout, all the more so because of the rare circumstances.

After the game, a “little bitty guy in glasses” approached Motley in the locker room and said he was from the Baseball Hall of Fame. He wanted the bat for Cooperstown, though he gave Motley the option of just loaning it, too.

Once he’d vetted him, Motley gave him the bat and told him, “Leave it there forever.”

Like the place Motley always will stand in Royals history even after being traded away a year later.

He was gone, yes.

But never forgotten by Howser, confounding as that remains to Motley.

This story was originally published June 2, 2015 at 11:27 AM with the headline "Thirty years later, Darryl Motley remains entwined with Royals history."