We had a new manager in 1980, Jim Frey. I didn’t think my situation was any different. I was still trying to prove myself. In 1979 I didn’t play a full season. I started playing regularly a month after the season started when Al Cowens got hurt. Over the winter, they had traded AC to the Angels for Willie Aikens.
The 1980 season was really going to be my first full season, but what I was trying to do at the beginning of the year was just keep a job. I was still remembering that in 1978 I’m hitting .292 or .298 or something and Whitey came up and said I wasn’t hitting high enough and he benched me.
In 1980, I’m thinking I have to do something in the first 18 games to keep a job. I didn’t have a great start, I think the first 18 games I’m only hitting .250 – did I say I always get off to slow starts? The new manager wasn’t like Whitey at all. If it had been Whitey, I don’t know if I would have stayed in the lineup. I didn’t know what was being said in the front office or manager-wise. I just know I was worried. I’m thinking I don’t know this new guy. I don’t know what he thinks.
But he kept writing my name in the lineup, and after so many days I finally quit worrying and just relaxed. Then, I had something to prove. I wanted to prove to everybody that I could play, that I could hit, that I knew what I was doing. Everybody kept saying, “He can’t hit.” Well, you can either run away from that or try and make it a challenge and do something about it.
At the start of the 1980 season I received this Silver Spike award for winning the stolen base title during the 1979 season.
I started the season in left where I was really comfortable. I think they wanted to move me to center because of my speed, but Amos was reluctant to give it up. I think it was in Baltimore that we made a change, and he played a few games in left. It didn’t really work out. He was mad, and I was really feeling that vibe on the field. I went into the manager’s office after a series to talk to them about switching us back. I didn’t want Amos mad at me. I knew I could play left field. I was judging balls a lot better. I was starting to learn how to play the corners of the outfield in Royals Stadium where the ball just hugged the wall rather than bouncing off. I was starting to really learn how to play in the outfield. Amos was more comfortable in center. I told them when they switched us around it was making him more angry and me more defensive.
We switched back. He relaxed, and I relaxed. I had a pretty good May and June, I was hitting about .325 in both those months. The team was playing really well, we were taking about two out of three games every series. Everybody was having a pretty good year. That was the year that Darrel Porter came back from his drug rehab and he hit about .290 or something. U.L. (Washington) hit .280-something. George – he hit great. Everybody who was playing was hitting great. The pitching was really solid.
We all fed off each other.
We had a mission together as a team. The Royals had been successful getting into the playoffs, but they weren’t successful winning in the playoffs and going to the World Series. When I came up for the month in ’76 they were in their first run to the playoffs. I got a chance in that month to feel the excitement and then to see the pain they felt in the playoffs.
In 1977, more pain and agony. That team was probably the best team the Royals had record wise. They were just ungodly. I think when I came up from AAA they had won 13 in a row, lost one and then won 10 in a row. That was kind of cool to see that.
Then, in 1978, I got a chance to play at the start of that season, and in the playoffs I got to bat against Ron Guidry and get a hit. There was a play in that series when I got thrown out at third. I swear – to this day – that I was safe. That was in the fifth inning of Game 4. Hal McRae was at bat with one out and the score tied. If I had been called safe – like I was – I would have been on third with one out and scored on his fly ball to right field. The Yankees went on to win that game 2-1. We didn’t come close to scoring in the final four innings of that game.
That was the year that I first knew the kind of pain you felt when you lost a playoff because I had been with the team the whole year. Then, in 1979, we didn’t get into the playoffs.
So, we were on a mission in 1980 to basically get to the World Series. I got really hot in July, hit .479. The weather was aloshot. I was feeling really good. Switch hitting was really feeling like it was normal for the first time. And I was feeling like if I needed a hit I could just make it happen. Damn near every ball I hit was to left field. And I felt like all I had to do was get the bat on the ball. I always thought if I could make the third baseman or the shortstop move two to three steps either way I could beat their throw to first. I was learning how to “jam” myself, let the ball get right in on my hands and then make an inside-out swing. Hit a high chopper and then beat out the throw.
It was a really unbelievable feeling. It was just fun. We were winning. We were laughing and smiling and having a great, great time. That’s what I was used to doing all through junior high and high school. Even in the minor leagues we had won. So, this was just part of me finishing up winning at the next level.
It was also a real learning year for me. It was the first time I really understood that the better you played and the better your team was the less time you had for yourself. That was a hard lesson for me.
I’m not a Terrell Owens type guy, and I’m not into that, “Rah, rah, rah, look at me I’m the man, deal.” I didn’t like dealing with all the stuff surrounding the game because I had to get into the right frame of mind to play well. I prepared for every game like a football player. I had to sort of work myself up into a rage. So, I didn’t want anybody bothering me during batting practice. I didn’t want to do any interviews. I didn’t want to sign any autographs. That was my time to get prepared to play in a game. I wasn’t ever really good about all the outside stuff when I was playing because I thought it was taking away from my job, which was to play baseball.
That was the year that George had that spectacular month and he went up over .400. He ended up batting .390. There was so much attention on his chase, I don’t think anybody even knew I hit .326 that year. I think I broke or tied seven Major League records and nobody even frickin’ knew it – which was great. I wasn’t ready to be in the spotlight.
That’s the year that people started putting me in another category, which sort of messed me up. You are going from a nobody to a superstar in one year. Boom! Boom! Everybody started looking at me differently: the fans, the other teams, the TV, the newspapers. Newspapers want you to say something before and after every game. Before, nobody cared what I had to say, which was fine with me. I just wanted to play. Now the TV wants an interview, the newspaper all of a sudden cares what I think. What it basically comes down to, in a nutshell, your time for yourself is eliminated.
I was a person who tried to control everything, and I had no control. If you aren’t a guy who likes the publicity, you tend to shy away from it. That’s where I was. I shied away – and sometimes I didn’t do it very diplomatically.
Because of the year I was having, people started to put more of a spotlight on me. I think George got hurt at one point, then the light on me was even brighter for a while. It was a different kind of pressure because people are looking at me differently, more as a leader. But I’m not looking at me any differently.
In my mind, I wasn’t a leader. The leaders were Amos (Otis) and Hal (McRae) and Frank (White) and George (Brett). I was part of a great team, but those guys had been the foundation of those previous playoff teams. In my brain, I was thinking I didn’t want to draw attention to myself because then other teams would start noticing me more and put more attention on getting me out.
In one respect, all the attention is great because it means you have accomplished something, and you get a bigger contract and can do this and that. But in the other respect, as a player, your opponents begin focusing on you. One advantage I had in the beginning was that nobody knew me. When I was getting put in some of those other categories, I couldn’t handle it.
After the game you were just supposed to turn it off as soon as it’s over. Well, if I struck out four times, it’s hard for me to go, “Eh, it’s all right.” I was 24-years old. I was cussing myself out. I wasn’t a patient person. Someone would ask me a question after the game, I would go all “Jersey” on them, man. It would get nutty. Later on when I had cooled down a little bit I would feel bad about it, but by then people are gone.
I was just young. I was only 24. I was married. I had a kid. I was going from being a nobody to a somebody. All I really wanted to do was do my job and go home. That’s all. But the better you do your job the less time you have. Everybody wants, wants, wants. And it’s all different. Your kids are wanting stuff. Your wife is wanting stuff. Other players are wanting stuff. Fans are wanting stuff. Reporters want more of your time. The Royals want you to sign all this stuff for them.
What it basically comes down to, in a nutshell, is that your me time is eliminated, and I wasn’t really ready for that. I think teams are a lot better at preparing their players for that now. If I had understood all that before I got to the big leagues, my mindset would have been different. Now, I’m not saying I would have liked it any better or I would have dealt with it any better, but if I had been told in the minor leagues that this was your obligation when you get to the Major Leagues it would not have been such a shock when it happened.
Program for New Jersey Sports Writers Association 45th Anniversary Awards Banquet when I was honored as New Jersey Pro Athlete of the Year.
It seemed like I was always doing something for somebody else. And every time I would think I was done, one more guy wanted to ask me for an autograph. I’m trying to get to something my kid is doing. Then the guy cusses me out and then I would get mad. I would go, “Dude, what the hell! Don’t you have kids? Why are your kids more important than my kids?” And someone would hear bits and parts of the conversation and then I’m the bad guy. So, now I really go into hibernation because I just couldn’t handle it.
Playing the game during those times was more relaxing to me than outside of the game because I just had to deal with the game and whether I could get a hit or steal a base.
The other thing is this was the first year I was playing this many games. I didn’t know how hard you could play or if you would get tired. People were saying to me, “Willie, if you go, the Royals go.” It wasn’t just reporters. It was guys on my team. So, you’re trying harder for them.
We finish up the season pretty strong. And now we’re playing the Yankees again in the playoffs. I always loved playing the Yankees, especially in Yankee Stadium because it wasn’t a road game for me. To me it was going back home. My mom was there. All my friends from Summit were there. People from my mom’s church were getting buses to come over. I had a great season against the Yankees that year, statistically, because I was so comfortable there.
I knew all the Yankees guys from playing basketball over the winter with them when I was in AA. Jeff Torborg, who was a Jersey guy, got all these players to go around New Jersey, New York and parts of Pennsylvania. We would play benefit basketball games. Some of the guys I played with on those teams were Mickey Rivers, Roy White, Paul Blair, Johnny Briggs, Chris Chambliss ... So, when I went to play the Yankees, I had hung out with those guys since AA. When I made it to the big leagues I wasn’t intimidated by them.
That also helped me dealing with the Major League guys on the Royals, too. I had been hanging with some superstars over the winters. I wasn’t as intimidated by the Royals guys who had gotten to the playoffs when I was in spring training. But I felt really at home when I played the Yankees. I had a lot of good things working for me.
The only problem for me in New York was getting tickets. We got six tickets for every game. I would start trading with guys as soon as I got to spring training. I’d give the guys who lived in California or somewhere else as many tickets as I could so I could get their tickets for games in New York. I don’t know how many tickets I needed every time, but it was a lot. My mother would say, “I need tickets for blah, blah, blah.” And I would say, “You know I only get six, mom.”
When I was playing those hoops games with the Yankees players in the winter, Gene Michael got me a tryout with the Chicago Bulls. They were playing in the Garden against the Knicks and had a practice session. So, I go in and dressed with them, then we did drills, took some jump shots and had a little scrimmage.
I was the point guard on the backup team. Artis Gilmore was the center, Jerry Sloan and Norm Van Lier were their guards. Well, I’m from Jersey, so I’m brash. We talked some stuff, and then I drove down the middle and hooked it up over Artis for a basket. Artis looks at me and goes, “Don’t come back in here with that crap again.”
But I’m cocky now. So after a little bit I’m going to go down the middle again. He smacked that ball and kind of knocked me down. When I looked up all I could see was the bottom of sneakers. I rolled out of bounds. He looked at me and said, “I told you not to come in here with that crap again.”
It was pretty cool because my mom used to come down early when we were in batting practice. She would always meet me at the same spot by the away dugout. The guards began to know her. That was pretty cool because she became somewhat of a celebrity. That made me feel good because she was getting some attention.
Well, we had lost to the Yankees in the playoffs three years in a row and had one year off to think about it coming up against them again. So, a lot of things are going through your brain.
“Are we good enough to beat the big boys from New York City?”
“Are we going to catch a break?”
They always seemed to rise to the occasion. They always got the key hit. We would hit a ball hard, but right at someone. What I remember about this year is that we were really excited to play them. We had beat the Yankees more during the season that year than any other year. So, confidence-wise we knew we could beat them.
I knew they were worried about me getting on a lot, and I knew I needed to have good games. If I got on and did what I needed to do, then George was going to do what he needed to do and everybody was doing their job.
We won the first game 7-2 at Royals Stadium, and in the second game we got one of those breaks that the Yankees always seemed to get. We’re leading 3-2 in the eighth. Dennis Leonard is pitching for us, and Willie Randolph is on first with two outs. He could run pretty good. Bob Watson hit a ball down the left-field line. I had played left so long I knew it was going to hit off the wall and bounce back instead of hug the wall. So, I ran to a spot where I thought it was going to bounce. It came right to me, and I just turned and threw. I didn’t even take a step, I just threw it.
The ball went over the first cutoff man’s head, which was a blessing in disguise for us. That’s when the Yankees third-base coach, I think it was Mike Ferraro, sent Willie home. The ball came right to George, and George turned and made a great throw to Porter and we got him at home. That helped us win game two, and then we went to Yankee Stadium.
What I remember most about this game was how quiet it became in the seventh inning when George hit that home run against Rich Gossage. We were behind 2-1, and had two outs. I hit a double off Tommy John, and then the Yankees brought Goose Gossage out of the bullpen. U.L. (Washington) hits a single to second base. Now, I’m on third and U.L. is on first. George, who’s had this spectacular year, comes up against Gossage.
Boom!
The people were just stunned. It was so quiet in Yankee Stadium you could hear the trains going by on the subway. Then two innings later Quiz throws the last pitch for a strikeout, and we’re all celebrating there at home plate. To be able to do that in front of my mom and all the people I knew back home was just pure joy.