Mr. George Brett of the KC Royals
When I visit my parents, I love watching MLB on TV: Cards or Royals, I don’t care. The sounds of the ballpark, the announcers, the count, the snick of the bat hitting the ball…it’s the soundtrack of my youth. My dad’s always been a rabid baseball fan. I can’t think of a summer night growing up where the Royals or Cardinals weren’t on TV, or if we were in the car, on the radio. As a kid, whenever we piled in the car, I wanted to hear music, and since my parents were country music fans (thus, so was I), I pleaded with Dad to turn the car radio to an FM station playing Ronnie Milsap or Alabama or Barbara Mandrell. Usually he would, but on a night when one of Missouri’s two baseball teams were playing – which, given the MLB schedule of approximately 400 games per team per season, was every night – the car radio was tuned to the game on AM radio. I’d initially start out pouting, but not for long, because those announcers were able to create a vision of what they were seeing in the ballpark, and we were transfixed.
There was a game one night in 1980-something – I don’t think it was a particularly important one – but George Brett was up to bat and had a full count. The bases were loaded, it was bottom of the 9th, the Royals were down by 3, and the opposing team’s pitcher had to have been sweating bullets. Any Royals fan considered George Brett to be a god: lifetime contract, batting average consistently in the .300’s and a lefty to boot – this was going to be good. As a fellow lefty, I felt an affinity with Mr. Brett that I was certain would end in marriage at some point. My 12-year-old fingernails were bitten to the nubs. We’d pulled up in the drive 5 minutes ago, but none of us in the car could turn off the ignition and head into the house. We waited…summer night, cicadas chirping outside, lightening bugs flickering in the yard, the humid night seeping into the car, but my dad, mom, brother, sister and I couldn’t move. George kept fouling pitch after pitch. The count remained 3-2 for A YEAR.
Suddenly a snick, and the announcer was screaming: “It’s gone, it’s outta there, George Brett has hit a grand slam to win the game for the Royals!” That sealed it: George Brett was my future husband.
Do NOT get me started on the 1985 World Series.
I’ve just arrived back in Texas after a week in Missouri, and while I unpack, I turn on the TV. FOX is broadcasting the Royals and Dodgers game, but without my dad and mom, the cicadas, the twilight and my 12-year-old optimism for what my life is going to look like, it’s like eating a fried bologna sandwich at 40: I’m not clear what the appeal is.
Right now it’s 3-2, and the Royals are down by a run. I try to be interested in the outcome of the game, but what I really want is my dad drinking a beer in a can in a coozie in a Lazyboy. It’s been 12 hours since I left Missouri, and I want to be home.
P.S. I did not end up marrying George Brett.
