Not so fast, Yankees Baseball Network

Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of the pine-tar incident, when KC Royals third baseman George Brett hit a two-out, two-run homerun off closer Goose Gossage at Yankee Stadium to give the Royals a one-run lead—until, that is, Yankees manager Billy Martin accused him of using a bat with excessive pine tar up the handle and asked the umpires to disqualify him and call him out. Which they did. Which led to Brett storming out of the dugout in insane, eyeball-popping fashion. Which has made for a fun video clip ever since. 

Asked by ESPN's William Weinbaum what it's like to be known as the pine-tar guy, Brett responds that everyone's known for something and before that he was known as the hemorrhoids guy (cf., 1980 World Series), so pine tar isn't so bad. Me, I'm like, “Isn't Brett just known as one of the best hitters in baseball history? And one of the last guys to challenge .400? And a great Yankee-killer in the postseason? Plus a handsome SOB?” Let's get our priorities straight, people.

There are two stand-out quotes in their interview for me. The first is Brett describing July 24, 1983:

We were playing the team that I despise the most, the New York Yankees, and they despise me.

Gotta love him for that. The other is when Weinbaum asks him whether he watches the clip much. He says he doesn't seek it out but he doesn't turn away, either. Then this:

Showed it to my kids a whole bunch of times when they were young. I wanted to see the look on their faces when I got mad. I told them, “You better never make me this mad.” And they never did.

Is Brett the greatest Yankee killer of all time? He's in the running—even if his exploits didn't always lead to the Yankees being killed. Royals won the AL West in 1976, '77, '78 and '80, and faced the Yankees in the ALCS each time, and they didn't finally get to the World Series until 1980. But at least that was a sweep. 

These are Brett's numbers during those Yankees series:

Not sure what number I like best: that 1.056 slugging percentage (slugging percentage!) during the '78 ALCS; or the fact that over these 17 games he struck out exactly twice.

For those who don't know: the AL president wound up overruling the umps on the pine-tar call, for not being in the spirit of the rule (pine tar doesn't help you hit homers); the rest of the game was played several weeks later from after the homer, with Brett tossed for rushing the field like a madman, and the Royals won, 5-4. Brett watched the end from an Italian restaurant in New Jersey—another detail from the interview I liked.

Final thought? Billy would've killed for a player like Brett. He was exactly the kind of guy he wanted on his team.