The Royals Hired George Brett as Their Hitting Coach

[OFFNY]

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http://www.kansascity.com/2013/05/30/4264076/royals-bring-george-brett-onto.html

[Gurgi]

Desperate move?

He should start off by telling the team his famous crapping himself story.

[video=youtube;PseNrUeSmXk]

When the going gets tough. We crap our pants around here!

[Malike]

How many hall of fame hitters made successful hitting coaches? I'm really curious about that.

[Moose Milligan]

Really like George Brett, I hope he excels in this role. I don't care about the Royals that much but I feel bad for Brett...he gave that team his all for 20 years, played on some really great teams....and he's stuck around in the front office and watched drek for a long, long time. It's nice to see that someone cares so much about the organization he played for. I'm sure he could have retired and gone on to play golf all year or maybe landed a cushy ESPN job, but he's decided to work for his former team through thick and thin and it looks like he'll do whatever it takes to make them better.

[weams]

Really like George Brett, I hope he excels in this role. I don't care about the Royals that much but I feel bad for Brett...he gave that team his all for 20 years, played on some really great teams....and he's stuck around in the front office and watched drek for a long, long time. It's nice to see that someone cares so much about the organization he played for. I'm sure he could have retired and gone on to play golf all year or maybe landed a cushy ESPN job, but he's decided to work for his former team through thick and thin and it looks like he'll do whatever it takes to make them better.

Didn't he sign a lifetime contract?

[Moose Milligan]

Didn't he sign a lifetime contract?

Did he? Hadn't heard that.

I looked at his stats again after posting that last post, he had some monster seasons. Lead the league in OPS 3 times in a 6 year period, lead the league in slugging each of those three years, too.

[SeaBird]

Brett signed a "lifetime" contract with Royals then part-owner Avron Fogelman in 1984 which was more of a business partnership involving real estate investment deals. The contract was structured to keep Brett on KC's payroll indefinitely.

But in the winter of 1990, Brett had said he made a big mistake when he signed the contract because many less talented players were getting better contracts/more money and that hurt his pride and ego. Brett wanted his contract redone and he was not looking forward to going to going to spring training. He even said that the Royals should trade him if they wouldn't renegotiate his $1.5M a year deal which ran through 1991 and had options for 2 additional years.

Fogelman moved on from the ownership role in 1991 so I have no idea what the status of Brett's deal is now although Brett did retire in 1993. Obviously, with his ongoing relationship with the team there has been some type of contract in place.

[OFFNY]

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I don't know if Brett's presence has anything to do with it, but the Royals have gone 9-4 since he came aboard.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/team/schedule/_/name/kc/kansas-city-royals

The Royals have gotten themselves back to a respectable 30-33 record overall.

[Il BuonO]

Really like George Brett, I hope he excels in this role. I don't care about the Royals that much but I feel bad for Brett...he gave that team his all for 20 years, played on some really great teams....and he's stuck around in the front office and watched drek for a long, long time. It's nice to see that someone cares so much about the organization he played for. I'm sure he could have retired and gone on to play golf all year or maybe landed a cushy ESPN job, but he's decided to work for his former team through thick and thin and it looks like he'll do whatever it takes to make them better.

I have always liked him. I used to pull for the Royals when the Orioles weren't in it all those years they battled the Yankees. To me he was the ultimate competitor. It makes perfect sense that he'd be the guy to do something like this.

[OFFNY]

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Brett stepped down as the hitting coach last week, but the Royals as a team are winning at a torrid pace. They've won 9 games in a row, and 11 out of 13 since the All-Star break.

Cain's Circus Catch helps Royals Push Streak to Nine with 7-2 Win over Twins

(Bob Dutton)

http://www.kansascity.com/2013/08/01/4383101/cains-circus-catch-helps-royals.html#storylink=cpy

[OFFNY]

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Royals Keep Winning, Prove Skeptics Wrong

(By David Schoenfield)

http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/38797/royals-keep-winning-prove-skeptics-wrong

O

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Three Reasons for the Sustained Winning (Schoendield):

1. Pitching, pitching, pitching.

2. Eric Hosmer is hitting.

3. The schedule.

Three Reasons For Concern (Schoendield):

1. Santana won't continue to pitch this well.

2. The back of the rotation.

3. The schedule.

[OFFNY]

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This entire season has been one big roller-coaster ride for the Royals.

They are 65-64 overall after 129 games.

Today, they take on the Rays in M.L.B.'s lone matinee at 2:10 P.M.

Also, it's once again Jeremy vs. Jeremy, but this time, Guthrie is not pitching for the Orioles.

TAMPA BAY DEVIL RAYS

David DeJesus - CF

Ben Zobrist - 2B

Evan Longoria - DH

Matt Joyce - LF

Wil Myers - RF

James Loney - 1B

Jose Lobaton - C

Kelly Johnson - 3B

Yunel Escobar - SS

Jeremy Hellickson - RHP (10-7, 5.01 ERA)

KANSAS CITY ROYALS

Alex Gordon - LF

Emilio Bonifacio - 2B

Eric Hosmer - 1B

Billy Butler - DH

Mike Moustakas - 3B

Salvador Perez - C

Justin Maxwell - RF

Alcides Escobar - SS

Jarrod Dyson - CF

Jeremy Guthrie - RHP (12-10, 4.27 ERA)

http://baseballpress.com/lineup.php

[OFFNY]

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Even though Guthrie is at 88 pitches after 4 innings, he got out of a bog jam last inning by limiting the damage to 1 run.

5-1 Royals, heading into the 5th.