On 40th anniversary of Pine Tar Game, George Brett remains proud of principled rampage

Vida Blue was drafted by the Kansas City Athletics in 1967, just before they moved to Oakland and he became a phenom. But in the twilight years of a stellar career, he spent two seasons here as a Royal.

Brief as that was, it was long enough to make an impression on National Baseball Hall of Famer George Brett, who thought of him as “True Blue” and a great teammate.

And it was long enough that Blue’s death last week led to a reminiscence of an indelible, absurd and telling moment in the history of Brett, the Royals and even baseball itself 40 years ago this summer.

“Oh my God,” said Brett, stunned at the sudden realization of how long ago it was … and speaking only days from turning 70 on May 15.

To reset: Billy Martin, the irascible and ever-instigating manager of the New York Yankees, initiated a protest of Brett’s pine-tar slathered bat after a go-ahead home run off Goose Gossage with two outs in the ninth inning at Yankee Stadium in July 1983.

As Brett recalled Monday, Blue was beside him in the dugout as umpires deliberated and Brett seethed. Turned towards Blue and Frank White on the other side of Blue, Brett said if he was called out he was going to run out and kill one of those (SOBs).

Next thing you know, a screaming, flailing and otherwise berserk Brett charged home plate umpire Tim McClelland. He truly looked like a man possessed, which is why crew chief Joe Brinkman intervened, restrained and even got a chokehold around Brett as chaos ensued.

In a Sports Illustrated oral history of the Pine Tar Game years later, Gossage simply said, “I have never seen anyone as mad as George Brett on that day.”

But there are a lot of reasons why Brett wouldn’t change what he did.

“I’m proud of it,” he said on Monday before the Joe McGuff ALS Golf Classic Tournament at the Nicklaus Golf Club at LionsGate.

Never mind that he initially was surprised it was such a big deal that one of his brothers called him in the team hotel that night to tell him they’d interrupted the Dodgers game for a news flash about the incident. Or that when he first saw the replay of what he now calls a “classic” video, he has said in the past, he couldn’t believe what he looked like and has even wondered before if he blacked out with anger.

Rage as he did, though, Brett has insisted repeatedly over the years that he never would have hit McClelland. Besides, Brett likes to tell the story with a grin, McClelland was much bigger, clad in chest protector and shin guards and had a bat in hand.

Still, the depth of his conviction — an underappreciated matter of principle — was about as evident after the game as it was when he bolted out of the dugout.

“If they want to suspend me, they can suspend me, and I’ll never play again,” he said, according to The Associated Press report that night. “If I had any guts, I would retire.”

In certain ways, the scene stayed just as meaningful to him ever since.

And, no, not just because the pine tar proved to be a cure for hemorrhoids — at least in the sense of how his ill-timed bout during the 1980 World Series followed him until the date he knows by heart.

“It’s what I’m known for,” Brett said on the 30th anniversary of The Pine Tar game. “From 1980, playing in the World Series against the Phillies when I had a case of hemorrhoids, whenever I went on the on-deck circle until July 24, 1983, I heard every hemorrhoid joke in the world. I was the hemorrhoid guy.

“All of a sudden, after July 24, 1983, to now, I have to remind people I had hemorrhoids. So what would you rather be remembered for …?”

But he takes pride in the pine tar memories for numerous reasons, including that it was a warped interpretation of a rule and the vindication that the home run ultimately was ruled valid in rebuke to Martin’s gamesmanship — which was part of the sheer hatred between those teams at the time.

While reprimanding Brett and other Royals for their behavior, then-American League commissioner Lee MacPhail upheld the Royals protest and reversed the initial ruling days later.

“It’s A Homer, By George!” was the page one headline in The Star, where one sports staffer told The Associated Press that he thought “we’ve heard from everybody who ever lived in Kansas City.”

MLB then had to navigate some legal wrangling with the Yankees at the behest of owner George Steinbrenner, who suggested MacPhail “start house-hunting in Missouri.” But the Royals finally claimed the 5-4 victory by returning to New York to play the last four outs on Aug. 18.

Suspended from the proceedings were Brett, manager Dick Howser, coach Rocky Colavito and pitcher Gaylord Perry, who had whisked away the bat amid the mayhem on the field.

But that was a small price to pay for a bigger point made.

McPhail’s verdict was based on the notion that the ruling wasn’t in “accord with the intent or spirit of the rules” intended to literally clean up the game by having bats with excessive pine tar removed for staining balls — not to have the hitter be called out for its use.

To the crux of the matter, MacPhail told the Palm Beach Post years later, “I felt the pine tar didn’t have anything to do with him hitting the ball out of the ballpark. We were trying to stop pine tar from getting on the bats, ruining a lot of balls.”

That’s part of a crucial point in all this that sometimes gets lost.

And it seems to me that it spoke to much of Brett’s fury that day.

It wasn’t just that the home run apparently was being denied and that Brett was a zealous competitor.

It was what the implication of Martin’s action and the initial ruling was.

“I was very happy to see Lee come out and say I was not a cheater,” Brett said at a news conference in Detroit when MacPhail’s decision was announced, “because that’s what I was worried about more than anything.”

When I called him to ask him about that Thursday morning, Brett reiterated the point: Martin and the Yankees were basically accusing him of cheating … and in the process essentially smearing his reputation and (my words here) even his baseball identity.

When Brett got back his bat, he cleaned it up with alcohol and used a felt pen to draw the line at the 18-inch limit before he resumed using it. After all, it had served him well for weeks.

The durability helps explain both how it all came to what it did and the spread and saturation of the pine tar in the hands of the career .305 hitter who did not wear batting gloves.

In fact, Brett was using that very bat two weeks before the episode when the Yankees played the Royals in Kansas City and essentially began hatching a plan to try to ensnare him the next time he had a big hit against them.

Soon after its return, though, Perry persuaded Brett to retire the bat because of its historic value. It’s long been on loan from Brett for display in the National Baseball Hall of Fame, where Brett likes to go see it but still regrets cleaning it up,

Over the years, Brett became what he calls “really good friends” with Gossage and certainly became friendly with McClelland and has relationships with others in the fray that day.

But when I asked him if he ever spoke with the late Martin, Brett just said “no” beyond what few words they exchanged when Martin previously had managed him in All-Star Games.

Brett played in 13 of those in his storied career. He was the 1980 American League MVP, and he was a postseason force as those Royals played in two World Series and won it all in 1985. And so much more.

But he doesn’t remember some of the most profound dates of his career. Like Oct. 10, 1980, when he hit the monster three-run homer off Gossage in Game 3 of the 1980 American League Championship Series to finally get past the Yankees after the Royals had lost to them in the ALCS in 1976, 1977 and 1978.

Or the date (Aug. 2) of his big-league debut beyond the fact it was in 1973 — 50 years ago, another milestone that hadn’t occurred to him.

Yet July 24, 1983 is ingrained.

In part, that’s because collectors at autograph shows often want him to sign scenes from that day and include the date.

But it’s also because the date stood for something quite more than just the tantrum.

It was about his competitiveness, to be sure. And an intense feud.

Most of all, though, it was a confrontation with a cheap insult and a statement about the very way he played the game.

Which, forever to Kansas City’s fortunes, is what he’s really known for 50 years after his career began and 40 years after that scene and as he turns 70.