Fridays with Mac: "A Big Hit"

Right off the bat, your scribe promises the story is true concerning the greatest player in Kansas City Royals history in Hall of Fame third baseman George Brett. It’s a pretty good one from long ago in his early years as an emerging superstar for the hot-shot Royals of the late 70’s and early 80’s.

Let me set the scene. Fellow Drive for Five fanatic Crissy Perham and this dude needing a transplant were discussing ways to alert youth, especially Black and Brown kiddos, to the importance of wellness to AVOID kidney disease. The discussion focused on working with organizations like The Buddy Fund in St. Louis. It serves vulnerable youth through providing sports equipment and other important items to underserved children who don’t have much access to such stuff.

The Buddy Fund’s named after legendary Cardinals and Royals broadcaster Buddy Blattner. The Hall of Fame voice handled play-by-play for the Redbirds for two decades before shifting west to Kansas City in 1969 and doing the Royals formative years. I grew up in Kansas City in those days.

Anyway, back to Perham. The self proclaimed sassy superstar and kidney donor won two golds and a sliver in the butterfly at the ’92 Barcelona Games and totally gets the Drive for Five mission, barks out, “The Cardinals and the Royals? They were my favorite teams growing up!”

The Iowa native went to the University of Arizona, won Olympic fame and married a career military guy. Worldly. The athletic young girl loved the two teams. Especially the talented, charismatic and cute third baseman for the Royals. Perham was not the only teenage girl swooning over the young and single Brett. He was quite popular with many. “He was one of my heroes,” says Perham.

My brain was buzzing when countering. “I got a George Brett story for you.”

Back in the day when baseball dreams occupied a lot of your correspondent’s thinking, I was blessed to have a summer baseball coach who was also a scout for the Royals. Whenever I wanted to catch a game, Carl “Smoky” Blando, could secure tickets. My girl friend and I went to many games together.

One time the seats were awesome. Right behind home plate. Today? You couldn’t touch those type of tickets for under $200 ticket. It was “Halter Top” night at then Royals Stadium. Today it’s called “Kauffman” after the Royals’ initial owners Ewing and Muriel Kauffman.

Girlfriend and dumb-jock boyfriend had premium seats. The Royals dugout had an excellent look at the tall, tanned and energetic college coed sitting in the front row. About halfway through the game between innings, a Royals' bat boy comes jogging over. The young man says to the green-eyed beauty (that ain’t me), “George would like your phone number.”

Girlfriend looks at me. Remember, I idolized this guy too. I nodded affirmatively. Brett had the coveted digits. Next day, we’re hanging at girlfriend’s house. The phone rings. It was Brett. There’s no recollection of what was discussed but recall the chat was friendly, not freaky. I was sitting nearby and laughing my buttocks off. Nothing transpired thereafter. Back then? Brett probably had many, similar, preliminary calls. He was a heart throb.

Perham and I are chuckling about how our lives have intersected through the Drive for Five network and this new-found link to Brett. Remember when the Hall of Fame stud charged from the Royals’ dugout and went after an umpire who ruled his homer to right field at Yankee Stadium was nullified? The infamous 1983 “Pine Tar” game?

The way the 13-time All Star sprinted from the dugout? Drive for Five’s trying to get others to charge in similar fashion and do something about the kidney and wellness crisis America faces. We need more live organ donations and less high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes and fatty liver disease. They are kidney killers much like Brett was a Yankee killer.

But on halter-top night long ago? Nobody killed it more than Marv and Rosie’s beautiful daughter. A big hit for the slugger and a lifetime memory for your, at the time, star-struck correspondent.