Brett Hit Hard Off The Field

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Trying to hit a 90-mph fastball pales in comparison to what has happened off the field for George Brett this season.

Of course, hitting has been a big enough problem in itself for Brett. He endured the worst slump of his career - 1 for 40 - as the Kansas City Royals lurched to a 1-16 start.

Brett's mood swung from the happiness of a first marriage at age 39 - he and the former Leslie Davenport married in February - to a vow that he would quit at the All-Star break if he could not buy a hit.

"I think I was hitting about .130 and I had to ask myself `How much fun am I having?' " said Brett, a career .308 hitter and a three-time batting champion. "I just was not helping the team. I had to ask myself, `How am I helping the team?"'

Then the real bomb dropped.

Brett's father called one night to say he was dying of brain cancer. He had waited a month to tell Brett because he knew how badly his son felt about how he and the team were playing and did not want to burden him further.

This was a tough relationship between father and son.

Brett was the youngest of four brothers. He and his brother John were the bad boys. Father Jack was a disciplinarian who pushed his boys hard.

"When I was a kid it was very rough," Brett said the other day as he dressed for a game in the clubhouse space he occupies as the Royals' franchise player.

"By the time I came along, he had a very low tolerance level. The tolerance level wasn't the same as it was for the others. When I was late and made some excuse, he'd already heard every excuse.

"John and I were kind of the ones who didn't bring home the good report cards. We were the ones who didn't do our chores on time. We were the ones who didn't do our homework.

"I couldn't understand why I was the one he got on. But my brothers have been successful. I've been successful in my career."

Brett remembers 1980, when he hit .390. He went home figuring he had a pretty good year.

"Most people's dads would have put their arms around you and said you had a good year," he said. "My dad said if you would have got five more hits you would have hit .400. Don't be content. That's the message he gave me. That's one of the reasons I've been successful."

Brett left the team on a Friday in May. His dad died two nights later.

"He'd always check the box score," Brett said. "If I did bad, he would have a bad day. If I did good, he had a good day. No child wants to do something to spoil his dad's day.

"He was coherent in the hospital, but he was heavily drugged because there wasn't anything they could do for him. He would fade in and out. The first thing he asked me was how'd we do today and how many hits did you get."

The journey through 19 years of baseball has taught Brett a lot about the highs and lows of life. A pure hitter like his locker mate, Wally Joyner, Brett cannot say why he goes bad or why he goes good.

"I'm facing a real tough right-hander in Minnesota who throws a good curveball and I get three hits," he said. "Then I go 0-for-9. I'm 1-for-21 and then what happens? I get three hits, then I don't get one. It doesn't make sense. I don't understand it."

The average is up to .260 now, not close to acceptable by Brett's standards. The left-handed hitter has accepted his designated-hitter role and his drop in the batting order from third to fifth.

He is now getting about a hit a game and, going into last night's game had 61, leaving him 103 short of 3,000.

For the first time in as long as anyone can remember, Brett was left off the All-Star ballot this year.

But Brett is always one of the first to arrive at the park, and one of the first on the field. He's in on a pre-batting-practice game with his teammates, most of whom are much younger than himself.

"We dug ourself into a deep hole," he said. "It's a long haul."