Finish Line Is in Sight : Brett Has Run a Major League Marathon, and the End of the Race Is Four Hits Away

It is the last week of George Brett’s 18th major league season. It may be the last week of his last season.

At 39, his team out of the race in the American League West since mid-April, Brett acknowledges much of the fun is gone--faded, he agreed, like his reflexes and bat speed.

Brett talked about the possibility of retirement Monday at Anaheim Stadium, where former teammate Hal McRae, now manager of the Kansas City Royals, reflected on the march of time and said:

“George can’t dominate, can’t dictate, can’t overmatch an opposing pitcher anymore, but he plays with the same vigor and enthusiasm, and what he can do is survive and get his hits.”

Having considered quitting during what was a miserable April for the Royals and their most famous player, Brett came to Anaheim with 160 hits for the season and 2,996 for a career in which he long ago realized his only goal of reaching the major leagues within five years of his graduation from El Segundo High.

Brett spent only two years in the minor leagues and has survived in more ways than one to become the leader among active players in continuous service with one club, a certain Hall of Famer on the verge of becoming only the 18th player to collect 3,000 hits.

With dozens of friends and relatives at Anaheim Stadium Monday night, Brett’s pursuit of 3,000 hits was interrupted in batting practice when he was scratched from the lineup because of a strained left triceps that he suffered Sunday.

Needing four hits with six games to play, Brett said he will play next year if he comes up short but isn’t sure he will be back if he succeeds in reaching 3,000 this week.

“If I don’t do it now I’ll feel like I fell apart,” he said. “It’s not an obsession, but I want to do it this year. I don’t want to go through spring training having to think about 3,000 and being asked about it every day.”

What would this hallmark measure of longevity and consistency mean to him?

Brett said he wasn’t sure, that it would probably rank with the three home runs he hit off Catfish Hunter in Game 3 of the 1978 playoffs with the New York Yankees; the dramatic three-run homer off Goose Gossage in Game 3 of the 1980 playoffs with the Yankees, putting the Royals in their first World Series; the feeling he experienced when the Royals beat the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1985 World Series as he batted .370.

“I watched how Robin Yount reacted when he got his 3,000th hit (on Sept. 9), and it helped to show me the importance of it,” Brett said. “Robin said he didn’t realize the feeling would be as great as it was, and I hope it’s the same for me. It’s a pretty exclusive group.”

Brett would have joined it long ago if he hadn’t missed the equivalent of two seasons because of injuries. He has been on the disabled list 10 times. He has had five major knee injuries, broken a thumb and had shoulder surgery for a rotator cuff tear.

A survivor? Consider that Brett is the only player in baseball to have won batting titles in three different decades. He has hit .300 or more 11 times (highlighted by his .390 in 1980), driven in 100 or more runs four times, hit 20 or more home runs eight times.

“Everyone talks about George as a high average hitter, but he’s probably the best money player I’ve ever been around,” said McRae, an outstanding clutch hitter himself. “Whatever you needed, George would deliver, and he’s always had the amazing ability to miss six weeks and come back hot, something very few players can do.

“He might have 4,000 hits if it hadn’t been for the injuries, but maybe some of them gave him the rest he needed to come back and continue what he was doing. Maybe some of the injuries worked for him, too.”

Nothing was working in April when Brett almost gave up on the 3,000 bid.

“I was hitting .150, the team was off to a 1-16 start and I was ready to quit,” said Brett, who met with McRae and General Manager Herk Robinson, who both told him he meant too much to the fans to quit, that he couldn’t walk away from the opportunity to get 3,000 hits.

Brett also talked to his brother, Ken, the Angel telecaster who pitched for 11 seasons in the majors and who endorsed McRae’s view that it was only a temporary frustration in a profession given to rapid mood swings.

McRae said Monday night he told Brett that he had to go out and get it done; that he had never been a quitter and couldn’t start now; that he had to do it for the fans who were showing their support with standing ovations almost every night, every at-bat.

“George was at the bottom of the valley in May, and now he’s at the top of the mountain,” McRae said, adding that Brett’s career can be compared to a marathon and that 3,000 represents the finish line.

“This is like a victory lap,” McRae said. “The race is won. All he has to do is keep his feet. In May he couldn’t see the finish line. He thought he had hit the wall. Now there’s no wall.”

There is in McRae’s metaphors the hint that he would expect Brett to retire if he reaches the tape this year. The Royals have an option on Brett for 1993, but it will be Brett’s decision whether or not he will play.

He said he wants to go out on his own terms, not like one of his idols, Harmon Killebrew, did in hanging on with the Royals as a shadow of what he had been during his Hall of Fame career with the Minnesota Twins.

“I still think I can help the team win, but I’m not the player I was five or 10 years ago,” Brett said. “I feel overmatched at times, and I never felt that way before. I mean, pitchers don’t even waste pitches on me anymore. They strike me out on three pitches, and I don’t want to keep embarrassing myself.

“I’ve been a .300 hitter my whole life, and it’s frustrating to hit .270, .280. That’s what I hit when I was breaking in 18 years ago. I’m not in the game for the money or the statistics. It was fun when I was hitting .300 and we were in the playoffs almost every year from 1976 through 1985, but we haven’t sniffed the playoffs since and it’s not fun.”

That doesn’t mean he won’t be back, but the calendar has brought changes off the field, too. Brett, the longtime bachelor, was married in February. His wife, Leslie, is four months pregnant. The couple is restoring a six-bedroom, 9,000-square-foot home near Kansas City. In addition, the pursuit of 3,000 hits took on emotional weight when Brett’s father, Jack, died in May.

At an Anaheim Stadium news conference Monday, Brett said he would talk with family, friends and club officials and make a decision on his future in mid-winter. He said he isn’t sure how he fits into the Royals plans for ’93 after being used primarily as a designated hitter this year and would want to know that.

He has a seven-year contract to serve as a club vice president when he retires, but he isn’t sure what his duties would be and would want to know that as well.

The Brett brothers--Bobby, Ken, John and George--also own minor league baseball teams in Adelanto, Calif., and Spokane, Wash., and a minor league hockey team in Spokane. Bobby, who takes care of his brothers’ finances, said George is in position to live a comfortable lifestyle, and that one consideration in his future decision might be that doctors have told him “no more cortisone shots.”

How many has he had? Kansas City trainers have lost count. Former teammate and roommate John Wathan, now a coach with the Angels, said of Brett: “He gives you everything he’s got every time he steps on the field. When I think of George I think of his competitiveness--in cards, golf and baseball.”

Wathan also said he thinks Brett “has had enough” and will retire, that with “all his achievements on the field, a wife and family were what he missed most and now he’s fulfilled.

“It might be different,” Wathan added, “if the club was in contention and he could see the light at the end of the tunnel, but he’s the consummate team player and this is difficult.

“The Royals are struggling, and I think George is at an age where he feels closer to the coaches than most of the players.”

Brett reflected on his memorable career and said he wouldn’t be on the verge of 3,000 hits, wouldn’t have made it through 18 years, if it hadn’t been for:

--The changes the late Charley Lau made in his swing during his first year with the Royals, and Lau’s consistent help, even when he worked for other teams.

--The fatherly influence of former manager Whitey Herzog at a point in his career when he was as wild off the field as he was consistent on it.

--The confidence of scout Rosey Gilhousen, who lobbied the Royals to take Brett in the 1971 draft, the 33rd player selected.

Gilhousen was at Anaheim Stadium Monday night and said the one constant with Brett has been heart. Herzog, now an Angel vice president, concurred, saying Brett played with almost reckless abandon and was the “best player” he managed during his successful tenure in Kansas City and St. Louis.

Said Angel Manager Buck Rodgers: “Brett has been a great hitter, player and personality. He typifies the hard-nosed, win-at-all-cost player who does what’s called for.

“The tendency today is for players to be statistically oriented. Brett has always played the game and let the stats take care of themselves.”

And now Brett is in position to take care of 3,000.