“We Hated Each Other”: When the Yankees and Royals Turned Baseball into a Blood Feud

NEW YORK — The moment that defined a rivalry came 47 years ago Sunday. It was a chilly fall night in the Bronx, Game 2 of the 1977 ALCS, and Hal McRae was standing at first base. The Kansas City Royals were trailing the New York Yankees 2-1 in the sixth inning, but McRae had an idea and called out to teammate Freddie Patek, who was at second.

“I gave Freddie a sign,” McRae, now 79, said Friday from his home in Florida. “If we got a ground ball, I would take center fielder out.”

Sure enough, the Royals’ George Brett hit a grounder to Yankees third baseman Graig Nettles, who fired to second baseman Willie Randolph, and that’s when it happened, there – BOOM! McRae didn’t so much shut down Randolph as obliterate him – a rolling body block that began with McRae catapulting himself headfirst into Randolph’s thigh, landing both players in a heap at least 10 feet from second base. The collision caused Randolph to drop the ball, allowing Patek to run home, causing Yankees manager Billy Martin to fly out of the dugout angrily and yell something at Randolph McRae.

“As I left the field,” McRae said, “he threw the ball at me.”

Watching the clip now opens you up to a different dimension of baseball, one before phrases like “big market” and “small market,” before players who fraternized like country club buddies, as a rivalry in hatred , punches and public broadsides could be measured. More than four decades ago, the Yankees and Royals faced each other four times in five years in the ALCS. On one side were the Bronx Zoo-era Yankees – Billy Martin, Thurman Munson and later Reggie Jackson – the game’s glamor franchise. On the other side was an expansion team from flyover country with a Hall of Famer at third base and a torrid pace. The result wasn’t a baseball series; it was more of a blood sport.

“It’s a (violent) war,” Brett, the Royals Hall of Fame third baseman, said Friday as he stood near the third-base dugout at Yankee Stadium. “That’s how it was back then.”

The old rivalry is over, but the postseason series continues Saturday night when the Yankees host the Royals in Game 1 of the ALDS, the first postseason series between the clubs since 1980. Gone are Brett and Martin; Enter Aaron Judge and Bobby Witt. Jr.

For many of the old Royals, the story recalls a mix of emotional scar tissue – from three ALCS losses in 1976 to 1978 – and redemption after a breakthrough in 1980. But after more than four decades, it has also forged a common bond: They were the team that gave the Yankees their best. They had a baseball fight in the Bronx and lived to tell the tale.

“We hated each other,” said former catcher Buck Martinez. “That’s all.”

“They were the Empire,” said former catcher Jamie Quirk, “and we were the new kids on the block.”

“It was just a classic that you’ll never forget,” said former outfielder Clint Hurdle. “It was almost like we could play a game in the Wild West.”

Hal McRae, seen here after going second in 1978, was a catalyst in the Yankees-Royals rivalry. (Focus on Sports/Getty Images)

Just before Game 1 of the 1976 ALCS, Brett was next to Martinez in the home clubhouse in Kansas City. They were roommates in the minor leagues and teammates with the Royals, but this was their first playoff game.

“We were both sitting there incredibly nervous,” Martinez said. “And I asked him, ‘Are you nervous?’ He says, “Yes.” I said, “So am I.” ”

A few minutes later, Brett made two errors in the first inning. Martinez, standing behind the plate, shouted to the third man, “You’re okay now.”

The Royals, in their eighth season as a franchise, were finally in the postseason after defeating the Oakland A’s in the AL West. The Yankees, meanwhile, had broken a losing streak and reached the postseason for the first time since 1964. Compared to the series that followed, the 1976 ALCS was a relatively benign affair, best known for its dramatic Game 5 in the Bronx.

With the score tied at 6-6 and two outs heading into the ninth, the Royals put runners on first and second before Jim Wohlford hit a slow rebound to third and Royals outfielder Al Cowens to second on a controversial call Space was displaced. For reasons that still baffle Martinez, the third out of the inning resulted in Yankees fans littering the field with toilet paper streamers and trash. When Royals pitcher Mark Littell went to the warm-up mound in the ninth, the game was delayed as groundskeepers attempted to clear the field.

“We were on the field, it felt like forever,” Martinez said.

Brett still isn’t sure if the delay affected Littell, but he knows what happened moments later: Littell threw a fastball to New York’s Chris Chambliss, who made a hard cut and hit a game-winning home run to right-center field lap. As the ball passed the fence, hundreds of New York fans streamed onto the field. Brett made his way to the third base dugout. Martinez sprinted in from home plate. But McRae had no clear path to the dugout out in right field, so he sprinted across the outfield, where he found refuge in an open gate in left field.

“The door was open, so I ran into that area,” McRae said. “It was a scary feeling. Because the fans were pouring onto the field and I didn’t know what was going to happen.”

Yes, that was the tame series.

The next year, in the fall of 1977, the Royals and Yankees met again in another five-game classic, one filled with collisions, brawls and endless verbal fisticuffs. At one point during the series, Martin, the Yankees’ passionate manager, made a point of telling the writers that he was looking forward to facing pitcher Larry Gura, a former Yankee, in Game 4.

“My only concern is that he doesn’t get hurt on the way to the ballpark,” Martin repeatedly told reporters. “I mean, in an accident or something. Maybe I should send a bodyguard to his house.”

And that was nothing compared to what transpired before Game 4, when the Yankees’ Cliff Johnson, still angry over the destruction of Randolph, spent most of batting practice yelling at the Royals’ McRae.

The 32-year-old was in his ninth season and was unimpressed. He had grown up in Cincinnati, where he learned to emulate his teammate Pete Rose’s style of play. He sprinted on every ground ball. He held his teammates accountable. Whenever teammate Dennis Leonard got the start, McRae held up a few fingers as Leonard went to the bullpen to warm up. That’s how many runs the Royals scored that day.

However, the cross-body block was his own invention.

“Because I knew I could make contact and he wouldn’t be able to throw to first base,” McRae said.

Suffice it to say, McRae wasn’t the type of man interested in Johnson, a backup player.

“I told Cliff,” McRae said. “I won’t argue with an ‘extra man’.”

Nonetheless, the Yankees won Game 4 in Kansas City, beginning a winner-take-all Game 5 made famous by the first-inning brawl between Brett and Graig Nettles. Brett hit an RBI triple and came hard to third base. Nettles gave him a little kick. More than a little alarmed, Brett threw an overhand haymaker, setting off a wild scramble in which Yankees catcher Thurman Munson covered Brett at the bottom of the pile – “He just kind of protected George on the ground,” Martinez said – and started Pitcher Ron Guidry jumps into the fray.

Graig Nettles and George Brett battle at third base (Getty Photos)

“I remember George coming back to the dugout and saying, ‘He kicked me,'” Quirk said.

Nobody was thrown out.

“The referees are dusting everyone off,” Martinez said. “And then they said: Are you ready now? Okay, let’s go.’”

This time the Royals took a 3-2 lead in the ninth. But the Yankees hit for three runs and won a second straight AL pennant en route to their first World Series championship since 1962.

“That was probably the most heartbreaking thing for us,” starting pitcher Dennis Leonard said. “Because I honestly felt like we had the best team in baseball. But they won. What are you going to say?”

The Yankees would win again in 1978. It didn’t matter that Brett hit three home runs against Catfish Hunter in Game 3; The Yankees won the game 6-5 and won the series four at a time. Both the Royals and Yankees missed the playoffs in 1979, but they met for the fourth time in 1980. This time the Royals had a closer lead: Dan Quisenberry. Brett hit a home run in Game 3 against Goose Gossage. They won the series in three games.

The 1980 Royals would lose the World Series in six games to the Phillies and it would be another five years before they would finally win their first World Series. But for many players, finally beating the Yankees was almost as good as winning it all.

“I was playing right field when Dan Quisenberry struck out Willie Randolph in the last out,” said former Royal John Wathan. “That’s the first and only time I cried in baseball.”

A funny thing happened one summer day in the 1990s. Wathan attended a charity golf tournament involving a group of old Royals and Yankees from the late 1970s, two groups that had hated each other for four Octobers.

“You can actually tell they’re pretty good guys,” Wathan said with a laugh.

Friendships were formed. War stories were traded. Hurdle lives near Bucky Dent in Florida and still marvels at the competitiveness of Lou Piniella and Munson, who died 10 months after the 1978 series.

“Because they just wanted to beat your ass,” Hurdle said. “And when you look at those two, what better guys could you have on your team than guys who just want to beat the other team’s ass.”

Almost half a century later, Brett has made a similar peace. He doesn’t hate these players anymore. But he still hates the Yankees. He can’t help it.

McRae goes one step further.

“I don’t think we hated the guys,” McRae says. “We hated the Yankees. Because they had all the advantages, we felt. They had the resources to sign players. We were jealous that they could do things we couldn’t do. And I think that was the core of it.”

On the eve of another playoff battle between Kansas City and New York, McRae told another old story, one not quite as famous as the Randolph ejection or the Brett-Nettles brawl. When the 1977 Finals were taped, after the trash talk and brawling, a few Royals went to the Yankees’ clubhouse.

“We went over and sat around and congratulated them,” he said. “It was over. The war was over.”

(Top photo of Yankee catcher Thurman Munson trying to stop George Brett from scoring: Focus on Sport / Getty Images)