Dave's Place - Big Ed's Royals

By: David Cordill

Posted: 10/20/08

People tend to recall a significant news event by remembering exactly where they were and what they were doing when it occurred. It's no different in the world of sports.

Take Game Three of the 1980 American League Championships Series for example.

I was 16 years old. Big Ed, who was 17 but could easily pass for 30, brought over beer and the both of us hustled it up to my attic bedroom because we didn't want my dad to find it in the fridge. There, amid the red painted walls and ceiling, both decorated with tin foil strips and posters of Jimi Hendrix and The Beatles, we sipped lukewarm Budweiser and watched the game on a tiny black and white television set.

At that time Royals fans were spoiled. The team had been in the league barely 10 years but had already experienced great success. They'd won three straight divisional titles from 1976-78. The team featured a solid pitching staff, a core of veterans and a developing youth movement.

But with their upstart accolades came perennial heartbreak. Invariably, this would arrive dressed in black Yankee pin stripes. During this particular string of postseason appearances, the New York Yankees would pull off the improbable against the Royals and advance to the World Series. Watching the events unfold game by game during this era was like watching an Old Yeller movie marathon.

The two teams first squared off in 1976, when the American and National League Championship Series (ALCS, NLCS) consisted of five games. For the Kansas City faithful, this ALCS was the most traumatic because of its sudden result.

The series itself was a see-saw battle as a team would win one game then lose the next. Thus, when the Royals and Yankees met for Game Five at a rowdy Yankee Stadium, the series was tied up at 2-2. A trip to the World Series was at stake.

The Yankees were up 6-3 when George Brett jacked a three-run shot off Grant Jackson in the eighth inning to knot the score at 6-6.

Relief pitcher, Mark Littell retired the Yankees in order in the bottom of the inning. But the Royals failed to score in their next at bat.

In the bottom of the ninth, the Yankees sent Chris Chambliss to the plate, poised to rip my heart out and toss it back to me through my TV screen.

Chambliss sent Littell's first offering over the fence in right-center field. Fans stormed the field and mobbed the Yankee hero who tried unsuccessfully to circle the bases. Sometime after the game, he would go back out onto the field and touch the home plate area to make the home run official.

The following year, the Royals were again one win away from reaching their first World Series. With the series tied at two games apiece, Game Five in Kansas City was a winner-take-all affair. Going into the top of the eighth and leading 3-1, prospects looked good for Kansas City.

But those damned Yankees scored a run in their half of the inning and added two more in the ninth for a 5-3 victory.

Watching the telecast, I remember the cameras switching back and forth from the Yankees celebrating on the field, to the Royals dugout, where an inconsolable Freddie Patek sat alone and wept.

New York disposed of the Royals in four games in 1978, winning the series three games to one. In Game Three, George Brett's trifecta of home runs went all for naught in a 6-5 loss. The Kansas City pitching staff held the Yankees to four hits in Game Four but their offense could only muster up a run in a 2-1 defeat.

So when the Royals took on the hated Yankees in the 1980 ALCS, I was desperately optimistic, but prepared for heartbreak all the same.

Kansas City eased my worries a great deal by taking the first two games from the Yankees. Then, returning to the cursed confines of Yankee Stadium on Oct. 10, 1980, the Royals went for the sweep, a game sponsored by Big Ed and Budweiser.

Big Ed was more into "Star Trek" than baseball, but even he knew how important this game was. Together, we nervously gulped our increasingly tepid beers which neared room temperature as the game progressed.

Frank White's fifth inning blast off of Tommy John put the Royals up 1-0. New York responded with a couple of runs in the sixth, for a 2-1 lead.

As the Yankees rallied, my concerns grew but I maintained my faith knowing somehow that the Royals would not be denied on this night.

The stage was set in the top of the seventh. Willie Wilson doubled to right field and Yankee manager Dick Howser replaced John with Goose Gossage. U.L. Washington singled and Wilson advanced to third.

And that brought George Brett to the plate. He chased .400 that incredible season and finished with a .390 batting average. If there was one player the Royals could have up there facing the flame throwing Gossage, it was Mr. Brett.

And he did not disappoint. Connecting on Gossage's 3-1 fastball, Brett sent a two-run homer into the upper deck.

There was still nine outs left for the Yankees but I knew at that moment, the game was over.

Big Ed, a red-headed mountain of Klingon lore and terrific strength, tossed me around like a chimp.

After picking myself up off the floor, I followed downstairs out into the street and watched as he chucked an unopened beer high into the October night.

The beer landed on the hood of my next door neighbor's car. It was the first time I had ever seen Big Ed run. I did not know 280 pounds could move that fast.

The Yankees would threaten in the bottom of the eighth, but Rick Cerrone hit a line drive into a double play to quash their chances. At their final at bat, they went quietly in order in the ninth to end the game.

The Royals would go on to lose to the Philadelphia Phillies in the World Series that year. I would lose Big Ed 20 years later to cancer.

But at this time of year, when the air turns crisp and the postseason is in full swing, I think of that night in October, and of warm beer, and of Big Ed.

dcordill@unews.com