Today, as you may have read, is George Brett’s birthday. It is also Greinkeday, and hopefully the beginning of some winning for our suddenly-struggling Royals.
Twitter-er jgsteeler asked earlier today, “Is it even possible for the Royals to lose on Mr. Brett’s Birthday!?”
Naturally, because the seconds are dragging by until Grienke’s first pitch tonight, I decided to find out. In short, yes it is possible for the Royals to lose on George Brett’s birthday, but it’s more possible for them to win.
In the club’s history, the Royals are 20-15 on GB’s birthday, and have had an off day May 15 game five times. During Brett’s playing days, the team was 10-8 with three off-days on May 15. Brett himself didn’t contribute a whole lot to the winning record, going 10-for-41 at the plate in 10 games and not appearing in the lineup 8 times*. Brett homered on his birthday once, tripled once, doubled twice, and ground into double plays four times.
*one of them was in 1973, a few months before Brett joined the big club. Fun fact about that May 15 game: Nolan Ryan threw a no-hitter against the Royals. It was the first of Ryan’s seven career no-nos.
The longest Brett Birthday winning streak was from 1985-1991, with one off-day interrupting it. That came right after the longest Brett Birthday losing streak, which was from 1981-1984.
The following pitchers have given Brett the gift of a KC victory on his special day:
Mike Hedlund (1969)
Bruce Dal Canton (1971)
Tom Burgemeier (1972)
Steve Busby (a complete game, 4-hit shutout in 1975)
Mark Littell (1976)
Rich Gale (1978)
Paul Splittorff (1979)
Charlie Leibrandt (1985)
Dennis Leonard (1986)
Dan Quisenberry (1987)
Mark Gubicza (1988)
Floyd Bannister (1989)
Brett Saberhagen (1991)
Chris Haney (1996)
Jamie Walker (1997)
Jose Santiago (1999 and 2001, the only pitcher in KC history to win twice on George’s birthday)
DJ Carrasco (2003)
Mike MacDougal (2005)
Gil Meche (2008)
Can we add another name to that list tonight? I sure hope so. That would soften the blow of my missing out on a Woot.com Bag of Crap just now…I put in all my info and clicked the big gold button, and…nothing happened. I was sent back to the main page with no word about my order’s status. I haven’t successfully gotten a BoC since April Fools Day of last year. Much like the Royals current losing streak, I was hoping my Crap-less streak would end. I’ll happily take a Royals win over a Bag of Crap, though.
Anyways, happy Greinkeday!
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