Brett’s ALCS MVP performance propels Royals to World Series

George Brett didn’t think he earned the right to be called the Most Valuable Player of the 1985 American League Championship Series.

He was practically the only one who held that opinion.

On Oct. 16, 1985, Brett was named the ALCS MVP after the Royals defeated the Toronto Blue Jays 6-2 in Game 7 to advance to the World Series. Brett was 0-for-3 with a walk in Game 7 but had already cemented his MVP status by getting three hits in Game 1, four more hits – including two home runs – in Game 3 and drawing six of his seven ALCS walks in Games 4 through 7 as the Blue Jays pitched around him.

Brett, however, favored teammate Jim Sundberg as MVP in the aftermath of Sundberg’s four-RBI performance in Game 7.

“As far as I’m concerned, Jim Sundberg is our MVP with the bolt off the wall (a three-run, sixth-inning triple that broke the game open),” Brett, who was a unanimous choice among the writers who voted for the MVP Award, told the Baltimore Sun. “Without Jim, we wouldn’t be (celebrating).”

Sundberg led all Royals hitters with six RBI in the series but had just four hits in 24 at-bats for a .167 average. Brett, meanwhile, hit .348 (8-for-23) with two doubles, three homers, six runs scored and five RBI.

Brett committed himself to a vigorous offseason conditioning program following the 1984 campaign where he appeared in just 104 games (a hamstring pull sidelined him for a month) and hit .284, the first time he failed to hit .300 since 1978. He proceeded to have one of his best seasons in 1985, hitting .335 while setting career-bests in home runs (30) and walks (103).

The work paid off as the Royals played deep into October, with Brett leading the way. In Game 3 with Toronto ahead 2-games-to-nothing in the series, Brett’s 4-for-4 put the Royals back on track.

“Brett was just awesome,” Blue Jays manager Bobby Cox told the Baltimore Sun after Game 3. “You have to tip your cap to them.”

The Royals won the AL West in 1985 on the strength of their young pitching, and Brett assumed that the Blue Jays wouldn’t give him anything to hit in the ALCS.

“They’re just throwing strikes, and before the series, all I heard was they were going to pitch around me,” Brett told the Sun. “I don’t think they’ve done that.”

But in Game 4, Cox ordered Brett to be intentionally walked twice. And the Blue Jays continued to be extra careful with Brett in the final three games, with Brett held to just one hit in nine at-bats in those three contests. But Kansas City won each of those games to rally from a 3-games-to-1 deficit and advance to the World Series against the Cardinals.

Heading into the Kansas City vs. St. Louis World Series, Cardinals pitcher Rick Horton, a Poughkeepsie, N.Y., native, told his hometown newspaper that his teammates were focused on trying to limit Brett’s success in the World Series.

“We know there’s no set way to pitch him,” Horton wrote in the Poughkeepsie Journal in a World Series diary. “He adjusts to every kind of pitching. We just have to move the ball around and not let him hurt you that much. He’s proved he’s an excellent clutch hitter and always rises to the occasion.”

In the Fall Classic, the Royals once again fell behind 3-games-to-1 before closing with three wins to capture the title. Brett had 10 hits and four walks in the World Series, batting .370 with five runs scored.

“This is the best!” a jubilant Brett shouted in the Royals’ clubhouse following Game 7 of the ALCS, not knowing what was still to come. “This is the best!”

Craig Muder is the director of communications for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum