I don't remember not knowing about baseball, and I don't remember not rooting for the Kansas City Royals. There are only a few other things that are as ingrained in my being as baseball, and most of them are the rudimentary acts of life (I don't remember potty training or learning how to read, either).

I lived in the midwest for the first ten years of my life (including three years in Kansas City proper), and the Royals games were always on the radio. The summer afternoons and nights in the late 70s and early 80s were spent working on our house (usually sanding or steel wooling wood mouldings and fixtures my parents had stripped of paint and sealer) and listening to baseball on the radio. And when we visited my mom's parents, the nights were spent in the living room with Grandpa listening with one ear to a quietly muttering hand-held radio, occasionally updating the situation as my brothers and I played pair solitaire and board games. So, needless to say, when summer comes around, baseball is always on my mind.

How did the Royals do tonight?

This is a constant question, but not always answered in the cheeriest of ways. The Royals, while hovering between third and fourth in the American League Central, are hopelessly out of playoff contention and will have to have some nice runs to get back to .500 for the season.

Last weekend, WGN was nice enough to show two of the three games the Chicago Cubs played against the Royals. We won both. Rarely are the Royals on TV down here in the high desert, and so when they do hit the airwaves, it is almost mandatory to watch--this could be my only chance to actually see how good the crop of young bucks the team spends no money on is this year. Like all young players, sometimes they're so good it's scary and the next minute they're making mistakes little leaguers are ashamed of.

When I was a kid, the players weren't young bucks. They were all men, and the Royals were almost always in playoff contention. The golden age of the Royals began almost simultaneously with the arrival of a hard-hitting third baseman called George Brett. In 1976, Brett won his first batting title (but still lost the playoffs to the hated Yankees). In 1980, however, Brett obliterated the competition (he hit .390 for his second batting title) and the Royals finally beat the Yankees to get into the World Series.

It would have been a fairy tale for the Royals to win it all in 1980, and so they didn't, losing to the Phillies in an agonizing series that ended with my favorite player, Willie Wilson, striking out to end the year.

When you root for a team, favorites are not always the best player on the team. Most people who talk about the Royals as one of many Major League teams cannot stop talking about Brett, but it wasn't until the World Series of 1985 when I really became a fan of Brett--because he took the team and made sure they won. Before that, I wasn't always a huge Brett fan.

In 1980, there would be Presidential rallies in Kansas City where contingents in the crowd would hold up "Brett For President" signs. I thought (at the ripe old age of 8) that this was a mockery of our political system. Of course, if given the choice now, I'd vote for Brett.

George knew how to hit and how to play the game. As he grew older, he settled into baseball. As he slowed down, he moved to first base, a position less in need of agility than third. But he still executed the double steal as well as anyone (when younger, he and Willie Wilson would execute this to perfection--Wilson was a great base stealer, Brett was deceptively quick), the double steal remains my favorite offensive play in baseball. It's a mind trick more than anything else.

George Brett is going into the Hall of Fame this week. Everyone knew he would when he was still playing, so this is hardly a surprise to anyone who follows the game.

The thing about Brett that impresses me now is that he stayed with the Royals his entire career. He signed a lifetime contract. They don't do these things anymore--any player good enough to be offered one wouldn't take it and deny himself a big free agent payday. As the age of super-stardom came on, Brett was a loyal lap dog. Ol' Georgie Boy stuck with a team that never got as good as the champion caliber teams he played with when he was a young buck.

And just to add a bit of excitement to the highlights reel, there was the Pine Tar Incident with a mad-doggingly crazed Brett flying out of the dugout to exact revenge--once again against the long hated Yankees. Lest anyone forget, the Royals ended up winning that game.

And George Brett won the Hall. I guess fairy tales do happen once in a while.

Matt Worley finally has a reason to visit Cooperstown.