George Brett is almost undoubtedly the greatest Kansas City Royal ever. He was a first ballot Hall of Famer and even flirted with a goddamn .400 BA in his 1980 MVP season. By the time George reached his prime in KC it wasn’t a matter of if he would get to 3,000 hits, it was a matter of when.

On September 30th 1992 George Brett became the 18th member of the 3,000 hit club. Of course, in perfect George Brett fashion he reached this milestone with a 4 hit game. George went on to finish his career with 3,154 hits and a career .305 BA.

Baseball-reference lists the leaders for 43 offensive categories and he is the leader in over fucking half of them! He was a legend in Kansas City and he pretty much owned the city for 2 decades and he led the Royals to their first ever World Series title in 1985.

Even with all of those accolades though, he will always be remembered for one of the biggest fucking meltdowns you will ever see in a professional sporting event. It is just known as the Pine Tar Incident.

The Royals were down 1 run on the road against the Yankees. Brett came up and hit a 2 run home run in the top of the 9th inning to give the Royals the lead. Well after inspecting the bat, the umpires determined that there was too much pine tar on it and called him out. That turned out to be the 3rd out and gave the Yankees the win.

The Royals would protest the game and would eventually win the protest. MLB made the decision allow Brett’s HR and start the game from that point on. They would complete the game a month later on August 18th. Brett was ejected but it did not matter as the Yankees went scoreless in the bottom of the 9th to give the Royals the win.

It is really shitty though that a player with George’s accolades will always be remembered for one incident, not for how he was as a player. Especially an incident where he wound up being right. Either way, this does not take away from the fact that Brett is 1 of 32 players in MLB history to record 3,000 hits.