Remembering every cycle in Royals history

KANSAS CITY – A 4-for-4 day is about the best day a hitter can have at the plate, but recording a hit of each kind is even better. Who wouldn’t want a single, double, triple and a home run to cap it all off?

Cycles are rare; there have been fewer than 400 in Major League baseball history. The Royals have only seen it accomplished six times by four hitters. It hasn’t been done since 1990 – by far the longest drought in the Majors.

• Every cycle in MLB history

“I’m glad they don’t happen all the time,” George Brett, the last Royal to hit for the cycle, told veteran sportswriter Dick Kaegel in 1990. “You wouldn’t enjoy it as much.”

Here’s a rundown of every cycle in Royals history:

George Brett: July 25, 1990
Cycle order: 1B, 3B, 2B, HR
It had been 11 years since Brett hit his first cycle, but even at 37 years old, this was future Hall of Famer George Brett – he still had a few tricks up his sleeve. The Royals, at 44-60 and last place in the American League West, were visiting Toronto to play the first-place Blue Jays (51-45). Kansas City won the first game of the series, a 13-inning affair, and jumped to an early lead in Game 2.

Brett’s first hit of the game, a single, loaded the bases to help kick off the Royals’ two-run inning off Toronto’s Todd Stottlemyre. In the top of the third, Brett launched a triple to deep center, with the ball hitting near the top of the center-field wall.

Brett’s double came in the fifth, and all he needed was a home run to complete the cycle. Everyone in the Royals’ dugout knew it was about to happen when Brett stepped to the plate in the seventh inning.

“Some things in this game are just a given,” second baseman Frank White told the Kansas City Star that night.

Brett socked an 0-2 pitch, sending it over the wall in deep center field.

“I went for it on the 0-1 pitch,” Brett told reporters. “I knew the situation, we were cruising with a 5-0 lead, and I figured, ‘What the heck?’ It was a changeup in the dirt that I swung and missed, so then I just went back to trying to make contact. A guy like me is hardly ever going to hit a home run when he’s trying for one, and it didn’t work tonight, either. After 17 years playing the game, you’d think you’d learn something, wouldn’t you?”

The Royals won that game, 6-1, and Brett cracked the .300 barrier on the season that night. The four-hit game raised his average to .304. He finished the 1990 season – the 18th of his career – with a .329 average and .902 OPS.

Frank White: Aug. 3, 1982
Cycle order: HR, 2B, 1B, 3B
Brett went 11 years in between cycles; White only went three. His second cycle came at what would be the end of a six-game win streak for the Royals in 1982 and back-to-back walk-off wins over the Tigers at Royals Stadium. Kansas City entered Aug. 3 well above .500, at 59-44, and tied atop the AL West.

White, who only hit 160 home runs in his 18-year career, got his homer out of the way early, sending a ball from Detroit starter Pat Underwood to deep left field for a two-run blast in the bottom of the first inning.

White doubled in the third inning and singled in the seventh. In between, White also reached on an error by first baseman Rick Leach in the fifth inning, which scored a run. The Royals and Tigers were tied, 5-5, in the bottom of the ninth, and Underwood was still pitching. He worked around Onix Concepción’s single and had two outs when White stepped to the plate again.

Underwood was unable to solve White, who ripped a triple into right field for the walk-off hit, a 6-5 Royals win, and the second cycle in his career.

“I don’t believe this,” White told reporters of his four-hit game. “When I go into a game, I’m looking at 1-for-3.”

Frank White: Sept. 26, 1979
Cycle order: 1B, HR, 2B, 3B
White’s first cycle in his career came on a bittersweet day for the Royals, who had seen their hopes for a fourth straight AL West title vanish in Anaheim the day before, when the Angels clinched the division.

White supposedly did not want to play on Sept. 26, but manager Whitey Herzog wanted to play the regulars and try to win to lock up second place. It was the final road game of the year, with the Royals needing to play three more games at home to finish the season.

Royals starter Dennis Leonard pitched a complete game shutout with eight strikeouts, and White made history. He singled in the first inning off Angels starter Dave LaRoche and followed in the third with a two-run home run.

White doubled in the fifth, but then he flied out to center field in the seventh. A triple shy, he was running out of at-bats.

The Royals scored again in the eighth, which brought up White in the ninth. He tripled to center field and ended up scoring on an error, to give the Royals a 4-0 win.

But with Kansas City’s season all but over, the mood was less than enthusiastic afterward.

“Yeah, Reggie’s [Jackson] Mr. October and I’m Mr. September,” White told the Star. “I wish somebody would have been Mr. August and September. Maybe we could have won this thing.”

George Brett: May 28, 1979
Cycle order: 3B, HR, 1B, 2B
It took 14 innings in a wild late May game for Brett to complete his first cycle and 16 innings for the Royals to win in walk-off fashion, 5-4, over the Orioles. The winning hit was Brett’s solo home run in the bottom of the 16th, but that was a bonus on top of the cycle; Brett, as part of his 5-for-7 day, had already homered once, a go-ahead two-run blast in the eighth inning.

Brett tripled in the third inning off Dennis Martinez to tie the game, 1-1, and his next hit wasn’t until the eighth with the homer. The Orioles tied it again in the ninth, and the game went into extras, with the two teams locked in a 4-4 tie late into the night.

Brett singled in the 10th inning but was stranded, and in the 12th, the Orioles intentionally walked him. Still, the game dragged on. Brett’s double came in the 14th off Tim Stoddard, making Brett the third Royal with a cycle. History would have to wait to be celebrated; the Royals had a game to win.

Finally, in the 16th, Brett led off the frame with a homer to deep right field off Sammy Stewart, ending the 4-hour, 58-minute affair. It was one of Brett’s best performances of his career.

“When you’re hot, you’re hot,” Brett told sportswriter Joe McGuff. “It takes a little luck to get five hits, but to do it you’ve got to hit the ball good every time up. I’d put this up there with the playoff game where I had hit the three home runs [against the Yankees in 1978].”

John Mayberry: Aug. 5, 1977
Cycle order: 1B, HR, 3B, 2B
The 1977 Royals were arguably the best team in franchise history because of the number of games (102) they won by the end of the year. But in early August, they were fighting their way back to first place, chasing the White Sox. Chicago had a 3 1/2 game lead over Kansas City entering the series on Aug. 5, but that lead would be down to 1 1/2 by the end of the three-game weekend sweep. And that Friday night’s game saw a Royals 12-2 drubbing led by Mayberry’s history.

Mayberry was working his way back from a slump and was hitting just .231 entering August. But the homestand was good to him, and on Aug. 5, he put together a 4-for-5 night. Facing Chris Knapp, Mayberry singled in the second inning, homered to lead off the third, tripled in the fourth and doubled in the eighth.

When he stepped to the plate in the eighth inning, a double was far from his mind. He just wanted to get another hit. His double ended up being the game’s final run.

“Are you kidding?” he told reporters. “Not at all. Not the way I’ve been swinging.”

Two seasons after a runner-up finish in AL MVP voting, Mayberry’s 1977 season was a disappointment and would be his last in a Royals uniform. But he became just the second Royal with a cycle with this performance.

Fred Patek: July 9, 1971
Cycle order: 2B, 1B, 3B, HR
“There’s a baseball adage to the effect that when you’re going bad, it’s the little things that beat you,” wrote McGuff, the legendary sportswriter, in the Kansas City Star. “Last night the Minnesota Twins lost their sixth straight game, and as fate would have it, they were done in by Fred Patek, the smallest man in the Majors.”

McGuff’s lede is pretty perfect. In early July, the Twins – back-to-back AL West champs – were spiraling, and the Royals were working hard to stay relevant in their third season as a franchise. There were still a lot of “firsts” happening for this young franchise, and Patek – Kansas City’s 26-year-old, 5-foot-5 shortstop – accomplished one on this July night at Metropolitan Stadium in Minneapolis.

The Royals got to Twins starter Jim Perry, the reigning AL Cy Young winner, quickly. Patek led things off with a double and scored on the next batter. Patek added his single in the second and triple in the fourth.

The game was tied, 3-3, until the ninth inning, when Patek became the hero with a go-ahead two-run homer and clinched the first cycle in franchise history.

“I pitched Patek all over – in and out, up and down,” Perry told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “He hit it wherever I threw it.”