Rance Mulliniks still remembers the 1985 American League Championship Series in vivid detail. He can tell you who started Game 1, how Danny Jackson fared in Game 5 and which direction the wind was blowing in Game 7.
Most of all he remembers a missed opportunity in Game 3, when Kansas City Royals third baseman George Brett hit two home runs against a Toronto Blue Jays team that led the ALCS 2-0.
“The deal was we’re not going to let Brett beat us,” Mulliniks recalls. “They weren’t a powerhouse team and it was a situation where if we don’t let Brett beat us, we really liked our chances.”
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The Blue Jays would go on to lose the ALCS in seven games, while the Royals would advance to the World Series and win their first – and so far their only – championship.
Nearly three decades later, the Royals are back in the playoffs for the first time since with a World Series date against the San Francisco Giants set to begin Tuesday. While the missed opportunity of 1985 still unnerves Mulliniks, he’s happy for the present-day Royals, having played for Kansas City in 1980 during the team’s first ever World Series season. The 58-year-old Mulliniks knows first-hand that Royals fans can offer tremendous support.
“Sold out all the time, the excitement around the city and the area was just tremendous,” Mulliniks says. “Having gone a long, long time – 29 years – without being to the post-season and now they’re back, I’m sure the excitement is what we all experienced going back 30-plus years ago.”
But Mulliniks has closer ties to the Blue Jays than he does to the Royals having played in Toronto for 11 seasons, broadcasted Blue Jays games and worked for the team’s summer youth camps. The all-time leader in games played by a Toronto third baseman, Mulliniks batted .280/.365/.424 from 1982-1992 as the Blue Jays developed from expansion afterthought to World Series winner.
Led by Pat Gillick, Paul Beeston and Gord Ash, the Blue Jays mirrored the Royals, a 1969 expansion team which first reached the playoffs in 1976. By the time the Blue Jays and Royals met in 1985, they were the class of the American League.
“To be a part of that was very special,” Mulliniks says. “A lot of big games in September and October, and a lot of pressure in that sense, but when you get to the post-season, everything just goes up in terms of intensity, emotion, focus, and I’m not talking about just the players. I’m talking about the fan base.”
Now that the Royals have reached the playoffs, the Blue Jays own baseball’s longest playoff drought. After winning 83 games in 2014, the Blue Jays have a shot at taking a step forward in 2015. Mulliniks says doing so would require personal sacrifices on the part of Toronto’s players.
“The will to win is paramount,” he says. “If it’s OK to lose, and if it’s OK to be five or six games above .500, then that’s what you’re going to be. You have to be able to say this is not acceptable and this can’t happen.”
Sounds good, but what does the will to win really mean? Mulliniks likens it to unselfishness – a willingness to put the team first by moving to a less glamourous position, sitting against a tough pitcher or giving way to a reliever.
Those moves can be tough to make, especially when big-league egos are involved, but manager Bobby Cox was able to balance platoons to great effect on the ’85 Blue Jays. Mulliniks, a left-handed hitter, platooned with the right-handed hitting Garth Iorg for years and the Blue Jays got plenty of production as a result. “The will to win was incredible,” Mulliniks recalls.
The Blue Jays are now contemplating ways of combining the right mix of talent and personality to improve upon their third-place finish in 2015. Best case scenario? The Blue Jays follow the Royals’ path one more time and reach the playoffs next year. If that happens Mulliniks has no doubt that Blue Jays fans will match the enthusiasm now on display in Kansas City.
“We just need to reflect on history,” he says. “If you put a good team on that field that in September has a chance to win and is an exciting ballclub to watch and gets to the post-season, then you’ll be selling out Rogers Centre all the time. There will be a buzz not only around the city of Toronto and the surrounding area, but throughout the country.”