George Brett 1980 Batting Gamelogs - Baseball-Reference.com

George Brett 1980 Batting Gamelogs

I just watched a video of Brett talking about this season, the year he nearly hit .400, and I had to see the details for myself.

Brett was hitting only .247 on May 21st, and had ascended to .406 on the morning of August 31st. What a summer, eh? In 279 at-bats between those dates, he batted an incredible .459.

Brett could have finished at .400 that year if he had wanted to. He was still hitting .400 on September 19th. The team had 14 games to play and had an 18.5 game lead, so the game results were meaningless. Since the team did not need him, Brett could have sat out the rest of the season to guarantee a .400 average - that would have made him the only man to hit .400 since Pearl Harbor, and possibly the last man ever to hit .400 - but he stuck it out and finished at .390. If I had been in his shoes, I would have sat on the .400.

The Royals did beat the Yankees to win the AL flag, but lost the World Series to Mike Schmidt, Pete Rose and the Phillies.