April 1985 arrived, looking to be a great year to be a Royals fan. The Royals had just been crowned American League West champions for the fifth time (or 5.5th, if you want to count the odd half-season championship of 1981). The rotation was full of amazing young pitchers, George Brett, after a down year, dedicated himself to being in the best shape of his life before it became a cliché, and Dan Quisenberry had just, for the second year in a row, saved more games in a season than any other reliever in the league ever had.

And it was not a point of embarrassment that the team's single-season home run record was merely 34.

1985 was not a time when 50-home-run seasons were expected as a matter of course. The most recent one had been in 1977 by George Foster, but that seemed a fluke. The big Hall-of-Fame bashers like Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle who routinely surpassed the half-century mark were Homeric-era legends. (Yes, pun intended.) League home run leading numbers were, as often as not, below 40. And so were the single-season records for many teams.

The Royals weren't in last place. Granted, two of the teams below them were more recent expansion teams (1977), but the Expos joined the league at the same time as the Royals, and the other two teams that joined with them already had more. Moreover, five other teams were not so far above the Royals in that department, none of them having yet had a 40-homer season.

So it was relatively without fanfare that Steve Balboni approached John Mayberry's team record. As the Royals battled the Angels for the top spot in the A. L. West, no newspapers made note of the approaching team-record-breaking event. The Kansas City Times, September 16, 1985, had this to say about Balboni's 32nd home run, just two shy of Mayberry with 21 games left to the season:

Steve Balboni had a sacrifice fly and a bases-empty homer in the opener (ed - the Royals played a double-header that day), giving him a career high 79 RBIs

Yes, his career best in RBIs was more noteworthy than the fact that he was just two away from tying a club record. The Star didn't even say that much, noting only the facts of the game.

Five days later, "Bones" hit # 33. It was the headline of the game story - because it was a grand slam which put the Royals in line for a win over the Twins after being swept in four prior games by the Mariners. Here, the Mayberry chase was finally noted...briefy. From the Times (09/21/1985):

[The home run] was also his 33rd of the season, putting him one behind John Mayberry and the club season record.

Even tying the record one game later didn't rate more than a minor mention in the context of the game recap. From the Star, 09/22/1985:

Steve Balboni provided the thunder - clapping (sic) a three-run eigth-inning rally that tied the game at 5-5 by unloading his club-record-tying 34th home run against Twins' reliever Mark Davis.

...

Balboni then worked Davis to a 1-1 count before unloading home run No. 34, tying John Mayberry's single-season club record set in 1975.

That's IT. I think it's safe to say that there were no fan countdowns to seeing the Mayberry mark broken.

That said, the big day was indeed given its proper due. The September 27th edition of the Star had a prominent article on the front page of the Sports section, "Balboni's 35th Homer Breaks Team Record", with a little "Bye-bye to Mayberry" sub-heading. Interestingly enough, Royals Stadium (now Kauffman) apparently had a homer-suppressing reputation even back in that less homer-happy era, as the article notes:

Balboni is particularly pleased with his record at Royals Stadium (16 home runs at home, breaking Mayberry's 14 - ed), a facility that has frustrated power hitters through the years. "That's why the club record is as low as it is," Balboni said. A lot of other club records are a lot higher. A lot of them are 40 or more. It's a lot easier to hit them on the road."

The Royals' low record, while not as embarrassing as it is today, was clearly still notable to some.

The Star followed that up with a full-page celebration of Steve Balboni, including a detailed listing of every one of his 35 home runs of the year, in the Sunday sports section of September 29.

After that, though, it was back to homers just being homers. Perhaps if the local reporters knew that no Royal for at least thirty-one more years would surpass the number 36, that final home run of the year, on October 3 against the Angels, might have gotten more attention for extending and establishing the new record. But with the team record still ahead of three other teams' and just one behind that of the Mets, White Sox and Astros, the soon-to-be-crowned World Champions' position in baseball history was looking quite comfortable.