1974, what a year. The world was mired in a recession that makes the Great Recession look tame. Patty Hearst is kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army. President Nixon resigned on August 9th. Muhammad Ali upsets world heavyweight champ George Foreman in the Rumble in the Jungle. Renown Red Sox fan, Stephen King, has his first novel, Carrie, published. Blazing Saddles reigns at the box office.

On April 8th, Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s long-time home run record by hitting his 715th. On June 4th, the Cleveland Indians held 10 cent beer night in a game versus the Texas Rangers. Over 25,000 fans attended the Tuesday night game and predictably, a large-scale riot enthused, which prompted umpire crew chief Nestor Chylak to forfeit the game to Texas. The fireworks started early, as a woman ran onto the Indians on-deck circle and flashed her breasts. An inning later, a father-and-son pair ran into the outfield and mooned the crowd. In the ninth, all hell broke loose as fans armed with knives, chains and pieces of seats, surged onto the field. Indian and Ranger players, using baseball bats, fought side by side, helping each other make the safety of the locker room. Cleveland broadcasters Joe Tait and Herb Score called the riot live on radio. The Cleveland police department arrived to restore order. Nothing quite like the Cle in the 1970’s.

The Oakland A’s defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers to win their third consecutive World Series Championship. Mickey Mantle was elected to the Hall of Fame and in October and Frank Robinson was named manager of the Cleveland Indians, becoming the first black manager in major league history.

After a terrific year in 1973, Royal fans were hopeful that Kansas City could break through against the powerful Oakland A’s.

The off-season had brought a couple of trades: In October 1973, General Manager Cedric Tallis shipped Dick Drago to Boston in exchange for right handed pitcher Marty Pattin. The trade was a little bit of a headscratcher. Drago had won 17 games in 1972 and had gone 50-57 over the previous four seasons. Over the same time frame, Pattin had gone 60-54 with Milwaukee and Boston. Pattin was also two years older than Drago. In the end, the trade ended up being a wash, as Drago pitched for eight more seasons, compiling a won-loss record of 49-47, while Pattin finished his career in Kansas City, pitching for seven more years, going 43-39.

The second trade was not a wash. In December of 1973, Tallis traded Lou Piniella to the New York Yankees for 38-year-old pitcher Lindy McDaniel. McDaniel pitched two more uneventful seasons with the Royals, while Sweet Lou played, and starred, for the Yankees for eleven more years. The two trades were certainly the worst trades of Tallis’ storied career. Could they have led to his departure? In June, Royals owner Ewing Kaufmann replace Tallis with Joe Burke.

Pythagorean predicted the 1974 Royals to go 82-80. Instead they finished at 77-85, thirteen games back of the West Division champion Athletics.

It’s difficult to pinpoint what went wrong in 1974. In retrospect, 1974 was the first year that the Royals went through a rebuild. Gone were veterans like Piniella, Paul Schaal and Ed Kirkpatrick. In their place came a slew of youngsters such as George Brett, Frank White, Al Cowens, Dennis Leonard and Mark Littell. They joined other young Royals: Steve Busby, Doug Bird, John Mayberry and Paul Splittorff in the first real youth movement in Royals history.

Amos Otis had another solid year, hitting .284 with 12 home runs, 73 RBI and winning another Gold Glove. Vada Pinson, acquired in February from the California Angels, got into 115 games and hit .276. Al Cowens made his Royal debut, at the age of 22, and hit .242 in 110 games, seeing action at all three outfield spots plus two games at third base. George Brett, in his first full season, hit .282 and finished third in the American League Rookie of the Year voting.

John Mayberry, who had ascended to star status after terrific years in 1972 and 1973, slumped to a .234 batting average in 1974, though he still led the Royals with 22 home runs. Big John was injured in August, so the Royals signed future Hall of Famer Orlando Cepeda, who had been released by the Boston Red Sox. Cepeda had twelve RBI in his first six games with Kansas City before father time reminded him that he was 36 years old. Cepeda slumped for the remainder of the season, finishing at .215, in what would be the final year of a storied career.

On the mound, Steve Busby blossomed into a superstar, going 22-14 and becoming the first pitcher in Major League history to throw no-hitters in his first two seasons. On June 19th, Busby was masterful in shutting down the Milwaukee Brewers. Buzz faced only 28 batters, the only blemish being a lead off walk to George Scott in the second inning. Busby only struck out three batters, but only four Brewers hit the ball out of the infield all night. Right fielder Al Cowens made a terrific running catch on a George Scott drive with two outs in the fourth inning to preserve the gem. Busby’s no-hitter was the first in Milwaukee since Warren Spahn no-hit the San Francisco Giants in 1961.

Paul Splittorff, who had won twenty games in 1973, slumped to 13-19, but Al Fitzmorris had his best year as a Royal, going 13-6 with a 2.79 ERA. Future ace Dennis Leonard made his debut on September 4th and went 0-4 over 22 innings. The staff did another excellent job of keeping the ball in the park, allowing only 91 home runs. By comparison, the 2018 Royals have already allowed 114 home runs through June 26th. The ’74 staff struck out 731 batters, led by Busby’s 198, while only walking 482.

The real story of the year though was the emergence of Hal McRae. Mac finished third in the American League with a .310 batting average and finished in the top ten in almost all statistical categories. In one of the year’s more interesting days, McRae completely owned the Cleveland Indians. On August 27th, the Royals and the Tribe split a doubleheader at Royals Stadium. McRae was on fire, going six for nine at the plate with five doubles, one home run, seven RBI and fourteen total bases. The six extra base hits tied a major league record.

As the year wound to a close, the Royals drafted future star Willie Wilson with the eighteenth pick in the first round of the 1974 amateur draft, three spots ahead of Kansas City native Rick Sutcliffe, who went to the Los Angeles Dodgers. The 1974 draft was not a deep draft, with only one Hall of Famer, Paul Molitor, going to the St. Louis Cardinals with pick #585.

As for me, I got my first look at Nolan Ryan and his vaunted 100 MPH fastball. Check out the concession menu from that 1974 game program. 12-ounce beers for .60 cents! 40-ounce beers for $1.75! Can you imagine drinking a 40 in Kaufmann? Between runs to the bathroom, how much game would you see? Would you even care about the game? Interestingly, you could buy a pack of cigarettes for .60 cents and individual cigars for .20 cents. Ah, the good old days.