Kansas City Sports: Most Despised Athletes to Kansas City Fans

MOST DESPISED ATHLETES IN KC – NUMBER 4: BRETT LAWRIE

Oh, man. When it comes to the most hated rivals in Kansas City Royals history, Brett Lawrie might immediately come to mind, at least for the newer age of Royals fans.

Sure, the Royals quarreled with the Yankees a lot in the 1970s and 1980s, but Brett Lawrie singlehandedly turned an entire city against him in one foul swoop. Let’s get into the back story, shall we?

It was early in the 2015 season and the Kansas City Royals were welcoming in the Oakland Athletics to Kauffman Stadium. Both of these teams had made the playoffs the season prior, with the A’s actually being the team knocked out by the Royals in the 2014 Wild Card gem.

Perhaps that was still nagging at the 2015 Oakland Athletics, but it’s worth noting that Brett Lawrie wasn’t on that 2014 team that lost in the Wild Card round. He was still a member of the Toronto Blue Jays at that point.

Brett Lawrie singlehandedly turned an entire city against him in one foul swoop.

Anyway… The A’s came to town and Lawrie was running to second base during a play. Rather than just sliding into second base and let whatever happen happen, Lawrie decided to slide with the spikes on his cleats up in the air and went after Alcides Escobar.

Lawrie was out, but he had also taken out Escobar in the process in what looked to be a dirty move in order to break up a double play. Escobar left the game and ended up missing about a week afterwards, but what was done was done. Lawrie had started a war.

There was swirling drama over that weekend series that Lawrie didn’t do it intentionally and had tried to text Escobar to apologize, but nobody was buying it. The following game, which took place on a Saturday night, the late Yordano Ventura plunked Lawrie with a fast ball after he’d given up a home run to make it a 5-0 game. Lawrie took his base and Ventura was ejected.

Fast forward to Sunday and everyone wondered if the drama would stop there. The answer was no, it wouldn’t. Scott Kazmir beaned Lorenzo Cain in the first inning and then it appeared that the Royals were going to be the bigger guys and just play ball.

[Lawrie] was the first real villain to our team and that’s something this newer wave of fans won’t forget.

Enter Kelvin Herrera.

Herrera, who back then was the seventh inning guy, came in with the Royals down on the scoreboard. When Lawrie came up to the plate, Herrera threw a 100-MPH (at least) fast ball behind Lawrie’s head. The ball hit the back stop and the crowd went nuts.

The best part of all of this was that the Royals won the series after a crazy comeback in that Sunday afternoon game. Lawrie continued to run his mouth and would go on to sign with the White Sox after the 2015 season, meaning he’d be booed relentlessly by Royals fans the next season (which he was).

He’s currently out of the league, however, I don’t think any Royals fans are upset about that.

While this is something that most fans would probably let go, Lawrie is always going to be hated by people in Kansas City. He was the first real villain (i.e. the first to actually do something malicious and not just pitch well) to our team and that’s something this newer wave of fans won’t forget.