Kansas City Royals: Looking back at the career of Billy Butler
With this being the 50th season of the Kansas City Royals, the team is inviting notable players back to be recognized by the fans. This weekend, it’s Billy Butler who will be at Kauffman Stadium.
For a period of time, Billy Butler was the only member of the Kansas City Royals worth watching. In 2012, when the team won just 72 games, Butler was the bright spot. He slashed .313/.373/.510 with 29 home runs and 107 RBI and made it to his first and only All-Star Game.
Butler was gipped out of participating in the Home Run Derby (thanks Robinson Cano!), but the fans wouldn’t let that go. They booed during Cano’s entire at bat and cheered whenever he got an out (that was before Major League Baseball added a timer). Classic.
That 2012 season alone could have made Billy Butler a legend amongst Royals fans, but he continued to be a fan favorite over his final two seasons. When the Royals finally became a winning organization, Butler was right in the middle of it.
https://twitter.com/Royals/status/1019947286095454208
In 2013, the team’s first winning season in a decade, Butler started the whole Rally Sauce thing. While I’m not sure what happened to all of those bottles of Rally Sauce (seriously, are those still available to buy anywhere?), the Rally Sauce storyline was one of those fun things the Royals were doing when the wins finally started piling up.
In what would be his final season as a Kansas City Royal in 2014, Billy Butler went out with a bang. No, his stats weren’t great (.271 batting average with nine home runs wasn’t ideal for a designated hitter), but he still had some memorable moments. When Eric Hosmer went down with an injury that summer in the midst of a playoff run, Butler took over at first base and the Royals went on a winning streak during that time.
This wouldn’t be a true Billy Butler article, however, if I failed to mention his big moment in the 2014 ALDS. In Game 3 of that series against the Angels (who had the best record in the American League that year), Butler managed to steal second base and then did Jarrod Dyson‘s “Rev it up” gesture that he’d always do when stealing bags.
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Watching Billy Butler, a guy not known for his speed, swipe a base in the playoffs was arguably one of the best moments from that 2014 run. It’s something fans still look back on and chuckle at to this day.
With Butler coming back to the K to be honored this weekend, this was a post that needed to be written. He signed with the Oakland Athletics after the Royals didn’t offer him a long-term contract and fizzled out quickly afterwards.
Butler’s reputation wasn’t great while he was in Oakland, which is likely what led to him being let go by the A’s. He finished off that 2016 season with the Yankees, but that was it for ol’ Country Breakfast. He’s been out of the league since then.
Watching the Kansas City Royals win a World Series in 2015 was great, don’t get me wrong, but it did sting a bit knowing that Billy Butler wasn’t a part of it. I’m sure he felt the same way.
Even though Butler wasn’t on the World Series championship team, fans should still appreciate Country Breakfast and what he did while donning that Royals jersey. He was a proud Royal during a time when not many people were. That makes him a Royals legend and he deserves a big ovation from the fans this weekend!