Not-so-magic Royals memories, 4-16-70: Piniella out around the horn

Lou Piniella went 3-for-5 with three RBIs in the Kansas City Royals' 8-6 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers on April 16, 1970. But his performance at the plate was partially undermined by his getting thrown out at each base in the game at County Stadium.

By Phil Ellenbecker
  Lou Piniella was quite the hitter during his 18 years in major league baseball, compiling a .291 lifetime batting average. One thing he didn't do, though, was hit for the cycle.
  He did run for the cycle, though.
  On April 16, 1970, fresh off an American League Rookie of the Year campaign with Kansas City, Piniella sparkled at the plate, going for 3-for-5 with a homer and three RBIs in the Royals' 8-6 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers at County Stadium.
  And "Sweet Lou," known for his gung-ho approach as both a player and manager, managed the feat of getting thrown out at each base in a match-up of the American League's 1969 expansion teams before 7,110 in Milwaukee. Milwaukee had found out four days before the season started that it had a team, the Seattle Pilots deciding to move there after one year in the Emerald City.
  Piniella, the Royals' No. 5 hitter in the lineup, began his circuit of shame on the bases the hard way. After reaching base on an error in the first inning by Milwaukee shortstop Ted Kubiak, Piniella tried to score on Luis Alcarez's double to left field that plated Ed Kirkpatrick and Amos Otis ahead of him.
  He was wiped out on a relay that went from left fielder Danny Walton to Kubiak to catcher Jerry McNertney. That was the third out of the inning and left the score at 2-0.
  Piniella blasted a three-run homer his next time at bat, a 415-foot shot into the left-field bleachers, capping a four-run third inning that put Kansas City up 6-1.
  Piniella singled in the fifth and was retired at second base on Alcarez's fielder's choice grounder back to the pitcher. Two bases down, two to go.
  Piniella made it 3-for-4 at the plate and 1-2-3 yer out on the bases when he came up in the seventh. After singling he advanced to third on Alcarez's single. Then he was picked off by catcher McNertney, who fired to Max Alvis at third.
  Piniella completed his cycle in pedestrian fashion, retired at first base when he grounded out to second in the ninth.
  Otis' two-run single made it 8-2 in the fourth. But then the Brewers, whose one year in Seattle was made infamous by Jim Bouton's tell-all book "Ball Four," began to make it interesting behind Walton. His two-run homer in the fifth and RBI single in the seventh cut the margin to 8-6.
  But Royals relief ace Moe Drabowky then came on for Roger Nelson after Walton's run-scoring single, and after some initial shakiness he slammed the door for his first save. Drabowsky threw a wild pitch and walked the first batter he faced, Russ Snyder. He then got Greg Goossen, who'd earlier homered and doubled, on a pop-up for the third out. Then he struck out the next four batters he faced and retired the final six over the eighth and ninth.
  Royals starter Bill Butler, a Topps All-Rookie selection in 1969, improved to 2-0, allowing five runs, four earned, and five hits and two walks with four strikeouts over five innings.
  Brewers starter Lew Krausse, who while with the Kansas City Athletics in 1961 had pitched a shutout in his major league debut, fresh out of high school, fell to 1-2. He gave up six hits and six runs, four earned, with two walks in three innings.
  Otis, in his first year of a stellar tenure in K.C. after being traded from the Mets, went 2-for-4 with three RBIs and two runs scored. Pat Kelly, Alcarez and Ellie Rodriguez, the Royals' All-Star Game representative in 1969, also had two hits.
  Walton, the Sporting News Minor League Player of the Year in 1969, continued an auspicious start to his rookie season by going 2-for-4 with three RBIs. Steve Hovley, a future Royal and Bouton's "hippie" roommate in 1969, joined Goossen and Walton with two hits for the Brewers.
  After this night's play Walton stood first in the league in homers with four and RBIs with 13, and was second in slugging average and base hits.
  He flattened out somewhat after that but still finished the year with a .257 average, 17 homers and 66 RBIs.
  But for Danny Boy, it was summer's gone, the roses falling and pretty much time for him to go as he had only eight homers and 31 RBIs the rest of his career. His final totals for nine years were a .223 average, 28 homers and 107 RBIs. A switch to being a switch hitter from righty from 1975 to '80 didn't help.

Lou Piniella shows his displeasure with the umpires by tossing a base after being ejected from a game while manager of the Cincinnati Reds. Piniella might have felt like throwing a base as a player April 16, 1970, a night when Piniella was thrown out at each base in the Kansas City Royals' 8-6 win over the Milwaukee Brewers.

   Ultimately, about the only difference Piniella's misadventures on the bases made was perhaps costing the Royals a chance to feel a bit more comfortable in a game they had pretty much well in hand from the fourth inning on. And it wasn't mentioned in the game account by the Milwaukee Journal or the Kansas City Star, according to an article on the Society for American Baseball Research's Game Project.  More costly were Piniella's base-running gaffes next season in a 7-5 loss Aug. 3 to Oakland, marring a night in which he went 4-for-4 at the plate. He was thrown out in the fourth and eighth innings trying to stretch a double into a triple. In the fifth inning he was thrown out at the plate trying to score on a single.  By going 3-for-5 that night in 1970, Piniella improved his batting average to .435, good for fifth in the league.     With that April 16 win the Royals improved to 3-4 under Charlie Metro, good for fourth in the American League West, while the Brewers of Dave Bristol fell to 3-6, tied for fifth in the six-team West.
  The two teams eventually tied for fourth in the West ahead of the Chicago White Sox at 65-97, 33 games behind Minnestoa, with the Brewers also having one tie. Metro was fired 52 games into the season, replaced by Bob Lemon, while Bristol survived.
  Piniella, who'd hit .282 with 11 homers and 68 RBIs in 1969, finished 1970 at .301-11-88, one of six seasons he was above .300 in which he had 250 plate appearances, including three in which he was in the AL's top four in average. After being traded in December 1973 he finished up his career with the New York Yankees, for whom he played in two World Series. He then went on to a 23-year managerial career. Besides being named a Manager of the Year three times, he received 64 ejections, to go with the 14 he received as a player.
  So he was always a hard-charging kind of guy -- a "red ass," in baseball vernacular -- as that night of April 16, 1970 showed.

Sources:

Play-by-play: https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1970/B04160MIL1970.htm  and https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/april-16-1970-kansas-citys-lou-piniella-thrown-out-every-basePiniella biography: https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/407dddec 
Additional background came from various sources on the Retrosheet and Society for American Baseball Research's Biography Project and Games Project websites, as well as baseballreference.com.