Lonnie Smith was so unpredictable in the outfield his nickname was "Skates." One time he twisted an ankle tracking down a routine fly ball to left. He broke back, broke in, broke back out again, scurried in as fast as he could, dived, caught the ball just off the turf, then they helped him off the field with a twisted ankle. Weird.
Darryl Motley played right field. He caught the last out in the 1985 Series. One time he struck out four times in a game that ended up going 15 or 16 innings. He stranded six or seven guys on base. I was out in right field GA, and when the game went into extra innings, I yelled at him "Hey Darryl, thanks for the doubleheader,dude..." He ended up hitting a homer in the 16th to win the game, and in the paper the next morning, the reporter asked him how it felt to hit the winning dinger. He said "Well, some guy yelled at me 'thanks for the double header' so I knew I had to do something to make up for it."
So they do hear you, my friends. They do hear you.
Other forgotten Royals:
Dane Iorg
Jim Sundberg
Pat Sheridan
Bill Pecota
Greg Pryor
Buddy Biancalana
Onix Conception
Jorge Orta (St. Louis know him quite well)
Bud "The Arsonist" Black
Steve "A Pitch Too" Farr
Tom Poquette
Clint Hurdle
Rich Gale
Steve Mingori
Larry Gura
Dirty Kurt Bevaqua
and my two favorite Royals pitchers of all time:
Steve Busby and Dennis "Leo" Leonard.
BTW: Pete LaCock is one of the dirtiest baseball names ever. Right in there with Dick Pole, Rusty Kuntz and Bartolo Colon.
http://www.flumesday.com/111206dirtynames2.shtml