September 12, 1977
Remembering the Plaza flood
On September 11th, 1977, the Royals played game number 141 in Minnesota. They won that game by a score of 4 to 1 with lefty Andy Hassler spreading ten Minnesota hits, nine which were singles, over nine innings, while allowing just one run. The game had been a pitchers’ duel between Hassler and Geoff Zahn. Going into the top of the 9th, the score was knotted up at one apiece and Kansas City’s eleven game winning streak was at risk. In the top of the 9th, John Wathan led off with a walk. There’s an old baseball saw that says walked runners almost always score. The more baseball I watch, the more I believe this. Whitey Herzog decided to play small ball and had John Mayberry (Big John Mayberry!) lay down a bunt. Mayberry did his job and even better, somehow beat the throw to first. Willie Wilson came on to run for Big John. Whitey stuck with the small ball approach as Freddie Patek laid down a bunt on which the only play was to first. Frank White then beat out an infield single, scoring Wathan with the go-ahead run. Satisfied with the run, Whitey decided to let the boys hit. Joe Zdeb ripped a single to left, scoring Wilson. That ended Zahn’s night.
Tom Johnson came in and promptly walked Hal McRae. The Twins countered with former Royal Tom Burgmeier to face George Brett in a lefty-lefty matchup. Brett delivered a sacrifice fly which scored White. Al Cowens, who was enjoying a spectacular season, struck out to end the inning.
Hassler worked around a leadoff single to Lyman Bostock, his third hit of the night, and got the next three batters to record the victory. People forget what a great hitter Bostock was. He only played four seasons and had a lifetime average of .311 before being tragically cut down in the prime of his career, and life.
Win streak intact, the Royals flew back to Kansas City to open a set with the hated Oakland A’s. The A’s have unfortunately become a bit of a laughingstock, but if you were a baseball fan in the 1970’s, especially a Kansas City baseball fan, you remember what a heated rivalry the two teams shared.
The first game of the A’s series was scheduled for Monday night, September 12th. Very early Monday morning, the metro area was soaked by torrential rain. This rainfall saturated the ground and filled local creeks and rivers to the brim. The game was cancelled but not until many fans and most of the players had made their way to Royals stadium.
That evening the skies opened and 16 more inches of rain fell. The flood became known as the Brush Creek Flood, named for the tributary that flows through the Plaza. Brush Creek, as locals know, was paved over in the 1930’s, a tribute from Plaza developer J.C. Nichols to Boss Tom Pendergast and his concrete company. The ornamental bridges that cross Brush Creek, while beautiful, were built low enough to create choke points for flood debris. You never think it’s going to happen until it does. As the rain continued to fall, Brush Creek rose rapidly and spilled out of its banks. The flood sent five feet of water over Ward Parkway. Nightlife in the Plaza went on despite the rapidly approaching disaster. A bartender at the Plaza III told the Kansas City Star that “cars were floating by the windows, with people in them, and there were folks sitting there eating dinner.”
385 people attending a concert at the Alameda Plaza Hotel had to be evacuated through a foot of standing water. Nearly every building on Ward Parkway and Nichols Road flooded. Brush Creek, quiet and often overlooked, was so angry that it tore off chucks of its concrete clothing and deposited the debris downstream. Indian Creek, to the south, was also a raging river. Indian Creek and Brush Creek meet near the intersection of Bannister Road and Holmes Road. I can’t image what that area must have looked like. I’ve seen my share of extreme weather in my lifetime. F5 tornados. Huge snowstorms. Torrential rain. But nothing compares to seeing a massive flood. We lived through two huge floods, one in 1993 and another in 2008, and there’s absolutely nothing you can do other than just get out of the way. Water will kill you without thinking twice about it.
Cars, often with the occupants still inside, continued to be washed down Brush Creek. To make matters worse, a damaged gas main ignited and the explosion and fire damaged buildings in the 600 block of West 48th Street. 77 of the 155 businesses in the Plaza were damaged by flood or fire, or both, that evening. Once day broke on the 13th, authorities were able to assess the damage, and it was horrifying: 25 dead and over $100 million in damages. Crazy thing was this was not even the worst flood to hit Kansas City. That would have been the 1951 flood, which caused 28 deaths and more than $500 million in damage.
What does the flood have to do with baseball? Well, for one, the Royals were in the midst of that record setting winning streak, which would eventually reach 16 games. The team had gotten off to an uninspiring start in 1977. After splitting a double header with Oakland on June 26th, the Royals were in first place in the West, but their record was only 36 and 34. Hardly legendary stuff. After beating the Rangers on August 31st, their record stood at 76 and 54 and they had a 2 ½ game lead over the White Sox with the Twins and Rangers just 3 ½ back. Then something magical happened. Over the final 33 games of the season, the Royals went 27 and 6. That’s an .818-win percentage in case you’re wondering. It was an unbelievable, exhilarating, breathtaking, rousing time to be a Royals fan. Where we lived, out in the hinterlands, games were rarely televised. Instead, we spent evenings glued to our radios, listening to Denny and Fred call another Royals victory. When the paper came out the next day, I’d grab the sports section and pore over the box score, reveling in the glow of another win. After the 16-game win streak was broken, the team righted itself and won another eight in a row. It was a crazy time, 24 wins in 25 games. They faltered in the last week, losing five of their final eight, but won a still standing club record 102 games.
The Royals rarely had rainouts. Since the stadium was carpeted, once the rain stopped, the ground crew would drive out a Zamboni type contraption that sucked the remaining water out of the Astro turf. Around 7:00, the evening storm hit. The game was called due to rain around 8:00. Once the game was called, the Royals disbursed and tried to make their way to their homes.
Amos Otis came upon eight cold, wet and scared teenagers near the stadium Holiday Inn. He tried to get hotel rooms for the teens, but the hotel balked because he wasn’t their parent. Not a good look for Holiday Inn. Instead, AO packed the crew into his Lincoln Continental and fed them at a local restaurant. When it became apparent that the boys couldn’t make it home, Otis put them up at his place and had the boys call their worried parents to let them know they were safe. The next day, Amos drove each of the teen’s home. He told the Star, “I was doing what any other dad would have done. It’s just something I did as a father.”
On September 12, 2017, 40 years to the day of the flood, Otis was reunited with the eight young men, now in their fifties, at the Negro League Baseball Museum. One of the men, Richard Brown, became a Missouri State Representative and sponsored a resolution thanking Otis for helping them. Of course, every Royal fan worth their salt knows about Amos Otis. Royals GM Cedric Tallis literally stole Otis (and pitcher Bob Johnson) from the New York Mets in a 1969 trade. Amos made the first of his five All-Star appearances in 1970 and collected MVP votes in five seasons, finishing third in 1973. He closed his career with almost 43 WAR and is a member of the Royals Hall of Fame.
During his playing career, Otis was wildly popular with the fans, who often serenaded him with chants of “AO, AO, AO”. Otis was not only one of the best players in franchise history, but a true hero.