In the summer time of 1986, Bo Jackson and Kevin Seitzer performed side-by-side on the Memphis Chicks, the Kansas City Double-A farm staff. And though there wasn’t any noticeable animosity, the boys — now teammates on the 1988 Royals — shared little in frequent. Unlike Jackson, blessed by the Gods to be an athlete, Seitzer was your prototypical (aka: cliched) scrapper — the white small-college child (Eastern Illinois) who was drafted pretty late (eleventh spherical), however lived and died within the cage. Also not like Jackson, Seitzer stapled each emotion, feeling and opinion to his brow. During his rookie season, for instance, Seitzer’s hometown of Middletown, Illinois, deliberate on throwing a parade in his honor — till Seitzer made it clear he didn’t like his hometown of Middletown, Illinois. “I doubt they’ll ever have a Kevin Seitzer day,” he mentioned — extra risk than response.
Seitzer was brash. Loud. Obnoxious. If you had a whitehead in your nostril, he advised you. If you farted, he was the primary to announce it. “He was a gnat,” mentioned Danny Tartabull, the outfielder. “You know, the busy bee in everyone’s conversation. Most guys, before they said something, took the temperature. Not Kevin.”
“Kevin was annoying,” mentioned Jeff Montgomery, a younger reliever. “Not a bad person. But he pushed things when it was better to walk away.”
Because he largely saved to himself, Jackson may very well be laborious to learn. Were you his pal? Were you not his pal? Sometimes he may very well be heard laughing. Other occasions he flashed the sternness of a decide. His measurement made him intimidating sufficient that uncommon was the Royal who challenged him. “The only time I actually saw someone stand up to Bo was [pitcher] Steve Farr,” mentioned Montgomery. “Bo had been told Steve was talking trash about him and he was mad. But that annoyed Steve. He went straight to Bo and said, ‘Do you have a problem? If so, let’s go — me and you.’ Bo could have wrapped Steve up like a pretzel, but he didn’t because he respected Steve holding his ground.”
Bo didn’t, nonetheless, respect Seitzer. “He’s one of the biggest ass-lickers we’ve got on the team,” Jackson mentioned. “He always puts his two cents in. And guys are like, ‘Will you shut the fuck up?’ ”
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One day, early in the 1988 season, the Royals held pre-game batting practice indoors, at the cages beneath the stadium. The team broke into groups of four, and Jackson’s quartet included Seitzer, catcher Ed Hearn and infielder Bill Pecota. “[Kevin] is at all times the primary within the cage,” Jackson mentioned. “He has to be the first to hit. So we’re all back there, he takes his hacks, and I look down. I don’t have nothing [on] but my sliding pants.”
Jackson retreated to the clubhouse and threw on his shorts. When he returned, Hearn was wrapping his swings. Spotting Jackson, Seitzer theatrically jumped into the cage.
“Excuse me,” Jackson mentioned, “but didn’t you just take your fucking turn?”
“Well,” Seitzer mentioned, “you should have been here . . .”
Three or 4 coaches, in addition to a handful of teammates, have been standing close by. Jackson thought Seitzer was (as at all times) attempting to peacock. “Look, man,” Jackson mentioned, “will you just shut the fuck up and get out?”
He then entered the cage, the place Seitzer — inches away — continued to lecture on protocol. “Kevin said to Bo, ‘Fuck you — you weren’t here,’” mentioned Brian Watley, a Royals batboy. “Saying ‘fuck you’ to Bo seemed a little risky.”
Jackson was not blissful.
“Look, you better stop talking at me,” he mentioned.
Seitzer continued to bark.
“This is my last time telling you,” Jackson mentioned. “Don’t say anything else to me, or I’m going to kick your ass.”
Seitzer exited the cage, Jackson grabbed his Louisville Slugger, stepped in and missed the primary pitch. Seitzer snickered.
Jackson threw down his bat, walked towards Seitzer (“With fire in his eyes,” Hearn recalled), grabbed him across the throat along with his left hand and shoved his head towards the concrete wall. No one with the Royals had witnessed this quick of a Bo metamorphosis. Within seconds Seitzer’s eyes rolled again.
“Look, you picked the wrong motherfucker to fuck with on the wrong day!” Jackson screamed. “As long as you’re breathing air, don’t you ever talk to me like that again! Motherfucker, I will break your neck!”
Dating again to his boyhood in Bessemer, Alabama, Jackson’s philosophy on allotting an ass-kicking was pretty easy: If anybody steps in to finish the ass-kicking, the ass-kicking intensifies. As a number of of the coaches and gamers tried separating the combatants, Jackson’s grip grew vise-like.
“Bo!” screamed Bob Schaefer, the first-base coach. “Bo! Bo! Let him go! Bo!”
Jackson wasn’t listening. He was overcome by rage. Too a lot Kevin Seitzer. His arms, Schaefer recalled, appeared to be rising in thickness by the second. The veins bulged from his left bicep.
“The harder I squeezed, his eyes rolled back in his head,” Jackson mentioned. “And the harder they pulled on me, the stiffer my arm got.”
By now Seitzer’s toes have been off the bottom. His face was purplish-blue.
“It was like a horror movie,” mentioned Tartabull. “Bo was Jason in Friday the 13th, and Kevin was the camp kid about to be murdered.”
Finally, after what felt like an hour, Jackson launched his maintain, dropped Seitzer to the ground and stormed again to his locker. He picked up a bat and swung on the nearest wall. Wood and plaster exploded into little chunks.
Seitzer, in the meantime, was escorted to the coaching room, the place he rested with an ice pack affixed to his neck. A nonetheless steaming Jackson rose from his stool and entered the room — adopted by a half dozen curious/terrified/ wildly entertained teammates. Jackson stood over the battered Seitzer.
“Don’t you ever cross me again,” he lectured. “If you do, I am not going to give those coaches time enough to grab me. I’m going to rip your asshole, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart. Don’t you ever cross me again.”
Seitzer nodded. About a half hour later, he tiptoed as much as Jackson. The cocksureness was gone. “Bo,” he mentioned, “can we just forget what happened back there and be buddies?”
“No,” Jackson mentioned. “The shit don’t work that way. You have said what you want to say, and you mean it, but now you want to come back and ass lick with me and say you’re sorry? No.”
Years later, Seitzer referred to Jackson as “a very good teammate, but not someone I knew that well. We weren’t close.”
Jackson was extra blunt.
Kevin Seitzer may go fuck himself.
Excerpted from the guide THE LAST FOLK HERO by Jeff Pearlman. Copyright © 2022 by Jeff Pearlman. From Mariner Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted by permission.