NEW YORK (AP) — George Brett watched the Kansas City Royals prepare to face the New York Yankees and remembered the combustible clashes of the 1970s.
“This isn’t a series, this is war,” said the Hall of Famer, tossing in a profanity for emphasis.
Brett slid late into Graig Nettles in 1977's Game 5 of the best-of-five AL Championship Series, catching the third baseman on the face with an arm. Nettles kicked Brett in the teeth. Brett threw a punch as benches and bullpens emptied.
“You've got to find a way to turn it up a notch,” Brett said Friday by the Royals dugout at Yankee Stadium as he watched Kansas City's workout ahead of Saturday's Division Series opener. “Obviously, if you do something that we used to do to each other out here, you’re kicked out of the game here or it’s an automatic double play or whatever. I mean, me and Nettles got in a fistfight at third base and didn't even get kicked out of the game, for crying out loud.”
Kansas City, which started play in 1969, reached the playoffs for the first time in 1976. Brett hit a tying three-run homer in the eighth inning off Grant Jackson in Game 5, but Chris Chambliss homered leading off ninth inning against Mark Littell.
A year later in the sixth inning of Game 2, Hal McRae made a leaping body block of Willie Randolph well past second base in the sixth to break up a possible inning-ending double play on Brett's grounder to Nettles, allowing Freddie Patek to score the tying run from second base.
“It didn’t take much for anybody there on either side to get into a ruckus,” Yankees star Reggie Jackson told an MLB Network documentary.
Three days later, Brett's first-inning RBI triple off Ron Guidry led to the brawl with Nettles, who was grabbed from behind by Royals third base coach Chuck Hiller as Guidry tried to restrain Brett.
“Marty Springstead was the umpire, and after everything had cleared, he goes: 'All right.' He points to me. He goes: 'This is an important guy.' He point to Brett, he goes: 'This is an important guy, and this is an important game, so nobody's getting thrown out the game,'" Nettles told the TV show Las 5 Esquinas de NY a few years ago.
Jackson was controversially benched by manager Billy Martin after starting the series 1 for 14, then had a pinch-hit single in the eighth that cut New York's deficit to 3-2. The Yankees scored three times in the ninth for a 5-3 win.
When the teams met again in the 1980 ALCS, Kansas City swept. Yankees owner George Steinbrenner fumed after third base coach Mike Ferraro sent Randolph home, trying to score from first on Bob Watson's two-out, eighth-inning double in Game 2, with New York trailing by a run. Brett took left fielder Willie Wilson's throw and relayed to catcher Darrell Porter for the out.
Manager Dick Howser refused to fire Ferraro, and Brett hit a go-ahead, three-run homer off Rich Gossage as the Royals won Game 3 to complete the sweep. Steinbrenner forced out Howser after the series and Howser was hired as Royals manager the following August. Ferraro joined his staff in 1984 and the Royals won their first World Series title in 1985.
“They both came over to Kansas City and became my dear friends,” Brett said.
His most famous moment in the Bronx occurred on July 24, 1983, in what became known as the Pine Tar Game. The Royals trailed 4-3 with two outs in the ninth when Brett hit a two-run homer off Gossage. Martin argued Brett's bat had pine tar in excess of the 18-inch limit, and plate umpire Tim McClelland agreed and signaled out. Eyes bulging, Brett stormed out of the dugout toward McClelland and had to be restrained by Howser and umpires.
Kansas City filed a protest that was upheld by AL President Lee MacPhail, who wrote “games should be won and lost on the playing field — not though technicalities of the rules.” The game continued on Aug. 18 and the Royals won 5-4.
Now in his 31st season as a Royals vice president, Brett travels with the team during the postseason to fire up the current players with the decades-old history.
“They weren't born yet. Some of our coaches weren't even born yet. I'm going to remind them,” he said. “This series means more to me than it means to them.”
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
FILE - New York's Graig Nettles slides into the dirt and safe at third as Kansas City Royals George Brett covers in the fifth inning in the American League championship at Kansas City, Oct. 3,1978. (AP Photo/John File)
FILE- Kansas City Royals third baseman George Brett, right, rights with New York Yankees third baseman Graig Nettles in the first inning of Game 5, the final of the American League playoffs at Kansas City, Oct. 9, 1977. (AP Photo, File)
George Brett, Kansas City Royals Hall of Fame infielder and vice president of baseball operations, watches the team work out ahead of an American League Division series baseball game against the New York Yankees, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
NEW YORK (AP) — Reviving a campaign pledge, President Donald Trump wants a one-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates, a move that could save Americans tens of billions of dollars but drew immediate opposition from an industry that has been in his corner.
Trump was not clear in his social media post Friday night whether a cap might take effect through executive action or legislation, though one Republican senator said he had spoken with the president and would work on a bill with his “full support.” Trump said he hoped it would be in place Jan. 20, one year after he took office.
Strong opposition is certain from Wall Street in addition to the credit card companies, which donated heavily to his 2024 campaign and have supported Trump's second-term agenda. Banks are making the argument that such a plan would most hurt poor people, at a time of economic concern, by curtailing or eliminating credit lines, driving them to high-cost alternatives like payday loans or pawnshops.
“We will no longer let the American Public be ripped off by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Researchers who studied Trump’s campaign pledge after it was first announced found that Americans would save roughly $100 billion in interest a year if credit card rates were capped at 10%. The same researchers found that while the credit card industry would take a major hit, it would still be profitable, although credit card rewards and other perks might be scaled back.
About 195 million people in the United States had credit cards in 2024 and were assessed $160 billion in interest charges, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says. Americans are now carrying more credit card debt than ever, to the tune of about $1.23 trillion, according to figures from the New York Federal Reserve for the third quarter last year.
Further, Americans are paying, on average, between 19.65% and 21.5% in interest on credit cards according to the Federal Reserve and other industry tracking sources. That has come down in the past year as the central bank lowered benchmark rates, but is near the highs since federal regulators started tracking credit card rates in the mid-1990s. That’s significantly higher than a decade ago, when the average credit card interest rate was roughly 12%.
The Republican administration has proved particularly friendly until now to the credit card industry.
Capital One got little resistance from the White House when it finalized its purchase and merger with Discover Financial in early 2025, a deal that created the nation’s largest credit card company. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is largely tasked with going after credit card companies for alleged wrongdoing, has been largely nonfunctional since Trump took office.
In a joint statement, the banking industry was opposed to Trump's proposal.
“If enacted, this cap would only drive consumers toward less regulated, more costly alternatives," the American Bankers Association and allied groups said.
Bank lobbyists have long argued that lowering interest rates on their credit card products would require the banks to lend less to high-risk borrowers. When Congress enacted a cap on the fee that stores pay large banks when customers use a debit card, banks responded by removing all rewards and perks from those cards. Debit card rewards only recently have trickled back into consumers' hands. For example, United Airlines now has a debit card that gives miles with purchases.
The U.S. already places interest rate caps on some financial products and for some demographics. The Military Lending Act makes it illegal to charge active-duty service members more than 36% for any financial product. The national regulator for credit unions has capped interest rates on credit union credit cards at 18%.
Credit card companies earn three streams of revenue from their products: fees charged to merchants, fees charged to customers and the interest charged on balances. The argument from some researchers and left-leaning policymakers is that the banks earn enough revenue from merchants to keep them profitable if interest rates were capped.
"A 10% credit card interest cap would save Americans $100 billion a year without causing massive account closures, as banks claim. That’s because the few large banks that dominate the credit card market are making absolutely massive profits on customers at all income levels," said Brian Shearer, director of competition and regulatory policy at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator, who wrote the research on the industry's impact of Trump's proposal last year.
There are some historic examples that interest rate caps do cut off the less creditworthy to financial products because banks are not able to price risk correctly. Arkansas has a strictly enforced interest rate cap of 17% and evidence points to the poor and less creditworthy being cut out of consumer credit markets in the state. Shearer's research showed that an interest rate cap of 10% would likely result in banks lending less to those with credit scores below 600.
The White House did not respond to questions about how the president seeks to cap the rate or whether he has spoken with credit card companies about the idea.
Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., who said he talked with Trump on Friday night, said the effort is meant to “lower costs for American families and to reign in greedy credit card companies who have been ripping off hardworking Americans for too long."
Legislation in both the House and the Senate would do what Trump is seeking.
Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., released a plan in February that would immediately cap interest rates at 10% for five years, hoping to use Trump’s campaign promise to build momentum for their measure.
Hours before Trump's post, Sanders said that the president, rather than working to cap interest rates, had taken steps to deregulate big banks that allowed them to charge much higher credit card fees.
Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., have proposed similar legislation. Ocasio-Cortez is a frequent political target of Trump, while Luna is a close ally of the president.
Seung Min Kim reported from West Palm Beach, Fla.
President Donald Trump arrives on Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport, Friday, Jan. 9, 2025, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
FILE - Visa and Mastercard credit cards are shown in Buffalo Grove, Ill., Feb. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)
