The story is told that in the wee hours of Oct. 2, 1976, a small contingent of reporters and broadcasters, along with hitting coach Charlie Lau and pitcher Steve Busby, kept the lights burning in the Royals Stadium press box. The Royals already had lost, 4-3, to the Twins, and everyone else had left. Manager Whitey Herzog was home in bed. But the boys in the press box had a telephone line hooked up to the broadcast of the A's-Angels game out in Oakland. If the A's lost, it meant the Royals would win their first American League West title. The West Coast game trudged scorelessly into the 12th inning as the handful of Kansas Citians listened to broadcaster Fred White relay the news from Angels broadcasters Don Drysdale and Dick Enberg. "Rusty Torres, who had played for the Royals and was a very unlikely guy to hit a home run, hit one that beat the A's," White remembered. "I just said to Charlie and Busby, 'You won the West. How does it feel?' " According to writer Steve Cameron's account in his book "Moments, Memories, Miracles," champagne was found and the cry went up, "Let's go see The Rat!" That would be Herzog, snoozing a few miles away in Independence, Mo. They piled in cars and, before long, the celebration was under way. Lau led the way into Herzog's house. "I remember Charlie coming in, had a bottle of champagne and he popped the cork and I think he put a hole in my drywall ceiling and we had to get that fixed," Herzog recalled. "I was sound asleep, but we didn't get much sleep the rest of the night." http://kansascity.royals.mlb.com/ne...nt_id=12543980&vkey=news_kc&fext=.jsp&c_id=kc
