Billy Butler comes from a family of cowboy boots and southern accents. His father is a self-described redneck. There is an image building in your head right now. It's incomplete.
Billy Butler also likes to read James Patterson. Did you know that? He's a bit of an amateur baseball historian, and that "redneck" father of his is actually an engineer who at one time was manager of an international missile project.
Nobody in the Royals' clubhouse is the subject of more jokes than Billy, in part because he's -- still -- the youngest guy on the team. This is how it's always been for Billy, and he's OK with it.
He doesn't mind the jokes. If they're funny, he'll laugh the hardest. This isn't how it would go if that image some have -- cocky, self-obsessed -- was the real thing.
Once, a teammate made fun of him for striking out against his mother on the Wii.
"Yeah, I may have struck out," he said, "but I then proceeded to hit three jacks off her."
All this came to mind while writing about Butler again for today's paper. Billy is breaking the glass ceiling of the Royals' homegrown hitters of the past, performing like a star in a season he began at the age of 22.
Billy's swing is pure, his approach is solid, and -- some people are surprised to hear this -- his hitting knowledge matches some of the best in the game. One of his former coaches tells the story of Billy as a rookie grounding out in his first at bat against Kenny Rogers, who made his big league debut when Billy was 3.
Billy comes back to the dugout, studies how Rogers attacked him, and decides he's going to hit a changeup up the middle for a single in his next at bat. That's exactly what happened.
"He does his homework," said Frank White, who managed Butler in the minors. "You may not think he does, but he does. If you sit and talk to him about baseball, he can tell you some amazing stuff. Stories, stats. He's not just floating through this thing, like some guy who's been given a free pass."
Again, this goes against the image some have built up. Butler might win a batting title someday*. He might be the guy to break Steve Balboni's 24-year-old franchise home run record**. Or it could be anything in between.
* Billy played three full minor league seasons and won two batting titles. The season he didn't win, he hit .348.
** That record is so ridiculous. Thirty-six? It's been said before, but it's like the whole Steroids Era just passed right over Kansas City, disinterested. There have been 249 seasons of guys hitting more than 36 homers since Balboni. An incomplete list: Darryl Strawberry, Brian Giles, Jay Buhner, skinny Mark McGwire, Jesse Barfield, Ellis Burks, Tony Batista, Phil Nevin, won't-talk-about-the-past Mark McGwire, Dale Murphy, Ryne Sandberg, Mike Schmidt, Bret Boone, Howard Johnson, Rich Aurilia, and Dean Palmer twice, though neither time in his season with the Royals.
If the rest of his career goes like everybody expects, and Butler continues to get more comfortable showing his personality, fans in Kansas City are going to fall in love with him.
Butler came back from last year's minor league demotion with an obvious change, punctuating every comment to a camera or microphone with some variation of "I'm just trying to help the team." That's fine, and it's what the Royals want to hear, but as Billy's true personality begins to seep through the fans in Kansas City are going to fall in love with what his teammates describe as a warm heart and friendly outlook.
He is the star hitter this franchise has lacked since Mike Sweeney was healthy, and he's under club contract control for four more years -- could be more, because an extension makes sense for both sides.
This season has been a disaster for the Royals in almost every way, with Zack Greinke's dominance and Butler's emergence two notable exceptions.
Kansas City has had five years of incredible highs and lows to get to know Greinke. Another year or so of getting to know Butler, and of Butler spraying line drives all over the field, and fans in Kansas City will have more reason to watch the four games between Greinke's starts.
I dunno, having Pepsi use Billy in its current national commercial as a "modern" face to complement Joltin' Joe says something about how at least some people feel about his potential star power...