BALTIMORE – On the day the Kansas City Royals rekindled a rivalry that had been dormant for nearly half a century, the man who embodied the team in the 1970s walked past the one who personifies it today.

“Do you think he’s any good?” George Brett asked.

He looked at Bobby Witt Jr., the hero of the Royals’ Game 2 victory that ousted the Baltimore Orioles from the wild-card round of the American League—and the hero, to be more precise, of the baseball renaissance currently taking place in Kansas— city.

“He has a chance to be a good player,” Brett continued, and Witt smiled knowingly in his direction. Now that Witt has inherited the mantle of face and voice of the franchise, he’s come to understand Brett’s significance — not just as the Royals’ lone Hall of Famer, but as his swaggering, reckless avatar, a role best served expressed as a perpetual tormentor of the New York Yankees.

For a six-year period from 1976 to 1981, the Yankees and Royals ruled the AL; they met four times in the ALCS. Although the Yankees won the first three series, Kansas City defeated New York in 1980. And perhaps the most famous incident of Brett’s career – confronting an umpire after being called for using too much pine tar – came against the Yankees in 1983. In his playoff career against New York, Brett hit .358/.389/.791 with six home runs and only two strikeouts in 72 at-bats.

“Hate,” Brett said. “If you talk to anyone who played in the ’76, ’77, ’78 and ’80 playoffs, it was hate. I mean, you despise them, you loathe them. Does loathing mean hate?”

Yes, he was informed.

“You detested them,” Brett continued. “And they detested us.”

Now the rivalry has been renewed, with Witt looking to take on Brett’s role at the center of it. After a pair of hard-fought one-run wins in Baltimore, the Royals are in the Bronx on Saturday to take on the Yankees in Game 1 of the AL Division Series. Witt drove in the lone run in the first win, and in a postseason career that is two games deep, he owns two game-winning RBIs. The last person to call the shots in his first two career playoff games was Jimmie Foxx — an inner-circle Hall of Famer who did it nearly 100 years ago.

None of this is particularly surprising, as the 24-year-old Witt has spent the 2024 season vaulting himself into the sport’s top echelon. The objective traits scream superstardom: the .332 average that won him his first batting title, the second consecutive 30/30 season, the Gold Glove-caliber defense at shortstop — whatever you add to the list, if anything to do with baseball, he’s good at it.

His desire for more is evident with every meaningful game Witt plays. And these have substantial significance, not just because they are the first postseason games for the Royals since they won the World Series in 2015, but because they herald one of the great turnarounds in baseball history. Last year the Royals lost 106 games. Now they’re trying to emulate their neighbors at the Truman Sports Complex.

“When I see what they’re doing across the street with the Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes, I’m just trying to do my part and bring back what Kansas City needs and loves,” Witt said. “You see it with the Chiefs, and you saw it with what the Royals did in ’14, ’15. We want to create our own legacy.”

The Venn diagram of these Royals’ legacy and that of Witt is a circle. He joined the organization as the No. 2 overall pick in the 2019 draft, blew away the team’s executives at Kansas City’s alternate site during the COVID-19 shutdown, won every Minor League Player of the Year award in 2021 , hit 20 home runs and ripped off 30 sacks as a rookie in 2022, flashed bona fide superstardom in 2023 and put himself in the best player-in-baseball conversation this season with Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani.

And in his first chance at postseason baseball, he shined. In the bottom of the fifth inning of Game 2, the Orioles tied the score on a solo homerun to load the bases. Royals manager Matt Quatraro went to the mound to make a pitching change, and the team’s infield gathered on the mound. Witt said very simply, “This is our game.” By the end of the visit to the hill, they all said it. They believed.

They escaped that half inning without giving up another run. And in the next, Witt came to bat with runners on the corners and two outs. He hit a 105-mph pea up the middle, but Baltimore second baseman Jordan Westburg dove and grabbed him. Westburg jumped to his feet, made an excellent throw – and Witt still beat him by more than a step for an infield single, scoring a run that would be the last of the game.

“The reason we won the game is because the Kansas City Royals played baseball the right way,” Royals reliever Will Smith said. “Bobby booked it out of the box and his speed took over. He could have easily walked out. But he didn’t.’

Smith is 35 years old and has a special distinction among his peers: an undisputed winner. Smith captured a World Series with the Atlanta Braves in 2021. He was traded to the Houston Astros in 2022 and received another ring. He signed with the Texas Rangers on the eve of the 2023 season and, yes, a third straight championship. And now this, where he gets to testify.

Witt can only dream of such a resume for the time being. He makes his debut, still green, and feels privileged to have the opportunity to play against a team like the Yankees in an MLB postseason. He loved the atmosphere at Camden Yards, has discovered a signature style for his postgame celebrations, donned after their clinching game and the wild card victory: ski goggles over his eyes, a Bud Heavy on either side of his head – held by the glasses strap – and a cigar hanging from his lips.

“Excitement, electricity,” Witt said. “Even here it was great to hear the boo birds, hear them yelling at you, coming at you. You just learn to be comfortable, live in the present moment and enjoy it.”

Witt and the Royals will enjoy taking the field behind Michael Wacha, one of their top free agent signings, in Game 1. Ace Cole Ragans – who shutout Baltimore in six innings on Tuesday – is in line to play both Game 2 as a potential game 5.

For all the pitching the Royals have between their starters and a bullpen that has become one of the hottest in baseball, it comes back to Witt. And now he’s taken them to baseball’s most storied stadium with the chance to become the latest Kansas City team to come out of nowhere, introduce itself to the world and do exactly what Brett seemed to do every time the Yankees and Royals touched each other. together: fighting.