The tie that binds Royals greats Zack Greinke and George Brett: Do you have the room in the basem

A few months ago, George Brett headed over from his house in Arizona to Whisper Rock Golf Club in Scottsdale. He’s played countless rounds at the course in the five years he’s been a member. But that day, something different happened.

As he was preparing to hit his approach shot into the 10th green, a golf pro at the course approached him.

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“I’ve got a single out here who is looking to get in a game,” Brett recalled the pro saying. “Can he play with you guys?”

“Sure,” Brett said.

“Awesome,” the pro responded. “His name is Zack.”

Brett likes golfing with new people. “That’s how you get to know them,” he said. So he waited for the man named Zack to roll up in his golf cart. Once the man’s face began to come into focus for Brett from about 50 yards away, he was baffled.

“I’m going, ‘F—, that looks like Zack Greinke,’” the Hall of Famer said.

You best believe it was Zack Greinke. Even as he reached the group, Brett still looked at him befuddled.

“Zack, what are you doing?!” he asked.

“I’m looking for a game,” Greinke said.

Simple as that.

This was before the lockout ended. Greinke, at the time, was still a free agent. A return to the Royals seemed like something of a dream. Brett clubbed his approach shot toward the hole, and away the two old friends went, continuing an uncommon bond between two of the greatest players in franchise history.

Their relationship drifts back to 2004, the year Greinke debuted in the big leagues for the Royals. Greinke was 20 years old then. He needed a place to stay. As far back as his playing days, Brett had offered a room in his basement to players who had reached the big-league level and needed a place to stay. Jamie Quirk took him up on the offer. So did Clint Hurdle, Mark Gubicza and others.

Brett thought it’d benefit the young prospect to house him.

“(The big-league transition) is easier if you’re with somebody who knows the town,” Brett said recently. “I thought, ‘Why don’t you come over for the first month or whatever?’”

Greinke took him up on the offer and immediately hit it off with Brett’s sons: Jackson, Dylan and Robin. They were all young. They played video games together. After day games on Sunday, Greinke would even drive more than a half-hour to watch the young boys play their Little League games (and provide very honest feedback).

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“He would drive all the way out to Johnson County,” Brett said, referring to the 30-minute drive. “Just to watch my kids play. It was like his three younger brothers.”

Brett’s wife, Leslie, did Greinke’s laundry. Overall, the bed and breakfast were so good that Greinke did not limit his stay to a mere month but instead stuck around for the entire year. Brett and the entire family relished having him.

“We had a wonderful time,” Brett said.

Fast forward almost two decades, and Greinke is now a six-time All-Star, six-time Gold Glove Award winner, the 2009 American League Cy Young recipient and an owner of two Silver Sluggers. His family, too, has a house in Arizona, near Whisper Rock Golf Club. Greinke shoots around par — “really good player,” Brett said — so he joined the club to play in the offseasons.

That’s how he found himself in Brett’s group, and how Brett found out that what will ultimately happen Thursday — Zack Greinke starting again for the Royals, for the first time since 2010 — was possible.

Throughout the round, the two talked about many things: their wives, their kids, and, of course, baseball.

“Next thing you know, I’m asking him, ‘Well, what’s going to happen with this lockout?’” Brett said. “He says, ‘I don’t know. I don’t really know what’s going on. But I would love to end my career with the Royals.’”

Brett did a double-take.

“You’d like to come back?” he asked Greinke. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Greinke said, honest as ever.

The Royals’ brass knew of his interest. They believed Greinke’s presence could benefit a number of young starters whose developments are crucial. So, months after the golf outing between Royals greats occurred, and once the lockout ended, the club’s first call to an available free agent was to Greinke.

As the possibility began to seem real, Brett texted Greinke: “I hope things work out.”

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“Me, too,” Greinke responded.

A week later, they were standing shoulder-to-shoulder inside the dugout at Surprise Stadium, wearing Royals uniforms. They talked for an inning and a half, mostly about how best to navigate the traffic on West Bell Road.

Brett told Greinke he knew some shortcuts.

“I’m leaving at 3 p.m.,” he told Greinke, recounting their conversation. “Follow me, I’ll show you how I go.”

“Eh,” Greinke said. “I’ve got some work to do. I’ve got to watch film of when I threw my side session. I want to see the spin rates. Then I have to work out.”

“That’s how serious he is about this,” Brett said later. “He could come in the next morning or next day, but he lives the game of baseball.”

Brett thinks it will be a joy to watch Greinke, now 38, pitch at Kauffman Stadium again Thursday and to watch him navigate lineups with loopy curveballs and pinpoint fastballs the way only Greinke can.

So much time has passed from then to now, but the day the signing became official, Brett received a text from Greinke.

“Well, it finally happened,” Greinke said. “Do you have the room in the basement ready?”

A fun thought, for sure, but Greinke is now a husband of a wife, Emily. They are the parents of three boys, Bode, Griffin and Jordy. A house is needed for that crew, which meant Greinke needed a real estate agent.

So he turned to a former roommate, video-game partner, and Little League mentee: Jackson Brett.

A Brett helping Greinke get situated in Kansas City? There really is no place like home.

(Photo of Greinke: Charlie Riedel / Associated Press)

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