“I want to be the mystery man of Kansas City.”—Amos Otis
Of all the greats in Royals history, the one I feel I know the least about is Amos Otis. Part of that is because his career was almost entirely wrapped up before I was paying attention to baseball; my first real year as a fan, 1983, coincided with Otis’ last year in Kansas City, and he just didn’t make an impression on me. But another part of that is that Otis was famously averse to publicity. As a result, he may be the most underrated player in team history, and one of the most underrated players of his era.