The Goat

Brian Anderson is pitching under a shining sun and an accusing scoreboard.

It's the afternoon of May 27 at Kauffman Stadium, and the Royals are trying to win three in a row for just the second time this season. Anderson has allowed the Detroit Tigers to push across two runs in the first inning, but he doesn't panic. It's a hot day, he tells himself. The ball's going to jump off the bats of both teams' hitters.

The Tigers add a run in the second inning and another in the third. The Royals score twice in the fourth inning but still trail, 4-2. Anderson is in jeopardy of losing his seventh straight start.

Anderson takes the mound at the top of the fifth inning. Pitching in 86-degree heat, he needs three quick outs if he wants to stay in the game.

Instead he gives up three quick singles. Tigers lead, 6-2.

Royals manager Tony Peña walks slowly to the mound and calls for a reliever. Anderson listens to cheers for Peña's decision to remove him. Applause gives way to boos when Anderson, after relinquishing the ball, jogs toward the dugout. "Finally!" exclaims a boy seated in the upper deck. Near him, office workers wearing matching corporate T-shirts abandon their hope for a series sweep. They pick up the plastic brooms they had brought to taunt the Tigers and head for the cool, dark tunnels.

The Tigers go on to win, 17-7. In the course of the victory, they pound out 27 hits, breaking the record for a Royals opponent. The hits aren't cheap, either. A line drive off the bat of Carlos Peña strikes reliever Justin Huisman in the face, leaving seam impressions on his forehead.

Reporters crowd Anderson's locker after the game. He greets them wearing a baby-blue Royals T-shirt and white baseball pants. His light-brown hair is limp and matted. He props a foot on a folding chair and leans forward, arms crossed. "There's not much to say," he says. "The game pretty much speaks for itself. There's not much I'm going to add to it."

But Anderson ends up talking for more than 20 minutes. Pre-empting the criticism of sportswriters and talk-show callers, he laments that he is the worst pitcher in baseball. A kid in rookie ball could do better, he says. "It's just hard to put into words, because no one is this bad. No one. No one. Not even guys that have pitched with horrible injuries are this bad. And I've been. It's bizarre."

He continues later, "I've never experienced anything like this. I used to remember if I had two bad games in a row, that was, 'Wow, what in the world! Two bad games in a row!' Now we're going on 10 or 11 just about in a row. It's mind-boggling."

The next day, Anderson, the Royals' best-paid pitcher, is yanked from the starting rotation and sent to the bullpen, where he can do the least harm.

The baseball season beganwith great hope in Kansas City.

An 83-79 record in 2003 snapped an eight-years-long string of losing seasons. Looking to expand on that success, the front office acquired several new players in the off-season, increasing the payroll by $7 million. Many baseball experts believed that General Manager Allard Baird had spent the money wisely. "I really thought they did everything right this off-season," says ESPN.com baseball writer Rob Neyer.

But fans expecting a winner have instead watched a team eat dirt. The Royals fell into last place on April 22 and have remained there, despite Peña's ill-considered guarantee -- made after a 12-4 loss -- that his club would win the division. During one particularly woeful stretch, the Royals dropped 18 of 22 games.

Anderson, 32, was supposed to stabilize the pitching rotation. Last November, the left-hander signed a two-year contract worth $6.5 million. He'd impressed the front office by winning five of seven starts after a late-season trade from Cleveland. Over the entire 2003 season, he pitched well -- his 3.78 earned run average was his lowest in 11 major-league seasons.

Anderson has led a peripatetic career, changing teams four times. He's the kind of player baseball fans tend not to think about unless he's pitching in front of their eyes. In fact, he's known more for eccentricity than for effectiveness.

His injuries, for instance, have tended toward the peculiar. He ascribed a strained back to an uncomfortable cab ride. A cologne bottle lacerated his hand. A ground ball broke his thumb. A line drive cracked his foot ("That hurt," he says). He once tested the heat of an iron by pressing it to his face. The burn on his cheek attested to the iron's warmth.

During a 1999 road trip to Cincinnati when he played for the Arizona Diamondbacks, Anderson was caught naked outside his hotel room at 4:30 a.m. He'd been sleepwalking and had awakened when he heard the door close behind him. At some level of consciousness, he suspects, he wanted to fetch a drink from a vending machine, as he often did during hotel stays. "That time, I just happened to have no money, no keys and nothing on," he says.