Ned Yost oversaw Royals’ amazing title runs. Now they’re giving him the ultimate honor
Ned Yost, who won more games than any manager in Royals history and oversaw the club’s 2015 World Series championship team, will be inducted into the team’s Hall of Fame.
Yost was elected in his first appearance via a vote of Royals Hall of Famers, the Hall of Fame executive board, members of the Kansas City Chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America and fans.
He becomes the first inductee since 2015 and the first member of the 2014 and 2015 championship teams to be honored. The Royals won the American League pennant in 2014 before falling in the World Series.
Yost’s .710 postseason winning percentage (22-9), all with the Royals, is the best in major-league history.
His 2014-15 teams won with a collage of homegrown talent, like Alex Gordon, Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Salvador Perez, Danny Duffy and Kelvin Herrera, along with players acquired in trades, such as Lorenzo Cain, Alcides Escobar and Wade Davis.
“We were a talented team, and it showed,” Yost said Thursday. “It was an exciting team. We knew we were good. We knew we had talent. We knew we could compete, and that makes it fun. You wake up every day excited and waiting to come to the ballpark and put on a show for your fans.”
Yost was named manager of the Royals in May 2010, replacing Trey Hillman. At the time, up-and-comers like Perez, Hosmer and Moustakas were working their way through the organization’s minor-league system. In 2013, the Royals posted their first winning season (86-76) in a decade.
Next came the pennants. The 2014 Royals qualified for their first postseason appearance in three decades. They won a dramatic American League Wild Card game against the Oakland A’s on Perez’s walk-off hit in the 12th inning, then swept the Los Angeles Angels and Baltimore Orioles to reach the World Series against the San Francisco Giants.
The Royals fell to the Giants in seven games, but that served as a motivating factor for the following season.
“I remember that it felt like you worked so hard in ‘14 to get to the get to the top of the mountain,” Yost recalled. “And you’re one step away from reaching the summit, and suddenly someone kicked you in the butt and you rolled all the way back down the hill again.”
In 2015, the Royals won their first AL Central championship and first division title since 1985. They beat the Houston Astros in the AL Division Series, overcoming a four-run deficit in the eighth inning to avoid elimination in Game 4, then defeated the Toronto Blue Jays in the ALCS to return to the World Series.
Against the NL champion New York Mets, the Royals won Game 1 in 14 innings, a slugfest extended by Alex Gordon’s dramatic home run in the ninth, and went on the capture the World Series in five games.
“That year was a lot of fun,” Yost said.
Yost, 68, who stepped down after the 2019 season, finished his Royals career with a 746-839 record. To enter the Royals Hall of Fame, a candidate must be named on 75% of the voters’ ballots. Yost was included on 88.2%.
Yost said he was working on his farm in Georgia when he got the call from the Royals about his induction.
“It’s a great honor, one I truly appreciate,” he said.
Yost will become the 27th inductee in the Royals Hall of Fame during on-field ceremonies that are set to take place before the club’s Sept. 2 game against the Boston Red Sox at Kauffman Stadium.
