On the deep father-son bond between Kansas City Royals GM Dayton Moore and son Robert
Dayton Moore woke up on May 14 consumed with one of the most painful moments of his life — the day 30 years before that his father and hero, Robert, died from colon cancer at age 49 after seldom being sick until his abrupt final months.
He thought about how rudderless he had felt, how he didn’t even know “what tomorrow would look like.” He thought, too, about all he appreciated, including how his father toiled to provide for his family.
“It doesn’t matter when your father passes away … It’s never enough time,” he said last week. “There’s never enough time.”
All of which helps explain how Moore came to spend that day in Knoxville, Tennessee, where his son would help him consider anew some of the beauty in the circle of life.
“Thirty years later, it’s a special joy to watch my son, who is named after my father, Robert Moore, getting to do something he loves to do on a pretty neat stage and do well,” he said.
Pausing to seek the right words, he added, “It’s just the blessings of life, is what I’m saying.”
And part of a Father’s Day story that, well, we wanted to go ahead and tell even if it’s a little early.
‘His dreams belong to him’
While it was surely part of the power of the moment, Moore wasn’t feeling those blessings simply because Robert smacked a two-run homer and swatted the game-winning sacrifice fly in Arkansas’ 6-5 win over Tennessee. The victory became another chapter in the top-ranked Razorbacks’ Southeastern Conference championship tour and more of the stuff of their promising prospects in an NCAA Tournament field to be announced on Monday.
And Moore wasn’t feeling that surge just because Robert, a 19-year-old switch-hitting sophomore, is an essential part of the team who earned first-team All-SEC and SEC All-Defensive team honors as a second baseman and enjoyed some high-voltage highlights — including becoming the first Arkansas player to hit for the cycle since 1994.
As a father, after all, Moore never wants to convey that the value of any of his children (including daughters Ashley and Avery) is predicated merely on how they perform at something.
In the case of Robert, early on he took stock in something former Royals manager Trey Hillman told him — to ask his son if he wants you to be “Coach” or wants you to be “Dad.”
Dad was the answer, and that thinking helped set a tone. So did something Royals coach Rusty Kuntz used to say: “The only two things your kids want to hear you say are ‘great job’ and ‘nice try.’ ”
“And I added a third,” Moore said. “‘I love watching you play.’”
So he came to realize on occasions that he “over-coached Robert or tried to make baseball more than just a father-son activity,” as he put it, that he should pull back. Sometimes when he overdid it, he apologized.
Not that he wasn’t eager to see Robert embrace baseball, eager to have this be a shared passion that the son now says made for part of the bond between them.
But the father knew it had to go like this:
“He’s got to fall in love with it on his own terms, and in his own way,” Moore said. “His dreams are his dreams. That’s it. My dreams are not his; his dreams are his. His dreams belong to him, not me.”
‘The most fun I ever had’
As it happened, Robert’s dreams took root in this direction almost since he can remember and have sprouted in various ways ever since. But that’s also a reflection of a broader family dynamic.
With Moore traveling so much in various capacities with Atlanta before he took over the Royals job in 2006, Robert’s first baseball playing memories are his mother, Marianne, and grandparents putting the ball on a tee in the backyard and pretending to be Chipper Jones of the Braves.
And his mom plopping him in front of a TV and in front of the movie “The Natural” over and over, mesmerizing him to the point where Robert started acting out the scenes.
“I’ve actually thought about changing (my walk-up music) to when (Roy Hobbs) hits the clock ...” he said with a smile in a recent Zoom interview with The Star. “But I think that would be a little too much.”
Meanwhile, nothing about baseball itself ever was too much for Robert, from the time he’d spend on it or his ability to meet the challenges.
He’d spend hours by himself hitting off a tee or throwing into a pitch-back or just throwing the ball up and hitting it. Once he started playing organized baseball, he was apt to wear his uniform to school now and then.
Then there were the annual trips to spring training in Arizona, where he’d have the relative run of the complex with many other children of Royals’ personnel.
Back in the day, manager Ned Yost might assign a few of them to go study a player and report back to him, something Robert and others treated with great seriousness by taking notes.
More typically, he’d head over to the complex early with his father and watch the minor-leaguers practice for a while. When players in the major-league camp came out later, he’d become one of the kids behind the fence with fans and friends trying to catch home runs.
Then, when all the work of the day was done, he’d go out on George Brett Field with his father. And he’d have what he called “the most fun I ever had” with him.
Often with the field to themselves, Robert would hit buckets of pitched balls from his father and field grounders off his bat and shag flies and maybe just play some catch. They’d keep that up over the years in Arizona as well as at Shawnee Mission East, Robert’s alma mater.
Many a time the son said, “Hey, Dad, do you want to go hit, or do you want to hit me ground balls?” And there were few things the father, who started as a coach and misses those days, would rather hear or do with his son.
‘Young king’
Having his son near was always a treasure for Moore, even when something might go awry.
Like that time in 2006 or 2007 when little Robert was prone to crying when the Royals lost … and they were just about always losing. One Sunday morning, Moore had Robert with him in the clubhouse and introduced him to manager Buddy Bell.
“And Robert says, ‘Hey, uh, Buddy Bell, do you ever get tired of losing?’ ” Moore said. “I thought Buddy was going to come unglued. He got this serious face. And then he just broke out laughing uncontrollably.”
(For that matter, Moore also has learned to be cautious with telling Robert too much when they talk baseball. When it became known former Razorback Andrew Benintendi was available, Robert texted his father and said, “You need to get him.” Telling the story, Moore laughed and said, “OK, Robert.” Meanwhile, the GM spoke with Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn as part of vetting Benintendi … and Van Horn came to find out about the deal before Robert did. “So Robert didn’t like that too much,” Moore said.)
Sometimes around the clubhouse, Robert became part of good-natured shenanigans with players. Once, for instance, Mike Moustakas playfully stuck him in a trash can.
But over the years, Robert absorbed plenty more about the culture of the game than just locker room hijinks, including on trips to the Royals’ baseball academy in the Dominican Republic and playing in tournaments for USA Baseball.
At home games in Kansas City, he’d hang out in the dugout during batting practice and often interact with players — a number of whom he remains connected with one way or another.
When Moore hit two home runs against Murray State earlier this season, Eric Hosmer retweeted video of it and wrote, “Robert Moore … young king!” And former Royal Christian Colon came to a few Arkansas games this season, in a sense reciprocating the admiration and faith Robert had in him as his favorite player when the Royals were playing in back-to-back World Series in 2014 and 2015.
Then there were all those times in the general manager’s suite at Kauffman Stadium, where he’d learn baseball from a range of people including special assignment coach Jason Kendall (“every single time I play I take something from Jason Kendall and apply it,” he said) and Brett.
With Robert alongside one day, Dayton Moore asked Brett about his daily approach “especially into the dog days.”
“And George said, ‘I tried to have more fun than anybody else on the field,’ ” Moore recalled. “And Robert heard him say that, and I’ve heard Robert say that often when asked the question: He wants to have more fun than anybody else on the field.”
That’s obvious watching him play for Arkansas with a swagger particularly evident in some fine bat-flipping among his 13 home runs through 50 games. “Natural passion,” the son calls it.
Dayton Moore has heard from some baseball people that they can’t believe his son has done that. But traditional as he might be, Moore has no complaint and the topic has not yet been broached with Robert … with whom each of his parents usually speaks multiple times a day.
Speaking specifically of one of his son’s home runs at South Carolina, Moore said, “If I could have hit a ball like that, maybe I would have flipped the bat, too; I don’t know. It was as much the moment as anything else.”
‘We’ll cross that bridge when it comes’
Riding with his father in a golf cart around the spring-training complex a few years ago, the son told the father, “I just watched all these minor-league players, and I hope someday to be as good as they are. And I realized that a lot of those guys will never make it to the major leagues, and I’m just hoping to be as good as they are.”
That question looms down the road, perhaps starting as soon as the 2022 draft after he graduated early from high school to head to Arkansas as a 17-year-old last spring (his birthday is March 31).
He has grown from this experience, initially challenged to adjust, particularly amid the pandemic, and navigating a heavy slump this season on his way to flourishing now.
“I just see him getting better and better,” Van Horn said earlier in the season, alluding to a mid-season funk and adding, “He’s never really failed before … (and) he finally failed. And it got to him a little bit. But he got out of it, and now he’s swinging the bat extremely well.”
Even if some might question his size, 5-foot-9, 170 pounds, various scouting sites believe he could be a first-round pick.
Whatever the case, his potential place in the draft also will come with a question of whether the Royals would recuse themselves from selecting him. But the son isn’t thinking directly about any of that now, especially not with the NCAA Tournament immediately ahead.
And the father simply says “we’ll cross that bridge when it comes” and that he wants Robert to just keep enjoying every moment.
Meanwhile, he’ll stay present and attentive but give space, too.
They can still talk baseball all day, of course, and they spend ample time breaking down at-bats and such. But the father prefers to refer him to his own coaches for specific guidance.
Mostly now, he just loves to watch him play and get to say to himself, “Wow, this is pretty cool” like he did on May 14.
Which turns out to be part of a blessing for both the man who revered his father and the son he’s raised.
A son who radiates many of his father’s philosophies and speaks of his Christian faith much the same way he does. And a son who thinks of his father much the way his father thinks of his own all these years later.
“I would say,” Robert Moore said, “he’s my personal hero.”
This story was originally published May 28, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "On the deep father-son bond between Kansas City Royals GM Dayton Moore and son Robert."