Former Kansas City Royal Buddy Biancalana, of the 1985 World Championship team, talks with the Lawrence Raiders about hitting. Biancalana spoke to the Raiders on Thursday at Ice Field, then worked with them one-on-one with hitting techniques.

Buddy Biancalana says this autographed baseball illustrates the inequities of having Lee Ice as a teammate. Ice, now Lawrence Parks and Recreation's youth sports supervisor, and Biancalana were Rookie League teammates. When they signed balls together, Ice invariably finished first thanks to a six-letter name.

Former Kansas City Royal Buddy Biancalana talks to the Lawrence Raiders about the proper way to hit. Biancalana visited with the Legion team Thursday at Ice Field.

Thursday was an off night for the Lawrence Raiders, but the team’s focus might have been at an all-time high.

For the first 35 minutes of the evening practice, the Raiders sat in the first-base dugout at Ice Field and listened to former Kansas City Royals shortstop Buddy Biancalana talk about hitting, baseball and his approach to the game.

For Raiders coach Shaun Edmondson, who scribbled notes onto a pad with the enthusiasm of a physics student listening to a lecture from Einstein, the session offered a front-row seat to a great baseball mind. From what Edmondson saw, his players viewed it that way as well, even if they weren’t yet born when Biancalana started for the Royals.

“Anytime you get someone who’s been there and done that, done what these kids dream of doing, that’s huge,” Edmondson said. “I watched (Biancalana) win a World Series growing up, and what he was talking about was very innovative. It looked like the kids were really soaking up what he was saying.”

From the connection between body and mind to the proper stance and the correct way for a hitter to load his hands for contact at the plate, Biancalana shared his wisdom, much of which he gained during a six-year pro baseball career with the Royals and some that he has harnessed through his entrepreneurial spirit.

A year and a half ago, Biancalana teamed with former professional tennis player Steven Yellin to co-found PMPM Sports – Perfect Mind Perfect Motion. The company, which works with professional athletes and organizations throughout the nation, focuses on achieving a balance between the mental and physical aspects of athletics.

“The processes in the mind are more important than the processes of the body,” Biancalana said. “In our training, we’ve discovered three themes athletes encounter when they’re performing at peak performances. First, time slows down. Second, the intellectual element shuts off. And lastly, there’s fluidity in the mind and the body. Through drills and concepts, we’ve found a way to teach, by design, what athletes feel when they’re on top of their game.”

Postseason peak

Biancalana achieved this firsthand during the 1985 World Series, when he started every game at shortstop for the World Champion Royals, despite carrying a career batting average below .200 into the season.

For much of 1985, Biancalana was a classic utility man, having started only 35 games all season. However, in late September, then-Kansas City manager Dick Howser inserted Biancalana into the starting lineup, where he finished the season, including starts during all 14 postseason games. His numbers during the Fall Classic showed that something had clicked. He hit .278 for the series and recorded a .435 on-base percentage.

“I knew I was in a special state of mind,” Biancalana said. “I wanted every ball hit to me, and I had tremendous confidence.”

The latter still serves him well to this day. To hear Biancalana talk about his philosophies is believable. He’s sincere about what he teaches and strives to convey its effectiveness to anyone who will listen.

Biancalana and Yellin have traveled across the country to help athletes improve. Last year alone, four professional ballplayers who worked with PMPM improved their averages by a combined 317 points. That includes one draft pick who shot up from a .217 batting average to .326 in less than a year.

Biancalana’s efforts aren’t limited to baseball. That’s just what he knows best. Last fall, his business brought him to Lawrence, where he and Yellin did a demo with the Kansas University men’s basketball team on free-throw shooting. Next month they’re headed to Portland to work with the NBA’s Trailblazers.

“Sasha Kaun made 13 in a row,” Biancalana said. “We’ve really figured something out. We’d love to work with Shaq (Shaquille O’Neal), but we’ll see.”

Son a Jayhawk

Business is not Biancalana’s only connection to Lawrence. His son, Bryn, is entering his fourth year at KU and serves as an assistant coach for the Raiders.

“He understands mind-body connection and has had a lot of awareness of watching a player and picking up the little things,” Biancalana said.

Bryn says nearly all of that came by following his father around through various stints as a manager and bench coach in the minor leagues, and those skills have helped him earn his stripes in the coaching profession.

“Growing up, I took advantage of everything he taught me,” said Bryn, who graduated from Millard West High in Omaha, Neb. “After high school, I didn’t think I was going to be a big-leaguer so I decided to help the game in another way. I was kind of like a junior minor-leaguer, just standing there watching at all of the places he managed. That was huge for me and really convinced me that I want to work with athletes in some way.”

In addition, Lawrence is home to one of Biancalana’s minor-league teammates. In 1978, the Royals first-round pick roomed with Lee Ice – now Lawrence Park and Recreation’s youth sports supervisor – in Rookie League ball in the Gulf Coast League in Florida. It was there that Biancalana first learned how difficult becoming a well known major-leaguer might be on his hands.

Every week, when the team was asked to sign a box of balls, Biancalana barely got through half a dozen before Ice was finished with the box.

“Oh yeah, I was jealous,” Biancalana said. “He and Ed Ott. A six-letter name. How nice is that?”