Did Salvador Perez Break George Brett’s Home Run Record? Yes — He Passed Him at 318

Salvador Perez: 318 career home runs. George Brett: 317.

Perez owns the Kansas City Royals franchise home run record outright. Brett had held it alone since April 9, 1986 — 40 years.

Perez tied it on July 22 at Kauffman Stadium: a two-run shot, Statcast-projected 437 feet, into the right-center field fountains, in a 5-4 win over the San Francisco Giants that completed a sweep. He broke it three days later.

The chase did not end quickly. In the first game of the Detroit series, Perez had five plate appearances against the Tigers and did not go deep.

- 1st inning — walk - 3rd inning — strikeout swinging - 5th inning — groundout to third - 7th inning — flyout to right - 9th inning — grounded into a double play

He finished 0-for-4 with a walk, and the Royals lost 4-3, the double play ending the game with Kansas City down a run. Two days later he had the record.

No. 318 came in Detroit, at Comerica Park, during the Royals’ weekend series against the Tigers.

Which means the record-breaker landed somewhere it could simply be picked up. Comerica Park has no fountains — the feature that turned no. 317 into the week’s best story, and the reason anybody had to go into the water for a baseball at all.

That story is below, and it is still the one worth keeping.

When no. 317 came down in the Kauffman fountains, a man went into the water after it. That part you have probably heard. Two things about it are widely reported wrong.

First: he was not arrested. The Kansas City Police Department said an individual was "cited and released for trespassing in the fountain." Royals policy states that a guest who enters a fountain "will be immediately arrested, transported to the police station downtown and charged to the fullest extent of the law." He got a citation instead.

Second: he was not doing it for himself. The man is a friend of Kayla Mitchell, who was at the game with her son Palmer. Palmer had recently come through a tympanoplasty at Children's Mercy Kansas City — surgery to repair a ruptured eardrum — and lives with permanent hearing loss.

"Salvy's ball had to come right at us," Mitchell said. "Uncatchable for any of us, so my friend took the liberty, and took it upon himself to jump in the fountain and get the ball." They held it about five minutes before it was taken; the family received bobbleheads, baseballs and a signed bat.

Her account of why: "There was no negative, there was no ill intent, he wanted no money, he wanted nothing out of the deal. He was truly just doing it for our son and I find that to be amazing."

Perez, asked about it after the game, argued for him: "Please, police, just take care of the job please and send him home. If was him, I'd maybe jump too and try to get that ball, so please."

Brett hit his 317 across 21 seasons, 1973 through 1993, all in Kansas City.

Perez did it in 15. He debuted in 2011 and missed the entire 2019 season after Tommy John surgery — sixteen calendar years, fifteen of them played. Six fewer seasons than the man he passed.

And he did it from behind the plate. Catcher is the position that subtracts seasons from a career rather than adding them, which is why catchers almost never appear on franchise home run lists at all. Perez is 36, still catching, still hitting in the middle of the order.