Denny Matthews (HOF 2007)

Denny Matthews, the Royals Hall of Fame Voice, has been calling games in Kansas City since the team's first game in 1969! This is his 56th year with the Royals. He joins me on this month's episode of the Lost Ballparks podcast to talk about K.C.'s Municipal Stadium, The "K",  all things Royals, the first MLB game he ever attended and the ingenious strategy he used to get the Royals job!

Chapters

• 0:53 56 years behind the mic!
• 2:22 1st game at Sportsman's Park, St. Louis (1950's)
• 3:42 Memories of old Busch Stadium, St. Louis
• 5:11 Voices of Summer (Harry Caray and Jack Buck)
• 6:29 A Road Trip, a Tape Recorder, and a Big League Dream
• 9:03 Pizza, Pepsi, and the interview that changed his life
• 13:25 Opening Day 1969 at Municipal Stadium—and Denny’s historic extra-inning sign-off
• 14:50 Why Municipal Stadium played like a living-room carpet
• 17:38 Denny’s unusual pregame ritual
• 18:39 Where the Ballpark Once Stood
• 19:59 Opening Night at Royals Stadium, 1973
• 21:10 12-story scoreboard, the fountains
• 23:13 1973 All-Star Game, Royals Stadium
• 24:16 Jumping in the fountain!
• 24:56 Wait, Whitey Herzog put who in the line-up???
• 28:53 1985 World Series

Transcript

Mike Koser: 00:53
The Royals Hall of Fame Voice has been calling games in Kansas City since the team's first game way back in 1969. In fact, this is 56th year with the Royals. He's one of four announcers in baseball history to broadcast with the same team for 50 plus years. The others include the Dodger's Vin Scully, and Jaime Jarrín  the Brewers Bob Uecker. Denny Matthews body of work as one of the truly great voices of the game was recognized in 2007 when he was inducted into the broadcast wing of the baseball hall of fame. Denny Matthews  is my guest on this month's episode of the Lost Ballparks podcast. 

Mike Koser: 02:22
Denny Matthews.

Denny Matthews: 02:23
Hello.

Denny Matthews: 02:24
Hey, I appreciate you doing this. So you grew up in Illinois. Your dad, George, would occasionally take you up to Chicago to watch a Cubs game. And your grandma, Gert, would sometimes take you and your brothers on the train down to St. Louis to Sportsman's Park to watch the Cardinals. But do you remember where your very first game was at?

Denny Matthews: 02:44
I think it was at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis, later Busch Stadium. And uh I was there with my grandmother. I don't the only thing I remember was we were sitting on the third base side, about halfway between third base and home plate, and Stu Miller was the Cardinal pitcher. I remember that. I remember when Jackie Robinson came up to the plate. Every time he came up to bat, there was a lot of booing. I remember that. And other than that, I don't I don't remember much. Later, as I grew older and into my teens, we would go to St. Louis. We were about halfway between Chicago and St. Louis, so Wrigley Field, Comiksey Park, Sportsman's Park, Busch Stadium, later Busch Stadium. In about 53, I think is when Augie Busch bought the Cardinals, and then he changed Sportsman's Park to Busch Stadium. They renovated it. It was really a pretty nice ballpark.

Mike Koser: 03:39
Yeah, what do you remember about that one as it looked in the uh in the fifties?

Denny Matthews: 03:43
Well, the big scoreboard in left center field and the (right field) pavilion roof, they had a screen. There was a pavilion was a area where people would sit. And it ran from the right field foul pole toward deep right center. And a couple of years they took the screen down from in front of the bleachers, and it was only 310 down the right field line, so home runs were pretty frequent, and then they put up a screen, and the Busch Stadium I remember was the screen, and you had to hit the ball on the pavilion roof to get a home run.

Mike Koser: 04:14
Which was a shot. But Stan Musial would do that from time to time.

Denny Matthews: 04:18
Mm-hmm.

Announcer: 04:18
Stan Musial, slugging card outfielder, is the next hitter. Here's the pitch, and wham, there she goes over the roof of the right field pavilion. It's a home run.

Denny Matthews: 04:28
Yeah, they had the big clock, Longines clock, hanging from the front of one of the light standards in right center field above the pavilion roof. I remember that. I took some pictures with a little brownie camera of the players around the batting cage and the dugouts hour before the game, and then after after a game I went up to the upper deck and I took a picture looking toward the right field area, and it was just a very high view. We never sat up there, but I went up there just to get a little different perspective. I was probably eleven or twelve years old at the time.

Mike Koser: 05:05
You still have those photos?

Denny Matthews: 05:06
Oh yeah.

Mike Koser: 05:07
Oh, that's cool.

Denny Matthews: 05:09
But they're good. Yeah, they really are good.

Mike Koser: 05:11
When you were in elementary school, Denny, while you were listening to games on the radio, you would get down on the floor with your baseball cards and mimic the game you were listening to. Who were some of those early radio voices that provided the soundtrack to your summers?

Denny Matthews: 05:25
Well, Cardinals, it would have been Harry Caray and Jack Buck.

Jack Buck/Harry Caray: 05:28
There go the Cardinals on the field, and here for the play-by-play of the ball game, and his good evening to you is Harry Caray. Thank you, Jack. Hello again, everybody. All set to play baseball here.

Denny Matthews: 05:38
And Garagiola was with them for a year or two before he moved down to New York. And Chicago, it would have been Jack Quinlan and later Vince Lloyd and Lou Boudreau with the Cubs.

Lou Boudreau: 05:53
Deep high fly ball left field, it could be out of here. It is home run. Way back into the last row of the Bleachers.

Denny Matthews: 06:01
I remember Bob Elson with the White Sox.

Bob Elson: 06:04
Beautiful night for baseball, and I hope you're going to be able to hang around for every play. And boy, this should be some game. Let's hope the White Sox get off on the right foot here tonight.

Denny Matthews: 06:14
Bob Elson and Don Wells, I think, was the other guy. Who later, Don Wells, went to California in Anaheim, worked with Buddy Blattner, who ultimately became my first partner when I got the job with the Royals when I was twenty five years old.

Mike Koser: 06:29
Denny, when you hear about someone's success story, you often discover that there were at least one or two people at the beginning of those careers whose small act of kindness, generosity, or encouragement, no matter you know, no matter how significant it may have seemed at the time, really had an impact on that person's career. Would you consider Charlie Brann one of those people in your life?

Denny Matthews: 06:50
Well, Charlie was a good friend from Bloomington, and he was a Cardinal fan, and he would on a   on a just on a whim, he would drive down to St. Louis to see a night game. It took about three hours to drive down, but every once in a while he would do that. So when I was thinking about the Royals job, I asked Charlie to go down to St. Louis with me, and we took a tape recorder, just have somebody to go with, and uh set up a tape recorder in one of the booths. Now there was no cable TV at the time. There were probably ten booths at the newer Busch Stadium, Busch Stadium 2. There were probably ten broadcast booths, and only two of them were being used. So there was plenty of room, and I just wrote a letter to the Cardinals and asked him, see, I worked part-time at WJBC, which was a Cardinal affiliate, uh, in Bloomington. And that's why the games were always on when I was growing up. One of the first things I can remember when I was three or four years old was a baseball game on our radio in a house.

Harry Caray: 07:49
A line drive up against the base of the right field wall for squatter at double. Boy, that ball was really crowned.

Denny Matthews: 07:55
That was WJBC in Bloomington, Illinois, and they were a Cardinal affiliate, still are. And uh so I had that in, at least with the Cardinal PR office, and they said, Yeah, come on down, bring your tape recorder and tape the game, and which uh Charlie and I drove down and we did that. And I used that tape as uh part of my audition for the Royals job.

Mike Koser: 08:16
I what I love about this story though, first of all, there were 200 people that applied for that job, at least 200. And obviously, Denny, your tape showed that you had real promise, but I think that what you wrote in your cover letter and what you did to sort of dress up your booth had as much to do with you getting the job. Do you remember what you said in your cover letter?

Denny Matthews: 08:35
I don't know if I can find it.

Mike Koser: 08:37
I think you said something to the effect of I hope you don't think I'm a "Busch" leaguer for having done a Cardinals game, but this...

Denny Matthews: 08:44
I spelled Busch...Yeah, B U S C H. I hope you don't think I'm a B U S C H leaguer for having done a Cardinal game, but this is my final pitch for the Royals job. Something corny like that.

Mike Koser: 08:56
For Schlitz in the Royals job, didn't you have a picture of you put a Schlitz sign or something in your booth there?

Denny Matthews: 09:02
Well, I went to a local bar in Bloomington and got one of those metal trays. Remember the metal trays that were in old bars and and I got that and I put the tape on that with a picture and my resume, which my resume didn't take very long to read, just basically out of college. So yeah, that was it. I mean Buddy Blattner was uh very prominent in going through all the resumes and tapes, and he was obviously he was going to be the one number one broadcaster with the Royals, and he wanted to make sure that he had someone that he would, you know, enjoy working with. And so they kept whittling down the applicants till they got down to three, and I don't know who they were, the other people, but Buddy called me and asked me if I would come down to St. Louis, drive down again about a three-hour drive, and uh spend some time. And he said, Why don't you come down on Friday afternoon and uh we'll talk and then you know have some pizza and just visit? And I thought, that sounds cool. And so he gave me the directions and I told my dad, I said, Well, you want me down there by four, hopefully we'll, you know, talk a couple hours and uh I'll be I'll be back by around 9 30 or 10 o'clock. That sounded good. And I went down and Bud had a real nice basement, finished basement with a bar, and we had pizza and some couple of drinks, and uh I'm not a drinker, so I I think I had Pepsi or something. But uh we talked and talked and talked through the wee hours of the morning, and now it was about five in the morning, five or six in the morning. And he said, uh you know, three hour drive back to Bloomington, you better stay here. And I said, No, I'm wide awake. I you know, pretty excited about all this. So uh I said, No, thanks, bud. I appreciate the offer, but I'll just I'll just drive on home, it's no big deal. And so I kept my promise to my dad. I got home around 9 30 or 10, but it was uh Saturday morning. That's how it worked, and I thought I felt pretty good about our visit, obviously, if you're gonna sit there and talk for geez, who knows, seven or eight hours. And uh I thought, yeah, maybe, you know, I got a pretty good shot at this job, but uh he was terrific. He I I later asked him, I said, Why why did you pick me? I'm just curious. And uh he said, Well, there were two or three things. He said, number one, you took the time and the effort and the trouble to go to tape a major league game. You had applied for a major league job and you went and taped a major league game, and he said, I thought that when I listened to it, you had a really good feel for the game. And you talked about some background on the players, you talked about some of the strategy in the game, what was going on, why that play worked, why that play didn't. He said, So that was impressive. Number two, I could tell that you had played at a high level in college and in college summer leagues, and you said I could tell by your broadcast that you had a good feel for playing the game, especially infield. And he said, and number three, the other reason that I tapped you is because you didn't have any bad habits. And I said, But I didn't have any habits at all. I hadn't done much broadcasting in my life.

Mike Koser: 12:17
Do you still have that tape Denny?

Denny Matthews: 12:19
I don't know it was a real one of those real to real things. I don't know. I've got I've got some of that stuff, but I don't know if it's that game. I have I really don't have any idea, Mike.

Mike Koser: 12:30
I oh man, it'd be so great to hear that. It'd be so great to hear the thing that started this career, I'm telling you.

Denny Matthews: 12:35
I don't know how great it would be to listen to it at that point in time, but uh yeah, that's that's how it all evolved.

Mike Koser: 12:43
So the Royals opened their first season of play in 1969 at Municipal Stadium.  It had been the previous home of the minor leagues uh Kansas City Blues, the Negro League's Kansas City Monarchs, and from 55 to 67 the Kansas City Athletics. I've heard you talk about how on April 8th, 1969, the ballpark just smelled like a ballpark should smell, and it looked like a ballpark should look thanks to groundskeeper George Toma, legendary George Toma. The playing surface was immaculate. What do you remember about your first game and the Royals' first game ever uh that day in April 1969?

Denny Matthews: 13:26
Well, it was a weekday, I think it was a Tuesday, and it was pretty chilly and cloudy, and we had a crowd of I think it was only around 18,000. Ballpark seated around 34,000, so it was only half full, which that surprised me a little bit. But it went into extra innings, and Buddy and I traded off extra innings when it he would finish the ninth and we went into extra innings, I would do the tenth, he would do the eleventh, I'd do the twelfth, and so on until the game ended. Well, in the twelfth inning, the Royals won the game, which made me the first person t that was able to say the Royals win, which was kind of cool the way it turned out. But um that's just how that worked. But I remember the the hit, I remember the run scoring, and yeah, I remember a lot about that first game. I don't remember much about what happened in the game last night, but I I do remember quite a bit about the first game that I did. I I I was nervous that obviously you're you got some butterflies, and I was excited, and just to make sure that everything w worked, I had a a little script that I wrote for just when we went on the air, and uh my script started with Hi everybody, this is Denny Matthews. I wanted to make sure that I remembered my own name, so I even wrote it down and it went on from there.

Mike Koser: 14:41
What made municipal stadium unique? What were some of the features about that? Uh by that point, I think it's forty-six, forty-seven years old. What but what made that park unique?

Denny Matthews: 14:51
That's a great question. I it was uh somewhat similar to the old Busch Stadium in St. Louis because it had a short right field and then it went on and deeper into center and a longer left field. I think it was the old Busch Stadium was maybe 355 or 56 down the left field line. And municipal stadium, Kansas City, wasn't much shorter than that. So left, left, center, you really had to hit the ball to to get it to go over the fence, but right field was was much more friendly to left-handed batters. The field was always pristine, as you mentioned, because of Toma's ability to grow grass anywhere in the world and uh even in somebody's coat pocket, which is another story, but he was he was terrific. And uh it was a a typical older ballpark of that time. And what happened was when the when Kansas City realized they had a chance to get the Philadelphia A's, then they had to very hurriedly to meet big league standards, they had to have an upper deck. So they put an upper deck on the single deck ballpark, which was fine for the uh other leagues that you had mentioned. And so the upper deck went on in about five or six months. Yeah, they had people working there at all hours of the day and night just to make sure that by 1955 opening day, boy, they would have an upper deck, meaning major league standards for uh occupancy. So it was there obviously when I did my first game. I had never been to Kansas City until I got the job with the Royals.

Mike Koser: 16:27
Moe Drabowski won that first game for the Royals, and I think uh as you've described before, Moe is quite a character. Do you remember the story of Moe pitching for the Kansas City Athletics? And I think the Tigers might have been in town, and he somehow managed to get the phone number to their bullpen.

Denny Matthews: 16:43
Yeah. Yeah, he did a lot of things like that. And they had remember the old water coolers that had a clear, it's a big bottle, a big clear bottle which probably held maybe a gallon or two of water, and they'd turn it over, they'd turn the bottle over and it would come down into where a you could take a a cup and you put it in a little handle and you'd pull the handle and a little bit of water would come out. Well, that's what they had in the visiting bullpen and in the home bullpen for that matter, and Moe put two or three goldfish in the in the uh bottle of the visiting team one day. I remember reading about that too. But he was great. Moe Drabowski was one of the nicest people I've ever met.

Mike Koser: 17:22
Unlike most broadcasters, Denny, who probably have no idea how a particular infield is playing or what it would even mean to you know be playing fast or slow, at Municipal Stadium, wouldn't you go down on the field before games to take ground balls sometimes?

Denny Matthews: 17:37
Yeah, I did. And I did the same thing on the artificial turf at the new ballpark, but uh I remember talking to Brooks Robinson, who loved playing in Kansas City at the old ballpark because he said I never would get a bad hop. And that was true. I would have a coach hit ground balls to me for five or ten minutes. Never a bad hop. George Toma, once again, he had the perfect combination of dirt, and the field was cut at a perfect height, and it was like playing on a carpet. I mean, it was like playing on your living room rug. It was just so smooth and true. It was just uh a wonderful place to play, and everybody that came in there, all the players on all the other teams just raved about it.

Mike Koser: 18:18
Uh, for folks who are listening, if you're in Kansas City and you stop by Arthur Bryant's barbecue, which is tremendous, by the way, you're just a short drive to where the ballpark municipal stadium used to stand. Many of the same houses, the buildings, I think a school that once surrounded Municipal Stadium are they're all still there to help orient you and provide context, I think, to what once was. Have you done that from time to time, driven back over there?

Denny Matthews: 18:40
I went by there probably between 15 and 20 years ago, just to go down that street. And it was uh we could have gotten out and taken a bat in the ball and just hit fungos to each other. There's nothing there but grass and stuff and weeds. Yeah. Yeah. There's nothing there. There is now, I think there's some apartments or something there.

Mike Koser: 18:59
Denny Royals Stadium opened in 1973.

Ewing Kauffman: 19:02
From the very beginning, we have kept you, the baseball fan in mind in all the planning of this beautiful stadium. We have added every convenience that you might desire, and I know you're gonna be thrilled when you come out here and watch your royals play baseball.

Mike Koser: 19:17
Noble Herzberg was the architect, and Cedric Tollis was the club's general manager. As a blueprint and a compass, they looked at Dodger Stadium, which opened in 62, Anaheim Stadium, which opened in 66. I think they looked at what worked at those ballparks, threw out what didn't, and the result.

Ewing Kauffman: 19:33
As you see, we have circular ramps which will take you up to any level of which your seats might be. And if you don't care to walk, we have escalators that will whisk you right up rapidly or bring you back down after the game is over.

Mike Koser: 19:46
Royal Stadium, one of the only, baseball-only ballparks constructed during that era. I know it's been 50 years now, but can you take me back to that first game at Royal Stadium opening night, April 10th, 1973?

Denny Matthews: 19:59
Again, it was cold and there wasn't uh a lot of scoreboard information stuff. It was pretty basic, let's put it that way. But uh great views, all the seats were pointed toward the pitcher's mound. Even down the right field, left field line, they made sure that the seats weren't the old ballparks, if you were in Comiskey Park and you went down the left field line in the lower deck and sat down, you were looking straight toward right center field. You weren't looking toward the pitcher's mound in the batter's box. So you had to turn your body in a seat, which was really positioning you to look straight toward right center field, and it was fairly uncomfortable. Well, Noble Herzberg was pretty brilliant. He and Cedric Tallis incorporated that into the new royal stadium, and every seat was pointed toward home plate and and the pitcher's mound .

Announcer: 20:52
There are some forty-one thousand seats in this lovely stadium, and every one of them give you a good view.

Denny Matthews: 20:59
Which, you know, you stop to think about it. That that's not that hard to figure out. And so whoever whoever designed a lot of the older ballparks apparently didn't really care and didn't have the wherewithal to do that.

Mike Koser: 21:11
Tell me about the first moment where you see the 12-story high crown-shaped scoreboard with the Royals insignia on top.

Announcer: 21:19
The matrix of this gigantic structure contains more than 16,000 light bulbs. Take a Royals home run as one example. The huge balls atop the crown will light up, the perimeter lights will encircle the entire 120-foot-high scoreboard several times, and an animation or facial likeness of the hitter will appear. At the same time, and this is a baseball first, a water spectacular more than 300 feet wide will erupt. The water spectacular also will be part of a daily pregame show.

Mike Koser: 21:49
First time you're up on the broadcast booth and you're looking out at those particular features of the ballpark. What did you think?

Denny Matthews: 21:55
Well, it was unique, for sure. Muriel Kauffman, Ewing Kauffman's wife. I think it was her idea, the fountains. And of course, Ewing had his input into the into the ballpark, but uh yeah, the water's spectacular and the different colors that came out as the water was cascading here, there, and everywhere, and it made it unique. No other ballpark had that. And it was cool, and the scoreboard was like you said, it was enormous and provided by today's standards very, very fundamental and basic information, but what the heck? That's all we needed. And uh it was just a a joyous moment. Everybody was so excited about the new ballpark. It was supposed to open in 72, but because of a construction strike, it was pushed back to 73. They in fact, after the final game of 1971, George Toma dug out home plate and they put it in a helicopter and helicoptered it over to the site of the new stadium. They were going to use the same home plate and the in the new ballpark has closed the old one, but then the construction strike. So they had to take the home plate back to the uh the original ballpark.

Mike Koser: 23:11
Put it back in.

Denny Matthews: 23:12
And put it back in.

Mike Koser: 23:13
Oh my gosh. Well, a couple months after Royal Stadium opened in 1973, Kansas City hosted the All-Star game.

Announcer: 23:19
Baseball is America's national pastime. And 1973 provides a significant milestone with the 40th year of All-Star Game Competition. Brand new Royals Stadium in Kansas City's Harry S. Truman Sports Complex is the attractive setting for this year's game.

Mike Koser: 23:35
And for the first time a game was being played at the ballpark without you in the broadcast booth. Did you get to sit in the stands? Did you get tickets to that game and were able to watch it from uh fans' perspective?

Denny Matthews: 23:43
Yeah, I did. My mom and dad came out from uh Bloomington, Illinois, and then uh yeah, we watched the game. We were sitting 1st base side, I remember.

Mike Koser: 23:51
Did you get to see the Bobby Bond's home run that ended up on the grass between the water and the bullpen, if I'm not mistaken?

Denny Matthews: 23:58
Yeah. Saw that. He was the MVP, but the home run that everybody probably still talks about was Johnny Bench, his home run, went on top of a concession stand, which was in a walkway behind the left field fence.

Mike Koser: 24:13
Oh my gosh.

Mike Koser: 24:14
And uh it may still be going. I don't know.

Mike Koser: 24:16
Denny, do you remember the Cookie Rojas promise in 1973?

Denny Matthews: 24:20
Sure. He and Freddie Patek were gonna jump into the fountains, so they had to make sure the electricity was off.

Mike Koser: 24:26
The promise was if we win the pennant or something, we would jump in the water in the fountains in left field, right?

Denny Matthews: 24:31
Yeah, yeah. When we win when we clinched the the playoff spot, we're gonna go out run out and uh jump into the fountains and celebrate.

Mike Koser: 24:39
And they did. It seemed like the A's and the Angels were on the West Coast, and so they had to wait till the next day for the season finale, but then but then true to his word, he did someone was running like mad to make sure the electric yeah, like you said, with the electricity was off.

Denny Matthews: 24:51
Yeah, we'd have been a couple of guys short for the playoffs if they hadn't.

Mike Koser: 24:56
Uh Whitey Herzog managed the Royals from 75 to 79 and gave you an opportunity that I'm sure no broadcaster that I can think of has ever been afforded. You got to play... suit up in a uniform in a few exhibition games.

Denny Matthews: 25:08
Well, every every team in the major leagues had to play an in-season exhibition game against their triple-A affiliate. Some of them played their double-A affiliate. So the Royals, in the middle of June or early July, whenever it fell, the Royals at the beginning of a road trip would fly into Omaha to play the Omaha Royals. And none of the players, I mean, 162 games is a marathon. None of the players, you can imagine, in the middle of a baseball season, were too enthusiastic about playing a meaningless exhibition game against their AAA affiliate, but that was mandated by Major League Baseball. Every team had to do it. So Whitey had me play in a total of seven different exhibition games. One was in Annapolis, Maryland, and we had two days off in Baltimore in early or mid-April, which really didn't fit the schedule. You come out of spring training, you're ready to go, and you got two days off, and he said, Heck with that, we're gonna go play the Naval Academy, which we did. That was a cool day. And then the uh exhibitions in Omaha. I did all right. I didn't never struck out. I uh in Annapolis I hit a line drive at the shortstop. And by that time the regular players were out of the game and they were coaching. Brett was coaching first base. I was a left-handed hitter, so I hit a line drive, really hit it right at their shortstop, who caught it, and I had taken two or three steps out of the batter's box, and I was facing first base, obviously, and I saw Brett, and George was waving goodbye to me that you're out. So thanks, George. And then later I walked in that game. I remember stealing second. Freddie Patek then was coaching first, so I drew a walk, went to first. Freddie said, I want you to steal second base, because Freddie was a good base stealer.

Mike Koser: 27:00
Yeah.

Denny Matthews: 27:01
And I said, Freddie, I'm thirty whatever I was, 33, 34. I said, I'm not 18 or 21 anymore. I I'm not as fast as I used to be. He said, That's okay. We can get a good jump on this pitcher. So I think in the second or third pitch I took off and stole second. UL Washington came up, hit a ground ball, he was a switch hitter, he hit a ground ball to second base. I went from second to third on the ground ball, and then and I still don't know. To this day, I've been trying to figure out who the hitter was that hit a sacrifice fly in the left center field, and I tagged up and scored. And I don't rem I thought it was Jerry Terrell, who was one of our utility infielders at the time, and I asked Jerry about it one time, and he said, No, I wasn't even on the team that year. And so I don't know. I do not know who hit that fly ball, but it doesn't matter. It was fun. I asked why I said, Why did you let me play in those games? And he said, Well, there were two or three reasons. He said, number one, I came out to the ballpark on when you were out there fielding ground balls and taking batting practice. He said, I could tell that you had played in college at a fairly high level. He said, So I was confident there. I was also confident you wouldn't embarrass yourself, me, or the organization. I said, thanks for that vote of confidence. And he said, but the biggest reason I let you play in all those games, none of our guys wanted to play. I knew that. It was just something we had to do.

Mike Koser: 28:27
Yeah.

Denny Matthews: 28:27
But if you're playing and you blow an ankle, you can still go up to the booth and broadcast. If I've got one of my players out there and he blows an ankle, I lose him for six weeks.

Mike Koser: 28:38
Yeah.

Denny Matthews: 28:39
He said, so I would rather have you blow an ankle and still broadcast than me lose a player for six weeks. And that was so typical of Whitey Herzog. He always had a real solid reason for whatever he did. He was a great manager.

Mike Koser: 28:54
I want to talk quickly about the 85 World Series.

Al Michaels: 28:58
It's a meeting of two Inter-state rivals - the Royals of Kansas City And the Cardinals of St. Louis.

Mike Koser: 29:13
The Cardinals won the first two games in Kansas City. And then after planes landing in St. Louis, the team, I'm assuming most players and other personnel see a sign that caught everyone's attention, huge sign on the tower at the airport that said, Welcome to St. Louis, home of the 1985 World Champion Cardinals. Can you tell me what that did to motivate, what you think it did to motivate the team? I just can't imagine flying in and seeing that.

Denny Matthews: 29:43
I th I think everybody probably saw that, and I don't think anyone was amused. But um I think it was the pitching of Danny Jackson more than anything else. The series turned around. Same thing happened in the playoffs. We played Toronto and we were down two games to none. To the Blue Jays and came back and won in seven. So yeah, same scenario. And down but not out, and they rallied both in the playoffs and in the World Series. But uh yeah, I don't think that sign really helped the Cardinals at all, but uh it was more than the sign.

Mike Koser: 30:17
Yeah, how gratifying though to come back after being down three games to one and win the ball club's first world championship.

Denny Matthews: 30:23
Well, it was something that the city was poised to celebrate, which they did.

Announcer: 30:28
The party has started 11-0, the final score. The Royals win their first World Series title. They were in the series in 80 but lost to the Phils. But in 1985, the Royals bouncing off the deck twice, down to the Blue Jays to win the American League Championship, down three to one to the Cardinals to win the World Series. So what a series, what a night.

Denny Matthews: 30:55
Yeah, it was just a great thrill for everybody. The the key game in the playoffs was game three, we're down two games to none to Toronto, and back to Kansas City, and George Brett had the most impactful game of his life in game three. George Brett willed the Royals to win game three. He had four hits, I think, including a home run or two, a couple of doubles. He made two really good plays at third base defensively. George Brett won Game Three, and that if we don't win Game Three, we don't see the Cardinals. We don't see the World Series. That was the most important game to this day. That remains the most important game in Royals' history. Game three of the playoffs, eighty-five against Toronto.

Mike Koser: 31:39
Uh, Denny, Royals Stadium was renamed Kauffman Stadium in 1994 after longtime Royals owner Ewing Kauffman had passed away the previous year. He took care of his people, didn't he? I mean, I get the sense that he was a a loyal guy.

Denny Matthews: 31:51
Yeah, royal and loyal rhyme. And Ewing Kauffman insisted on loyalty. If you were loyal to Ewing Kauffman, there wasn't anything that he wouldn't do for you. And same was true with his business, which was the pharmaceutical business. People that worked for him forever were rewarded. And he was just a very, very smart. When he brought the Royals to Kansas City, when he purchased the team, he wasn't a real big baseball guy, and Muriel, I think his wife, said, Ewing, you've got one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, nobody knows your name. Buy the Royals, you'll do a great thing for the city and the and the area around. People will come to see the games and everybody will know you. Which was true. And so uh that's exactly what happened. But yeah, loyalty was first and foremost for Ewing Kauffman.

Mike Koser: 32:44
You've now broadcast Royals games in seven different decades, Denny. And the only other person I can think of who's done that with the same team would be Vin Scully, if I'm not mistaken. Incredible career, and uh what an honor and a privilege to have you on the Lost Ballparks podcast to revisit some great Royals history. And thank you so much, Denny.

Denny Matthews: 33:02
You're welcome, Mike. I've enjoyed our conversation.

Mike Koser: 33:05
That was fun. You know, it's interesting. One of the great benefits of being a Royals fan and being able to listen to Denny Matthews all these years is that he has this encyclopedic knowledge of the entire history of the team. Has had a front road seat for Royals baseball since the first pitch was thrown back in April of 1969. And if you love that team, there is no one who can provide a greater context to what you're seeing from pitch to pitch bat to bat andb= year to year than Denny Matthews. No one.