A KC masterpiece heads to Cooperstown

Denny Matthews, who has been the Voice of the Kansas City Royals since their inception in 1969, will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on July 29 in Cooperstown, N.Y. He grew up in Bloomington, the oldest of four boys, including Steve of Princeton. (Photo courtesy Kansas City Royals)

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COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — Steve Matthews remembers his oldest brother, Denny, playing with his baseball card collection in Bloomington, announcing the players as he shuffled his cards.

Their dad’s radio would be tuned into St. Louis Cardinals’ broadcasts on 1230 AM on the radio dial of WJBC, with the voices of Harry Caray, Jack Buck and Joe Gariogola echoing through the house.

“I remember him making up games and announcing the players. All kids have their fantasy world they live in,” said Steve, the retired principal at Princeton High School. “He thought he was going to be a player.”

Those card games turned into the real thing years later, when Denny landed a broadcasting job for the new Kansas City Royals baseball franchise in 1969. He had been picked out of cast of more than 250 applicants.

Matthews has been the “Voice of the Royals” ever since. On July 29, he will make a call from Cooperstown, N.Y., where he will be honored as the 2007 recipient of the Ford Frick Award. It’s an honor that was bestowed upon him by his colleagues in the business, including Bob Uecker, Ernie Harwell, Vin Scully, Harry Kalas, to name a few.

“My dad said a long time ago that if you hang around long enough, you work hard, you do a good job and you buy a tux, you should get an award here and there,” Matthews told mlb.com.

“I still don’t have a tux but I guess I’m getting a pretty cool award.”

“I’m very proud of him,” Steve Matthews said of his brother. “That’s the peak of your profession. It doesn’t get any better than that. To see what somebody wanted to be at a very young age and reach the top of his profession is special.”

All four of the Matthews boys wanted to be ball players growing up and would play high school ball for Trinity School in Bloomington, now known as Central Catholic. Denny, 64, was the oldest followed by Steve, 60, Doug, 57, and Mike, 53.

They were taught the game by their dad, George. He was captain of the baseball and basketball teams at ISU and selected to the U.S. Pan Am squad to play in Latin America. He received offers from the White Sox and Reds, but elected to stay home to play for the State Farm Chiefs ASA softball team, instead of going pro.

“He was a big influence on all of us,” Steve says. “He taught all of his sons to be right-hander throwers and left-hander batters. I was the only one that resisted and switched back. In retrospect, I was wrong.”

Steve Matthews said he and his brothers had their usual battles as kids.

“A 12-year-old can really whomp on an 8-year-old,” he says. “We played Wiffle Ball, tackle football in the snow and scooped out the basketball court. That’s why the younger brother, Mike, became the best athlete of all us, he had all of us to play with.”

Denny went on to letter in baseball and football for three years for his hometown Illinois Wesleyan University Titans, leading the nation (NAIA) in pass receiving in 1965.

The brothers all get together each spring in Arizona for a week of golf and baseball. They all got back together in June for a round of golf back in Bloomington when Denny had a layover between games in St. Louis and Milwaukee. Mike does the color for the Illinois State basketball broadcasts there.

Royal treatment

After graduating from IWU, Denny Matthews did some TV and radio work for WMBD radio in Peoria and later reported sports for KMOX TV part-time in St. Louis. He caught a big break when legendary Cubs announcer Jack Brickhouse allowed him to call a Cubs game for practice at Wrigley Field and put a good plug in for him when he was auditioning for the Royals job.

Matthews was confident he was the man the Royals were looking for, but didn’t know there were about 250 others seeking the same job.

“I was completely confidant that I was the guy they were looking for, so I applied,” Matthews told the Kansas City Star. “When I found out I was one of 250 applicants, that was a little daunting.”

He got the job for the Royals inaugural season as the No. 2 man behind Buddy Blattner, and felt fortunate to be behind the mike to make the call when the Royals won their first game.

He became the lead announcer in 1974 and has continued a career stretching five decades. He is just one of nine announcers in Major League Baseball history to spend an entire career stretching at least 35 years with just one club, a list headed by the Dodgers’ Scully (56 and counting) and the Cardinals’ Jack Buck (47).

No one has seen more Royals games than Denny Matthews.

Cooperstown calling

Matthews will share the special weekend with family and friends, including his mother, Eileen, 86, of Bloomington, and his brothers.

Steve Matthews said their father, who passed away 22 years, “would have got a big kick out of this Hall of Fame thing. He was in seventh heaven when Denny got the job and got to see all the real good Kansas City teams.”

Steve Matthews, 33, Scott’s son, will be traveling from Norman, Okla., where he works for the Oklahoma Sooners athletic department. He thought he had the coolest uncle around when he was a kid and got to go to the ballpark and meet all the Royals players and be a batboy.

“I can’t wait to go out there,” he said. “Some of the coolest things I got to do as a kid were as result of Denny being a broadcaster. I met George Brett when I was 5, and I remember every bit of that. I was a ballboy when I was 13, and got to meet Brett Saberhagen, Bo Jackson, Kevin Seitzer. I still tell those stories, I get a lot of mileage out them.”

“He got to be a batboy in Milwaukee and shagged balls in left field with Bo Jackson,” Steve Matthews said of his son. “It was fun watching him down there on the big league field.”

Now that his brother is going into the Hall of Fame, Steve Matthews, says he’s just a regular guy.

“I don’t think of him as famous. He’s my brother,” he said.

And a Hall of Fame one at that.

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