‘Voice of the Royals’ celebrates 8,000th game, looks back on 58 seasons with Kansas City
KANSAS CITY, Mo. —
The Kansas City Royals will wrap up the regular season this Sunday against Cleveland, but that’s not the only reason Friday night will be big for the hometown team.
It’s a special milestone for the voice of the Royals. Denny Matthews will call his 8,000th game Friday. And the best news for Royals fans? He’s not done yet.
Matthews isn’t just the voice of the Royals, he’s the voice of the summer in Kansas City. He’s been a presence here for 58 seasons.
“I thought they were lying,” Matthews said when the team approached him about his 8,000th game.
He’s been with the organization since the start: Game One in 1969 at the old stadium on Brooklyn Avenue.
“I remember Game One better than I remember any other game,” Matthews said.
He was 26 years old when he got the job. He had very little experience, but he was paired with a baseball veteran — a nationally known professional, the great Buddy Blattner.
“He told me one time, he said, ‘You better concentrate. I want you to be as good in the eighth inning as you were in the second.'”
Ever since then, Matthews has taken it one game at a time, hoping it’s a good one. For him, it’s always been about the game.
“What’s my job? To be the eyes for the fans of the ballpark and try to describe the play as best I can,” he said.
It’s a work ethic that helped him get to baseball’s Hall of Fame in 2007.
After Buddy Blattner, Matthews worked with the late Fred White. For the last 28 seasons, he’s been paired with Ryan Lefebvre.
As he’s gotten older, he’s calling more home games now. The road is a grind.
KMBC 9 News Anchor Kris Ketz asked Matthews, at age 83, is he thinking about hanging things up?
“As long as I feel good, Kris, I don’t know,” he said. “It’s hard to answer because you have different thoughts going around your mind. I said, ‘Well, if I do two more years, that’s 60. That’s a good, round number, right?’ So that might be a good stop-off point.”
So this much we know: Matthews is coming back for a 59th season next spring.
But looking back at his first Royals game ever, April 8th, 1969: Matthews’s father gave him what is today, an old-style leather briefcase.
He still has it.
Other than having to replace a broken handle, it still works.
Matthews said, “It has a few scars on it, but then again, so do I.”