Meet Baseball’s Least Exciting Announcer – Wall Street Journal

During Kansas City’s decades-long playoff drought, Royals radio announcer Denny Matthews called thousands of meaningless games without ever sounding frustrated.

Now that the Royals are playing meaningful baseball, however, some critics complain that Matthews never sounds excited. “The man in the broadcast booth—who should be living it up with his fan base, much of which he helped create—seems to be off in his own world, unable to express joy and excitement,” Bob Lutz, a Wichita Eagle sports columnist, wrote amid last year’s first Royals postseason appearance, KC’s first since 1985.

During the current postseason, the chorus of complaints about Matthews has intensified. Some critics point to a moment last week during Game 5 of the team’s division series against Houston, when Kendrys Morales blasted a three-run eighth-inning home run to solidify a Royals victory. “THAT ONE IS GONE!” a Fox Sports 1 announcer screamed on national television.

On the Royals radio broadcast, Matthews sounded like a golf commentator. “Well hit to deep left center and gone,” Matthews said.

Some fans are calling for the departure of Matthews, the voice of the Royals since the team’s inception in 1969. “I feel bad saying that this older gentleman who has given so much to the team has to go, but it’s almost like he doesn’t have an excitement button,” says Jeff Lyell, the Royals-loving owner of a St. Louis sports bar called Amsterdam Tavern. “I think all of that losing beat him down.”

At 72, Matthews is the longest-standing active MLB broadcaster with one team behind Vin Scully and Jaime Jarrin of the Los Angeles Dodgers. In 2007, the National Baseball Hall of Fame awarded Matthews its Ford C. Frick Award. In 1983, baseball historian Bill James wrote a long ode to Matthews, extolling the way he enhances his evocation of on-the-field action with historical and statistical context.

“When I think of the Royals, I think of Denny,” says Jesse Nippert, a Kansas State University science professor who owns (and has read) Matthews’ book, “Tales From The Royals Dugout.” “The guy is 1 part baseball historian, 1 part baseball instructor.”

In an interview, Matthews laughed off criticism of his low-key style. When it comes to calling home runs, he acknowledged that he’s not a yeller, saying he prefers to leave that reaction to fans. “After a home run, Harry Caray would say, ‘Listen to the crowd.’ And he’d be quiet for 10 to 12 seconds,” said Matthews. Of course, Caray, the late Cubs announcer, was also known for his exuberance.

A former infielder who turned down an offer from the San Francisco Giants to stay in college, Matthews joined the Royals broadcast team at age 25. His deliveries may include intricate analyses of each manager’s bullpen strategies, tutorials such as how to field a pitch in the dirt (top of mitt down), the term for the half inning after your team scores (shut-down inning), and memories such as a long-ago Royals/Blue Jays game that suffered a sun delay. Before games, he gathers intelligence by seeking out his counterparts at opposing teams. “They’re more candid than some of the managers would be,” says Matthews.

In January, the Royals extended Matthews’s contract through 2018, which would represent his 50th year of calling games for the team. “He has delivered the word pictures of virtually every important moment in team history,” Mike Swanson, Royals vice president of communications and broadcasting, said in a release at the time of the extension.

That extension disappointed some fans. They say that Matthews’s style clashes with that of an exuberant young team known for wild celebrations. “His game calls are about as interesting as if he were describing a dog washing,” Jim Fitzpatrick, a former Kansas City Star reporter, wrote in a July blog. He added of Matthews, “Nobody dares criticize the guy.”

Firing a revered baseball broadcaster can backfire, as the Detroit Tigers discovered when they declined in 1990 to renew the contract of Ernie Harwell, their broadcaster for three decades. “They took a man who literally taught baseball to hundreds of thousands of fans, summer after summer, and they told him he’s too old, his time is up,” Mitch Albom wrote at the time in the Detroit Free Press, calling it “the biggest bonehead move of the decade.” Three years later, the Tigers brought Harwell back.

Some veteran fans say that Matthews isn’t as enthusiastic as during the George Brett era, a contention that the broadcaster dismisses. Other fans believe the broadcaster’s illustrious tenure places him above second guessing. Bill James, a Kansas City area resident who wrote admiringly of Matthews during the Brett era, said in an email, “As to Denny losing his enthusiasm, I certainly would never SAY that that was true even if it was.”

In 2008, the baseball writer Rany Jazayerli wrote a long tribute to Matthews, crediting the broadcaster with nurturing his love of the game. “The one regret I have with Matthews is that I’ve never really heard him call a meaningful game,” wrote Jazayerli. “Of the many, many, many things I plan to enjoy if and when the Royals start contending again, getting to listen to an excited Denny Matthews ranks high on my list.”

Now that he’s had that chance, Jazayerli is disappointed. In an email, Jazayerli said of Matthews, “If you listen to his call of Kendrys Morales’s home run to ice the ALDS against Houston in Game 5, or even the final out of the ALCS to send the Royals to the World Series last year, you’d have no idea that he wasn’t just calling a regular season game from the inflection in his voice.”

Write to Kevin Helliker at kevin.helliker@wsj.com