Splittorff ill

A Royal on the cover of The Sporting News...

The good old days.

 

What I loved about Splitt doing Royals games is he told it like it was. He once hammered the players for laughing in the dugout during a rout against Texas, and I remember that. He slammed the players left and right. But nobody loves the Royals more than Splitt.

Also, some love for his college basketball broadcasting. Solid analyst during Big 12 games.

 

Him and Armstrong were very good together.

 

He's had voice issues for the past few years, but I always read it was some sort of virus. Never met the man, but he was always easy to listen to. Sort of a television verson of Denny Matthews.

 

Sam Mellinger:

http://www.kansascity.com/2011/05/16/2880591_splittorff-never-one-to-draw-attention.html?storylink=omni_popular

Nice passage here:

I didn't get to see many American League games growing up in the early 80s, so I don't remember Splittorff as anything more than a picture on a baseball card. By I admired those Royals teams greatly, and he was one of their stalwarts.

 

There are only a handful of people in the world I would listen to read the dictionary.

Denny Matthews is one of them.

 

Have we reached the point where only Scully has worked longer than him?

 

Just throwing out names off the top of my head (none topping Scully): Milo Hamilton? Marty Brenneman? Joe Gordon? Dave Van Horne?

 

Jerry Coleman?

 

The announcers I would listen to read the dictionary.

Denny Matthews
Vin Scully
Keith Jackson
Al Michaels
Verne Lundquist

honorable mention;
Marty Brennaman
Ernie Harwell
Skip Caray

 

From wikipedia:

"Matthews' tenure with the Royals, at 42 years and counting, is the third-longest tenure with one team of any current Major League Baseball announcer, trailing only those of Los Angeles Dodgers broadcasters Vin Scully (1950-present) and Jaime Jarrin (1959-present)."

 

If you want to be technical, Ralph Kiner has been with the Mets since the franchise started in '62. Granted, he's only on for a couple of innings for maybe 10-15 home games and spends most of that time talking about the '52 Pirates, but he still technically on their payroll.