Pro athletes can set good examples for our kids. Start with these Kansas City Royals | Opinion

When I was a child, my first Major League Baseball heroes were Hank Sauer and Ernie Banks, both of the Chicago Cubs.

Sauer looked like a corn farmer, of which there were plenty near my hometown in northern Illinois, but he could annihilate a fastball. When I was 7 years old, he hit 37 home runs and drove in 121 runs — and I got to watch some of the games on tiny black-and-white TV screens.

Banks was “Mr. Cub.” The year I entered high school, he homered 47 times and drove in 129. But what I most respected about both players was that they were kind, decent men who simply loved their jobs. Banks was famous for getting to the ballpark early and shouting, “Let’s play two!” even when no doubleheader was scheduled.

As the Royals open a new season, please know that if you look closely at big league teams, you will find at least some people who can serve as role models for children. No, really.

Yes, I know. Major League Baseball is the understandable and deserved target of criticism. Much of that is about what often seems like the heartless business end of things — unhappy millionaires playing for tightwad billionaire owners. And some of it is aimed at the game itself — its slowness, its emphasis on power over speed and guile. But notice that in response to such griping, the game’s leaders respond to calls for change. In this soon-to-start season, for instance, there’s a new time clock on the pitcher and larger bases on the field.

As a parent and now grandparent, I’ve tried to teach young people important values such as honesty, fairness, appreciation of differences, empathy and on and on. The good news? You can find some people in the big leagues who model those very values.

Let’s start with the Royals’ new manager, Matt Quatraro, who will try to shape the team into a World Series champion, as did earlier managers Ned Yost and Dick Howser.

Quatraro, former Tampa Bay Rays bench coach, begins his first Major League managerial assignment with lots of unanswered questions, but with a temperament that seems to shape a way of living that can easily be recommended to our youth.

As The Star’s Royals beat reporter Lynn Worthy wrote recently, people who know and have worked with Quatraro — or Q, as both he and Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas are often called — say Quatraro has ability, a good work ethic, an understanding of the game, the ability to communicate and an inquisitive mind. Those surely are qualities that parents should want their children to emulate.

When Quatraro was a coach for Tampa Bay, Rays manager Kevin Cash saw Quatraro as consistent “day in and day out — regardless of the win, the loss.” It’s what pitcher Ryan Yarbrough, who signed as a free agent with the Royals this offseason, called a “really calming presence.” Don’t we wish that for children?

Denny Matthews, Bobby Witt Jr. good examples

Speaking of such consistency, that’s what the Royals radio broadcaster Denny Matthews says he saw in Yost, who later this year will be inducted into the Royals Hall of Fame.

“He wasn’t any different postseason than he was regular season,” Matthews said of him. “It was the same attitude I saw out of Whitey Herzog and Dick Howser,” both of whom had successful careers as Royals managers.

And if you want an awesome model of consistency, consider Matthews himself. He’s been on the Royals broadcast team since the team’s first season in 1969, and has been so persistently good at his job that in 2007 he was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Young people today are more likely to change not just jobs but whole career fields several times before they retire. But Matthews is a model for finding something you love to do and doing it at a high level for a long time. Try that, kids.

Looking for a model of dedication, enthusiasm and learning from one’s mistakes — all combined with incredible skill? Watch infielder Bobby Witt Jr. As The Star’s Vahe Gregorian has written, Witt is both “unassuming and strikingly mature.”

And is there a better role model for kids than the skillful, funny, spirited Royals’ catcher, Salvador Perez?

In a time when many of the culture’s heroes seem to be self-centered liars with no moral compass, Major League Baseball may not be devoid of such jerks, but there are lots of good examples to help light the way for our youth. Don’t miss them.