The Royals are planning special radio broadcast grouping for postseason games
When the Royals open the wild-card round Tuesday in Baltimore, they’ll be playing the 75th postseason game in franchise history.
Radio voice Denny Matthews called the previous 74, but this season he has only worked contests at Kauffman Stadium. Matthews, 81, had cut down on calling road games in recent years.
But Matthews will be in Baltimore, as the Royals radio broadcast will have a special postseason lineup. Matthews, Jake Eisenberg and Ryan Lefebvre will each call three innings.
Steve Stewart will do the pregame and postgame work.
Lefebvre is the Royals’ main television play-by-play broadcaster, but he sometimes works on the radio side. In those instances, Eisenberg takes over TV duties.
That’ll change for the playoffs, and Matthews thinks that’ll make for a better listening experience for Royals fans. The trio of Royals broadcasters will be on radio together while the TV coverage will on ESPN.
The plan is for Matthews to call the first inning. Eisenberg will work innings two through four. Lefebvre will do play-by-play for the fifth, sixth and seventh innings, then Matthews will work the final two frames.
If the game is tied after nine innings, Matthews and Lefebrve will alternate the extra innings.
“I think that you’ll find we’ll have a little bit of a different format, especially for Ryan and I,” Matthews said. “We both played at a high college level in baseball, we can break the game down. He played outfield, I played infield, and we do have a decent feel for the game and so you’ll probably hear us being a little more analytic when we’re not doing the play by play. In other words, if Ryan’s doing the play by play, you’ll probably hear more from me.
“When Jake’s doing the play by play, you’ll probably hear more from well, probably both Ryan and myself. And the thing that makes that good is that everybody sees something different. When you’re broadcasting a baseball game, you only see what you’re seeing, and the baseball field can be pretty wide.”
The Royals finished 50 games below .500 in 2023, but they’re back in the postseason just one year later. They’ll be playing playoff games in the same year the Chiefs won the Super Bowl, and Matthews thinks that’s great for Kansas City.
“It’s so cool that you go from 106 losses to the tournament, playoffs, whatever you want to call it, in one year. I mean, that’s remarkable,” Matthews said. “It’s never been done before in baseball history. That’s how remarkable it is. It’s a tremendous accomplishment.
“And the other thing that I’ll probably mention at some point in time during the tournament, the Royals and the Chiefs have never been good in the same year during the same time. This year is different. This is the first time the Royals and the football team have really been viable. And that’s really cool. It’s kind of neat for the town.”
Matthews has called two Royals World Series championships and four Fall Classics, along with nine American League Championship Series.
But working the postseason is anything but old hat for Matthews, who is in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
“It’s definitely different. I kind of compare it to playing college football,” said Matthews, who played that sport at Illinois Wesleyan. ”You work your way through the week, especially if it’s a big rivalry game, and it starts really on Sunday, after your Saturday game, then you’re looking ahead to next Saturday, and it just builds up day to day to day, and it gets more and more exciting.
“And finally, Saturday morning dawns, and you look around and say, ‘It’s game day.’ And yeah, it’s a whole different feeling.”
This story was originally published September 30, 2024 at 10:40 AM.
