It has been 10 years since we were all shocked to find out that Darryl Kile had passed away, in his sleep, in a hotel in Chicago.  The St. Louis Cardinals lost another member of the “family”, players lost a teammate, and the world lost an amazing man and father.

All of this is well documented and I do not feel I can bring more to the subject.  I admired him.  I enjoyed his career.  I mourned his loss.  I, much like other fans and pundits, have moved on.  Sooner or later you simply run out of words.

About a month ago, I was co-hosting a radio program on my network, pinch hitting for a host that could not make it.   The show featured former Cardinal reliever Dave Veres, a guy I had watched as I grew up and I was excited to interview.  Before the interview was over, the subject of Darryl Kile was raised, and I could tell there was a bond.

When the United Cardinal Bloggers decided that the June project this year should be to look back at Jack Buck and the man many of us now know as “DK57″, I was not sure what to write.  I sent a few emails and some requests but ultimately was denied or met the common “I’m not sure what more I can say”.  My email to Dave Veres, however, was answered kindly.

 I did reach out to former Cardinal beat reporter, Matthew Leach, for his thoughts.  He told me that he would be running them on his blog, but he did not have a “favorite memory” of Darryl Kile.  Leach has said many times that Kile was “hard to cover” and explained why.  He did come up with a memory, and you can read that story over at Obviously, You’re Not A Golfer.

I asked Veres two questions: 1 – what is your favorite memory, on or off the field, of Darryl Kile and 2 – What can you tell me about that fateful day ten years ago.  What I got back but funny, beautiful, inspiring and sad.

On his favorite memories of Darryl Kile, Dave Veres shared the following
As you have most likely heard about Darryl and his on the field accomplishments and how he was such a great teammate and competitor. My favorite memories of Darryl were more off the field since we spent more time in the winter together with our wives and kids being so close.

One was when we were in AAA with Tucson and I think we were playing Tacoma and we would go fishing in the mornings. So one morning we are out and being in the Northwest they had plenty of rain, so we were hiking back to get to a fishing hole and instead of going through a couple inches of water I decided to go across a muddy area instead because I didn’t want to get my shoes wet. Well, needless to say, what looked like a little bit of mud turned out to be about a 4 foot mud hole. I remember as I was sinking and was asking Darryl to help. He basically said “I’m not going in there”.  Luckily, for my sake, I finally hit the bottom. Then he held out his fishing pole for me to grab onto. Of course then it was funny and, needless to say, I went into the water anyway to rinse of the mud.

So, now we are in the big leagues and both live in Houston and Darryl and I would golf or play “mortal combat” and the wives would go shop or whatever. Of course it was only fitting that they were both pregnant at the same time, too. So on Jan 15th 1997 my wife and I are going to the dentist and I get a call from Darryl and he says he and Flynn are going to the hospital and wants me to go by the store and pick up a camcorder so they can record it. Nothing like going into your best friend’s wife’s room and setting up a video as she’s getting ready to give birth to twins. Thank goodness since it was twins and a high risk delivery there were plenty of doctors in there.  I could set up without having to “see” anything. Later that evening we are at home and my wife is feeling some labor pains, I think it’s just because she watched Flynn deliver. Well about 8 hours after their twins were born we had our daughter. And when Darryl signed with the Rockies the next year they traded for me a few weeks later and we all moved to Denver. So we spent nearly every Christmas and birthday’s together for the 4 years.

On June 22, 2002 – The day Darryl Kile was found in his hotel room
Well, I can say that morning may be the worst day I have ever been through. Since Darryl and I usually lockered by each other and he was always one of the first guys at the clubhouse, it was pretty clear when I arrived at the ball park he wasn’t there yet. So I tried calling him and, when I couldn’t reach him, I called my wife to go to his room and try and wake him up. I knew his brother came to town and just figured he over slept. So she banged on his door and there was no answer.  So she asked one of the maids to open the door since he was late for the game. Luckily for my wife’s sake he had the security latch on,otherwise she would have found him. But, that’s when we knew he was in his room. So they had to get security and I think they called the Cardinals and let them know something was up. As we were out at BP the clubhouse guys came and got me and said there was a “family emergency”.  It was my wife on the phone and told me that Darryl had passed away in his sleep. I didn’t know what to do or say,I just kind of went numb or in a daze. A little while later Tony came in with the team and that’s when they told everyone else.

Those next few days were so exhausting. The emotional drain on us, if anyone watched the game the next day against the cubs on ESPN it was like a bunch of zombies. I’m not really sure why they aired that game. I think being a father my first thoughts went out to Flynn and the kids,I couldn’t imagine them not having their father any longer.

I still think about him pretty much daily, usually a DK or 57 will pop up or a story will remind me of him. We ran into Flynn and the kids last year in Anaheim at a volleyball tournament that our girls were playing in. Even though we don’t talk as much it was still we hadn’t missed a beat when we saw them,except there was no Darryl in person.

We appreciate Dave sharing such personal stories with us.  After the stories, he included one quote that stuck with me:

He was truly one of the nicest and genuine people you could have ever had the privilege to know. Also one of the greatest competitors, I don’t think he missed a start in 10 years,so that why when Tony got us together and we realized that Sunday night game would have been Darryl’s start,we needed to play it in his honor.

Bill Ivie is the editor here at I-70 Baseball
He is the host of I-70 Radio, hosted every week on BlogTalkRadio.
Follow him on Twitter here.

As Aaron Stilley wrote on this site a couple days ago, many amazing words have already been written about the life and death of Paul Splittorff, the former Royals pitcher who passed away this week.

I was barely five years old when Paul Splittorff retired from the Kansas City Royals in 1984, and I have no memory of him as a pitcher. In fact, some of my earliest memories of baseball and of life are watching the 1985 World Series, in which the Royals defeated the St. Louis Cardinals.

Paul Splittorff retired one year too soon to be a part of that championship team. But then again, maybe Splitt was part of that championship. His last year was also the first year for future Royals Hall of Famers Bret Saberhagen and Mark Gubicza. Do you think Splittorff, the winningest pitcher in team history, had an influence on those two hurlers? You bet he did.

Although I never saw Splitt play, I was lucky enough to enjoy the entirety of his broadcasting career.

And he was, simply, amazing.

I’d like to think I know a lot about baseball. But every time I listened to Splittorff broadcast a game – every single time – I learned something new about America’s pastime.

Splittorff was a baseball professor of the highest order. He served as a perfect contrast to Denny Matthews and Fred White and Bob Davis and, later, Ryan Lefebvre. He seemed to know everything about pitching and nearly as much about hitting. You have to wonder – what made him turn to broadcasting instead of coaching? Surely he would have been a successful baseball manager.

Frank White is the new commentator for the Kansas City Royals. And I love Frank White, as a person, a player and a broadcaster. But in the booth, he’s no Splitt.

I will miss Paul Splittorff very much.

Matt Kelsey is a Royals writer and associate editor for I-70 Baseball. He can be reached at mattkelsey14@yahoo.com.

Greinke’s Legacy: Good Memories or Sour Grapes?

The fable of the fox and the grapes goes that when the fox couldn’t reach the grapes that hung just out of his reach, he responded by saying “I didn’t want those grapes anyway. They are too sour.”

Often the response by fans when a player rejects their team is “If he doesn’t want to be here, then we don’t want him here.”

As I read Zack Greinke’s comments from spring training with his new team, I am tempted to apply some of the fox’s rationale – if Zack is so much happier elsewhere, then I’m glad he’s gone.

Call it sour grapes, but looking at the situation now, my opinion is this: we KC fans tried to love Zack, but the truth is he’s not that easy of a guy to love.

In his typically mystifying way, Greinke missed some time in Milwaukee’s camp last week due to bruised ribs suffered off the field in an incident about which the team, and Greinke, has refused to comment.

Greinke was less than sharp in his spring training debut on Tuesday, possibly due to the injury. He loaded the bases in the first on a leadoff single and two walks. He exhibited his ability to wriggle off the hook by getting two strikeouts, however.

With one out in the second, Greinke surrendered another walk and was pulled. His line: 1.1 innings, one hit, three walks, two Ks, 39 pitches.

We all know Zack will knock off the rust and pitch really well in Milwaukee. And we didn’t exactly come up empty in the deal that sent him to the Brewers. KC has plenty to show for the trade and a lot to look forward to.

But what will KC fans do with Greinke? Will Royals fans cheer for him as a favorite player who moved due to the harsh realities of the business? Or will they root against him as a petulant prodigy who we’re glad to be rid of?

His comments to reporters in the Brewers’ training camp won’t endear him to Royals fans. He’s a little too frank about how happy he is to be gone for my taste.

“It’s more fun to win games,” Greinke told the Associated Press last Tuesday. “Not saying we’re guaranteed to win every game we play, just it’ll be a better chance and more than likely we’ll win more games than I’ve won in any of my seasons prior, so it should be a fun season.”

Those are true statements, obviously. It is more fun to win, and KC didn’t win much. But evidently Zack found the Royals camps too stressful.

“It has been fun so far, just a real relaxed camp,” Greinke told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “It’s been easy to fit in so far. It’s just more relaxed here.”

I guess Zack didn’t like the stress of trying to build and improve the Kansas City franchise. It’s more fun, evidently, to relax and enjoy being everyone’s favorite to win the NL central. I’m glad you get to really kick back and take it easy, Zack. (For that matter, I bet Cardinal fans hope you really take it easy this spring, too.)

We could all tell something wasn’t quite right with Zack last year, and he admitted last week that he wasn’t really that into it.

“When the games started, I pitched 100 percent every time, but going in, I probably did what most people do. Usually, I feel like I do a lot more than most people in between starts and the second half I felt like I kind of did what was asked and nothing more,” Greinke said.

In cryptic Greinke-speak, he’s saying I didn’t really give it my all every day, every chance I had to prepare, practice and improve. We can assume he wasn’t exactly setting a great example, leading the clubhouse, pumping his teammates to give their all as well.

Zack obviously is a different guy. Not necessarily a nice, friendly guy. I bet there weren’t a lot of tears shed by teammates when the deal was made in December.

But now Greinke is taking an unexpected tack with the media, playing the “cruel to be kind” card on why he made his discontent with Royals’ management fodder for reporters. He told MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy Tuesday that he played the villain so that the team could save face.

“I kind of had to play the bad guy in order to do it. It would be nice if that didn’t happen, but the way things were in Kansas City, if I just kept on being the sweet person, the fans would have been outraged if I got traded. I kind of had to be the bad guy. It isn’t always your No. 1 choice.”

McCalvy wrote Tueday: He realized he was a fan favorite — “I don’t know why,” Greinke said — and by making his trade requests public, he feels he helped avoid “backlash on the organization.”

Greinke’s relationship with the media has always been odd. He’d rather not talk to reporters, but when he does you never know what he’ll say. He basically told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last week that he considers talking to them a waste of his time.

“Probably 99% of the time I (don’t want to talk to the media) is because every day I come to the park and want to get focused on my start, and then random people come and waste my time talking every day. It takes eight minutes to get a real question out because they’re like buttering me up. Then they get to the question and it’s a stupid question. So it’s a waste of 10 minutes, and in that 10-minute time I don’t get to do what I needed to do.”

So he forces his way out of KC, talks about how happy he is to be somewhere else, admits he didn’t give it his all last season, then says he was playing bad cop so the Royals could play good cop, all the while making condescending remarks to reporters in the town trying to embrace him. How are we to feel about him now?

Greinke did compliment the KC management and fans in comments he made last week, and admitted he understood the decision of the organization to fully invest in the current crop of prospects.

“The organization was really good to me, the fans have always been amazing, but it just seemed like we were going in different directions,” he said to the AP. “Like I said before, I know young guys are very, very valuable, but there comes a point where it has to take the next step.”

So he got what he wanted, which was out. We got Alcides Escobar, Lorenzo Cain, Jeremy Jeffress and Jake Odorizzi, who all, hopefully, want to be in. And we got to get rid of Yuniesky Betancourt too?

The fox would say that was a pretty good deal. If I root against Zack Greinke from this point on, call it a case of sour grapes if you want. It’s not like he’s making it that hard to dislike him.

I was only a few months old when the I-70 Series happened, but as a baby I was in attendance at a few of the games. Of course I have no memory of the series. I do, however, remember George Brett.

My memories are not from ’85 but from a time when the Royals were still winners. A time when the stadium was always full. A time when having season tickets was something to be proud of. So, instead of a stat-filled recap of Brett’s career, I am going to focus on what I remember of Brett as a player.

For most people under the age of 30, George Brest is best remembered as the raving mad man who rushed onto the field ready to kill someone during the infamous Pine Tar Incident. Everyone remembers that image of George Brett, that image of pure emotion, pure passion for the game, and a pure reaction.

I remember George Brett not as my favorite Royal, but as the guy who went out there and did the same thing every single game. He got the clutch hit, made the hard throw, and just pretty much made the extraordinary look routine every night he took the field. I remember not wondering wether George would get a hit, or holding my breath on the long throw from third, because I always knew he would come through when the team needed it.

I also remember Brett being the guy everyone loved, but at the same time hated. George Brett was the face of the team, the heart of the team and the leader of the team in the fans’ eyes. People knew where he lived, where he ate, who he hung out with. His life and personality were always a topic of conversation. Every company wanted George Brett to have their product in his hands.

George Brett was, and still is, the Kansas City Royals. He is the face of that team, the I-70 Series and all things Kansas City, and that in my mind is the biggest stat from the I-70 Series.

George did exactly what everyone expected him to do in 1985. He tore the cover off the ball in the regular season, blasting 30 home runs; he became the MVP of the 1985 American League Championship Series; and he drove the ball all over the field in the World Series, including a four-hit performance in Game 7. He truly lived up to the legend.

George Brett will forever be remembered for that magical Fall 25 years ago when he led the Royals to a world championship.

As you know, this entire week is being dedicated to the 1985 “I-70 Series” that Cardinals and Royals fans will, for positive and negative reasons, never forget. It was a series full of headlines, and I won’t even get into the obvious one.

The series is one that most Cardinal fans would like to forget, but nobody aside from Don Denkinger (oops – I said it) had a worse seven games than Ozzie Smith.

Fortunately, I was not around to experience the frustration of that unforgettable series for the Cardinals. I was born in 1992, and actually was in attendance for Ozzie Smith’s final MLB game in 1996. I was three years old and did not know the significance of that game until later on in my life.

Since I was not around to watch the majority of his career, most of my memories of “The Wizard” come in the form of his emotional Hall of Fame speech in 2002. Of course I know him as the remarkable shortstop he was, but I was not lucky enough to get the privilege of watching him play baseball in the prime of his career. His 13 consecutive Gold Glove Awards, 15 All-Star selections, 2460 hits, and 580 stolen bases clearly speak volumes, but I have a feeling that Smith’s play was far more than that. I cannot say for certain, but I bet if you ask anybody alive in Ozzie’s playing days, they’ll tell you that his performance on the field was more than numbers can indicate.

The Wizard was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals in 1982 and immediately made an impact. He made his second All-Star appearance in that first season with the Cards, but I doubt many fans knew what they were going to get out of Smith in the next 15 years. While his first three seasons in St. Louis were impressive, especially in the field, it was in the 1985 season when Ozzie became an offensive threat as well.

In Smith’s first seven seasons leading up to the memorable ’85 campaign, he hit an awful .238 in over 1,000 Major League games. Then, all of a sudden, Smith decided to make his presence felt at the dish as well. In 1985, he went .276 with a .355 OBP, six home runs (career high), 54 RBI, and 31 stolen bases in 158 games.

Although it was not publicly known until after the season, Smith did all of that even after sustaining an impingement in his right shoulder during July of ’85. As the season progressed, it developed into a torn rotator cuff, which typically requires surgery and extensive rehab. Instead, The Wizard let it heal “naturally” and he continued to play. Not only did he play, he played 158 games, plus a historic postseason.

The play most often thought of when Ozzie Smith comes to mind is the game-winning “Go crazy, folks!” home run in Game 5 of the NLCS. Smith batted left-handed against Tom Niedenfuer with one out. He had never hit a home run in his previous 3,000+ left-handed MLB at-bats, but The Wizard pulled a fastball down the right-field line for a walk-off home run.

His defense was, as always, rock-solid in that series against the Dodgers, but it was his offense that surprised most. In 27 plate appearances, Smith had a slash line of .435/.500/.696 with four runs, one double, one triple, one home run, three RBIs and 16 total bases. He was automatic. Smith was named the Series MVP, but it all quickly changed.

Even though his offensive game was probably the best it has ever been in that ’85 NLCS, Smith suffered a drastic drought in the World Series against the team on the other end of Interstate 70. While he seemed to hit anything that came his way in the Championship Series, Ozzie went 2-for-22 in the World Series with only two total bases, compared to 16 in the NLCS.

As Ozzie Smith fell apart and seemed to disappear (at the dish at least) in the World Series, so did the Cardinals. Maybe there’s something more to this than meets the eye. Ozzie Smith was the life force of the entire club, and what happens when that is taken away?

Despite his usual defense play, Smith had a disastrous seven games at the plate, and so did the Cardinals. You can blame Denkinger all you want, but he cannot be held accountable for the entire series. The Cards didn’t show up when it mattered most. I am by no means saying the series was lost because of Smith. It definitely was not. I just find it interesting how, as Smith fell, the team fell. Ozzie Smith was the St. Louis Cardinals, and he wasn’t his normal self in that series. Neither were the Cardinals.

Coincidence?

Justin Hulsey covers the Cardinals for i70baseball and his blog, Rising Redbirds, that is also dedicated to Cardinals baseball and their minor league system. You may follow him on Twitter @JayHulsey by clicking here.