Royals' run to Series sparks memories of Arlington Heights' Splittorff

With the Kansas City Royals opening up in the World Series this week, memories of the team's winningest pitcher — and Arlington Heights native — naturally come to mind for longtime Northwest suburban residents.

“I immediately thought of Paul Splittorff when the Royals started their magical run,” says Bob Frisk, former Daily Herald assisting manager/sports.

Splittorff spent his entire 15-year (1970-84) major league career with the Royals. He was the starting pitcher in the first game played at Royals Stadium, and was inducted into the Royals' Hall of Fame in 1987.

He was the 1969 expansion team's first 20-game winner in 1973 (20-11), and he went on to play in four postseasons, 1976-'77-'78. In 1980, he pitched in the World Series against the Philadelphia Phillies.

“He may be the winningest left-hander in Royals' history,” Frisk adds.

Splittorff died in 2011 from a rare case of oral cancer and melanoma. He was only 64, when he passed, after his last 24 years as a popular broadcaster.

Splittorff's former American Legion coach, Lloyd Meyer, will be rooting for Kansas City this week, in memory of his former player who contributed so much to the Royals' organization.

“He was the first person I thought of, and the fact that he couldn't take part in it,” Meyer said this weekend.

Ironically, Meyer says he didn't foresee a big league career for the lefty when he coached him on the Legion team in 1965. Splittorff had dropped out of Quincy College that year and was eligible as a college freshman to play on the Legion team.

He pitched second in the rotation and helped propel the Arlington Heights team to the American Legion World Series, where they ultimately finished fifth.

Splittorff pitched their last game. Intrigued, home plate umpire Don Protexter approached Meyer afterward to learn more about Splittorff.

As things turned out, Protexter coached the baseball team at Morningside College, in Sioux City, Iowa. Splittorff enrolled at Morningside, and ultimately was drafted by the expansion Royals.

“He was a steady pitcher,” Meyer says, “who sort of came out of nowhere to make the major leagues.”

Not unlike the Royals, who seemingly came out of nowhere to make this year's World Series.

Earlier this week, as Meyer looked ahead to Series, he looked through some of his mementos from his 60-year coaching career, including a cherished photo of him with Splittorff and George Vukovich, another former player and outfielder for the Philadelphia Phillies, who played against each other in the 1980 World Series.

Meyer can name all of his former players who went on to play in the big leagues, but only one, he says, pitched in the World Series. That was Paul Splittorff.

But even before the Royals mowed their way through the postseason, going an unprecedented 8-0 and clinching their first World Series bid in 29 years, classmates from Arlington High School were thinking of their old friend.

The class of 1964 gathered for their 50th reunion in August at Belvidere Banquets in Elk Grove Village. They remembered all of their lost classmates, but in particular Splittorff, mounting his Royals' cap in a prominent place in the ballroom.

Jim Ewart of Arlington Heights was Splittorff's catcher at Arlington High School.

“The day he heard he was drafted by the Royals, I was with him,” Ewart says. “We were out of town for a friend's wedding.

“He never looked back. He turned out to be the Royals' ace, and then he went on to have a successful career as a radio announcer.”