Marty Pattin

Thirty-four Octobers after recording the final outs of his career, strikeouts against Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt and four-time All-Star Greg Luzinski in Game 6 of the World Series won by the Phillies against the Royals, Marty Pattin still bleeds Royals blue.

He still cares, cares so much that this new version of his old ballclub has him rooting like a teenager.

Pattin watched the early innings of the wild-card, play-in game vs. the A’s at Henry T’s in Lawrence. Then he drove to his nearby home to watch the rest.

“The TV goes out in the ninth inning, and I’m just going berserk,” Pattin recalled. “So I went back out to my car, and I’m sitting there in the driveway listening to Denny Matthews for four innings, and I’m going crazy because I can’t see what’s going on.”

He couldn’t see the players, and the players couldn’t hear him, but that didn’t prevent Pattin, known as The Duck for his impeccable Donald Duck impersonation, from talking to his radio.

“Come on, Salvy,” the former Kansas University baseball coach told his radio. “You’ve had an awful night at the plate, but we need you get this hit. Come on, Salvy!”

Salvador Perez delivered, ending the the Royals’ 9-8, 12-inning victory, a Division Series sweep and 2-0 American League Championship Series on deck.

“I got out of my car, and I jumped and yelled as loud as I could,” said Pattin, 71. “I probably woke up everybody in the cul-de-sac.”

Except that nobody was sleeping and couldn’t hear him above the roar in their own homes.

Too keyed-up to sleep, Pattin headed back out, this time to the Shenago to celebrate the end of 29 years without a Royals playoff series.

“I’m so happy for these guys,” said Pattin, who stayed true to the Royals through the lean decades. “We did it about the same way they’re doing it. We had great pitching, timely hitting, great defense and team speed, man. That’s what we were back then, and that’s what they are now.”

Pattin is especially happy for Mike Moustakas, who made headlines last year for calling in a hit-and-run accident that sent a pedestrian to the hospital. The victim was Pattin’s step-grandson. Former teammate George Brett made sure to have Pattin talk to Moustakas the next time The Duck was at the ballpark.

“I said, ‘Moose, man, I don’t know what to say, but I thank you from the bottom of my heart.’ I remember putting my hands on his shoulders and telling him, ‘Moose, good things are going to happen for you. Just be patient.’ Well, good things are happening for him,” he said. “I’m so happy for him. And I’m most happy for Royals fans who’ve been waiting their whole lives, people who weren’t even born when we last made the playoffs.”

Pattin pitched for the Royals from 1974 to 1980 and went 114-109 during a 13-year big-league career split between the rotation and bullpen. He has been a proud Royals alumnus, as is the case with Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, Illinois, where a bar near campus, Marty’s, was named after him in 1972, a bar he recently visited with old college buddies. He enjoyed that but will enjoy the company he’ll keep even more when the weather enables the ALCS to resume.

Pattin will watch Game 3 from his seat in The K, and three grandsons will be sitting there with him. Life doesn’t get much better than that.