[Episode 9] Jim Kaat is a Hall of Fame baseball player whose pitching career in Major League Baseball spanned an unbelievable 25 years! Baseball fans will certainly enjoy listening to Jim as he nostalgically reflects on his steady rise from a small town in Michigan to the major leagues. But even if you aren’t a big fan of the game, you’ll still appreciate his good nature and the strong values instilled in him at a young age by his parents. His unwavering humility has made him one of the most endearing players of his generation. He truly has contributed much more to the game of baseball than just his dominant pitching arm. His pitching career spanned 4 decades, which would be unheard of in today’s big leagues. Winner of the prestigious Golden Glove award 16 times, elected to the All Stars for 3 seasons, World Series winner in 1982, and 2022 inductee into the Baseball Hall of Fame, Kaat was also a successful  sports broadcaster for 22 years after he retired from pitching. Anyone who knows Jim both personally and professionally respects and admires him for his positive attitude when it comes to the game of baseball, and the game of life. You don’t want to miss this episode. There’s something in it for everyone!

Episode Book Pairing

Each episode the The Gray Matters podcast is paired with a book that complements the episode’s subject matter.

Good As Gold: My Eight Decades in Baseball

by Jim Kaat

Get your copy of Jim Kaat: Good as Gold: My Eight Decades in Baseball from Bookshop.org.

About Jim Kaat

Jim Kaat attended Hope College in Holland, Michigan, and pitched for the school’s Flying Dutchmen baseball team before being signed by the Washington Senators as an amateur free agent in 1957. Kaat spent all of 1957 and 1958 in the minor leagues before breaking into the majors in 1959. After pitching in 16 games spread out over the next two seasons, Kaat became a permanent member of the pitching staff when the team moved west in 1961 to become the Minnesota Twins. On July 24, 1963 Kaat threw a complete-game shutout and hit a home run for a 5–0 Twins win over the Indians. Minnesota pitchers have only homered in the same game in which they threw a shutout three times, and Kaat did so twice; the second occurrence was on October 1, 1970. On July 23, 1964, he gave up two home runs to Bert Campaneris who was making his major league debut in the game.

Kaat was a member of the 1965 Twins team that won the American League pennant. He started three games in the 1965 World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, matching up with the great Sandy Koufax on all three occasions, including a complete game victory in Game 2.

His best season was in 1966, when he led the league with 25 wins and 19 complete games. He finished fifth in the MVP voting and was named the American League Pitcher of the Year by The Sporting News. The National League’s Sandy Koufax won the Cy Young Award by a unanimous vote; it was the last year in which only one award was given for all of Major League Baseball. In September 1967 he nearly pitched the Twins to another World Series appearance — cruising to a 7–0 record with a 1.51 ERA and 65 strikeouts in 65²⁄₃ innings pitched. However, Kaat sustained a season-ending arm injury in the third inning of the second-to-last game of the season and the Boston Red Sox swept the final two games to win the American League pennant.

In 1974, he set a record for largest gap between 20-win seasons at eight, a mark not surpassed until David Cone broke the mark in 1998.

Kaat recorded his third 20-win season in 1975, when he pitched to a 20–14 record with a 3.11 ERA. This was also the only year of his career in which he received votes for the Cy Young Award, finishing fourth. Although Kaat would pitch a few games a year out of the bullpen over the course of his career, he was primarily a starting pitcher until 1979, when he became a relief pitcher in a season which he split between the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Yankees. With the St. Louis Cardinals in 1982, Kaat earned his only World Series ring, working in four games out of the bullpen in the 1982 World Series.

In 1983, he became the last major league player to have played in the 1950s and the last player for the original Washington Senators to retire. Kaat is one of only 29 players in baseball history to date to have appeared in Major League games in four decades. At the time of his retirement, Kaat’s 25-year career was the longest of any pitcher in major league history. He is now third all-time, behind Nolan Ryan’s 27 seasons and Tommy John’s 26 campaigns. Kaat also set a 20th-century record by playing during the administrations of seven U.S. Presidents – Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford Jr., Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan. This mark was equaled by Nolan Ryan when he retired after the 1993 season, the first year of the administration of Bill Clinton. 

His first full-time broadcasting job with the NY Yankees was during the 1986 season, where he called around 100 games for WPIX He lasted one season broadcasting for the Yankees and was replaced with Billy Martin. In between broadcasting his stint for the Yankees, Kaat spent six years (1988–1993) as an announcer for the Twins. And in 1986, Kaat was the backup announcer for NBC Sports’ coverage of baseball with Phil Stone (for the April 19 Minnesota–California contest) and Jay Randolph (the July 14 Cincinnati–Atlanta contest). In 1988, he covered the College World Series and the MLB playoffs and World Series for ESPN and also served as an analyst for NBC’s coverage of the 1988 Summer Olympics. Kaat broadcast the 2021 American League Division Series between the White Sox and Astros for MLB Network. After a four decade broadcasting career, Kaat announced his retirement on August 18, 2022. From 1997–2005, Kaat won 7 Emmy Awards for excellence in sports broadcasting. Kaat was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in July of 2022, and his book, Jim Kaat: Good As Gold: My Eight Decades in Baseball, came out in April 2022.

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