A Rosenblatt Reunion

As part of the O-Bolt Blog, we'll take you behind the scenes with posts from front office employees about their experiences at Werner Park, in the Omaha Metro community, and more. The fifth blog post below is courtesy of Omaha Storm Chasers Senior Corporate Account Manager Jason Kinney.

In 1968, it was announced that the city of Omaha would have professional baseball once again, thanks to an American League expansion franchise in Kansas City.
The Omaha Royals played their first home game at Rosenblatt Stadium on April 21^st, 1969 against the Tulsa Oilers. It was the first pro baseball game in Omaha in seven years when the Omaha Dodgers played in Rosenblatt.
The team was led by General Manager Bob Quinn, who served nearly 30 years in various front office executive positions in Major League Baseball. He was accompanied by an up-and-coming manager, Jack McKeon; later known as "Trader Jack".
For the final season at Rosenblatt Stadium in 2010, I had the privilege of reuniting the 1969 and 1970 Championship teams. The research began early that year on how to get in touch with all of these former players.
I started with the Kansas City Royals front office to see what names they had listed in their member directory. The Royals only had a few names: Paul Splittorff, Fran Healy and Jack McKeon. It was a start.
My first call was to Splittorff, who started planting the seed that this group was special. Splittorff said it was one of the best teams that he played on as well as one of the craziest. He had countless stories on about the team and stated that he love playing for McKeon. After Splittorff accepted the opportunity to join the reunion, he asked if I had gotten ahold of Dennis Paepke, and if he was still living.
Once I told him that Splittorff was the first phone call I had made, he had a request: "Please let me know if Dennis is still alive. I always wondered what happened to him."
Fran Healy was next on the list for me to call. Growing up in New York and watching MSG Network, I had always watched Healy's show called "Halls of Fame", a talk show with the best athletes as guests. I never knew he had played in Omaha, though. I called Mr. Healy and he just gushed about those 1969 and 1970 squads, saying they were "one of the best teams, I played on and one of the craziest teams to be around". Then the questions came, including "by any chance, have you gotten ahold of Dennis Paepke"?
I relayed my call with Splittorff, adding he had asked the same thing.
 "He was one crazy person I played with," Healy said of Paepke with a large chuckle.
Though Healy was not able to attend the reunion because of his television schedule, we've stayed in touch and my goal is to get Fran back to Omaha someday soon.
My third call was to McKeon. I didn't know much about Jack other than his 2003 World Series Championship run as manager of the Florida Marlins. There was an instant connection once we spoke. After an hour, McKeon was still talking about the 1969-70 teams, and yet I still hadn't gotten around to the reason why I was calling!
"They were all a bunch of crazies, one of the craziest bunch of guys I had been around," he remembered. "We had this one guy named…Dennis Paepke". When I heard this I could not help but start laughing.
Of course McKeon had no idea of this, so he questioned why I was laughing, adding "I haven't told you any stories about this nut."
McKeon went on to say that Paepke drove him bananas, telling stories that included driving a motorcycle on the field, and leaving the sprinklers on overnight before the last game of the season so that they didn't have to play. My favorite story of the bunch was of Paepke standing out in a rain storm like a statue.
"The rain got harder and harder, yet Paepke didn't move," McKeon recalled. "The guys were throwing bats and balls out at him to get him to move and he wouldn't budge. The guy was a nut, I'm telling you."
It became obvious that Paepke was a guy I needed to find. As McKeon continued sharing memories, I was searching the web to find Dennis Paepke. I asked McKeon if he thought Paepke lived in California, to which he responded that sounded about right. I had a lead, and I was going to call him right after I got off the phone with McKeon.
McKeon was all in for the reunion, saying it had been years since he had heard or seen Paepke, and he was excited to just come and be part of this event.
I couldn't dial Paepke's phone number fast enough. It rang and rang, before finally going to an answering machine. "Hello this is Dennis Paepke," a squirrelly voice said. "Leave me a message."
As I began to leave a note, someone picked up and said, "Hello, this is Dennis."
"By any chance is this the Dennis Paepke that played baseball?" I asked.
"Why yes, it is," was the reply. "Who the hell is this?"
I started to explain why I was calling, adding that I had heard a lot about him. He said, "Man, I hope it was all good because that's when I was a crazy young person." I don't know who told the better story about Paepke standing out in the rain like a statue; Mckeon or Paepke himself.
Over the next few months, I got in touch with most of the players. Everyone was looking forward to coming back to Omaha, where most of their careers had started. I was able to reconnect a lot of the players that over the years had lost touch with one another by sharing emails and phone numbers. It exciting to be a part of this event, because these guys all truly cared for each other. And they played for the love of the game, not the money.
McKeon and Paepke stayed in touch throughout the whole process. One of them called me every week to see who else I had connected with, and who was planning on coming back.
McKeon was the first for arrive in Omaha, as he wanted to come back early to see some old friends he had stayed in touch with through the years. I picked McKeon up at the airport and the first words out of his mouth were "Boy I need a cigar. Do you mind if I have a cigar in your car?" I said "Sure Jack." (What was I going to tell him? NO?")
Over the next few days the players trickled into Omaha, a lot of them seeing each other for the first time in 30 years. That night we had a VIP reception on the field, along with a dinner for everyone up in the Stadium View Club at Rosenblatt. The dinner was emceed by former play-by-play broadcaster Bill Beck. A few remarks were made by Cordaro, Stein and McKeon after dinner, and of course some more Paepke stories were shared by a few of players. The evening was a success! The next day was the big day to welcome back the 1969/1970 championship team on the field. We had the 1969 hat and jerseys made up with players' names on the back.
They arrived early to the tour the stadium and interact with the current Omaha Royals at the time. There was a pre-game ceremony that honored the team in their throwback jerseys including those who had past. . Jack McKeon threw out the first pitch to Paepke. The Mayor of Omaha at the time, Mike Fahey, read the proclamation, declaring August 21^st as "Omaha Royals Back-to-Back Championship Weekend".
When I was tasked with this project, I didn't realize how special bringing everyone together for the reunion would be for these players. It was great to see them back to at their old stomping grounds, filled with memories of their playing days that weekend. It was such an honor to get to know the players and hear what Omaha meant to them. As we celebrate our franchise's 50^th season in 2018, all of which were affiliated with the Kansas City Royals, we hope to share more stories and show how important professional baseball has been to Omaha.