Fred White, Kansas City Royals Announcer, Dies From Melanoma At 76 After Announicing His Retirement

Fred White, Kansas City Royals radio announcer, died on Wednesday at 76-years-old, due to complications from melanoma.

The announcement of his death in hospice care came just one day after the team had publicly announced his retirement as director of broadcast services and the Royals Alumni, accordion to MLB.com.  "All of us are just shocked," said David Glass, owner of the Royals.

White had spent 40 years being associated to the Kansas City Royals in some capacity, mostly as a broadcaster, the Epoch Times reports.  He was best known for the 25 years, between 1974 and 1998, during which he teamed with Denny Matthews in the Royals radio booth.

"It's kind of stunning," Matthews said, according to the Kansas City Star. "I talked to him two weeks ago. I was in his office, and nothing looked out of the ordinary or sounded out of the ordinary.  He didn't say anything out of the ordinary. Dang. ... Somebody has a heart attack or something, well, you can kind of comprehend that. It's kind of hard to get your hands around this."

White and Matthews worked together to call six division championships, an American League pennant in 1980 and the Royals' one lone World Series championship in 1985, according to the Christian Science Monitor.

"The thing I remember most is how we assimilated with each other in the booth. I think it takes the better part of a year working with somebody you've never worked with before, to figure them out and what their style is and their sense of humor. And we got along, I thought, very, very well," Matthews said, according to MLB.  "I told people before, it's a long season and it's a small booth so you better get along. And I don't think either one of us was possessed of big egos. If you've got two guys and one of their egos is running free, then you might have a problem, but we never ran into that. I thought we respected each other and played off each other very well. We had a lot of fun times, a lot of laughs in the booth."

"You remember the fun times," Matthews reflected, according to MLB.  "He jumped in at the perfect time because, all of a sudden, the team was very good. Away they went and we got to enjoy the glory days of the boys in blue."  In addition, White also called Bo Jackson's mammoth first big league home run, predicting, "I mean he crushed it. That might be the longest home run hit in Royals Stadium!" And it was.

White was an important part of the team and he will be missed by many, according to the Epoch Times.  "Fred White has been synonymous with Royals baseball for as long as anyone can remember," said Mike Swanson, the club's vice president for communications and broadcasting.  "It's unfortunate the circumstances with which he has had to step down. The family has asked for privacy, and we're allowing that."

White had also broadcasted games for ESPN, among other networks, the Christian Science Monitor reports.  After leaving the broadcast booth, he decided to supervise the Royals Alumni, as part of the Royals Radio Network, assisting with clinics, appearances and the team's fantasy camp.

"I had great admiration and respect for Fred and even after he left the broadcast booth, he did a fantastic job with our radio network," Glass said, according to MLB. "Fred and I used to talk about the fact that the Cardinals used to have the real radio network covering so many towns with so many stations. And I think that what Fred put together for us probably was second to what the Cardinals did but he had a great feel for it and he did just a super job for us.  And Fred was really good with the alumni and provided a lot of leadership there. So we're just really proud of our association with him and we send our sincere condolences to Fred's family. It's a shock to all of us and he's really going to be missed."