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Matt Quatraro, born and raised 60 miles east of Cooperstown, had visited the mythical birthplace of baseball many times. But this most recent trip was his first as manager of the Kansas City Royals.<\/p>\n
The Albany, N.Y., native, has been skipper of the big league team for the last three seasons, compiling a 224-262 overall record. This included an 86-win 2024 campaign, the franchise\u2019s first postseason berth since capturing the 2015 World Series.<\/p>\n
Accompanying Quatraro on his National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum visit on Nov. 24 was his wife, Chris, and sons George and Leo, aged 10 and eight, respectively.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing from Upstate New York, we\u2019re back in the Albany area for Thanksgiving, and my wife had the idea we\u2019ll come out here a day early and spend a little time, bring the boys to the Hall of Fame and get them to experience it for the first time,\u201d Quatraro said. \u201cI\u2019ve been fortunate to come here throughout my life, and it\u2019s brand new every time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was very fortunate as a kid. We played our American Legion state tournament here. We got to play high school games here and some recreational games here from time to time. I\u2019ve been to the Hall of Fame a handful of times, most recently when I was managing in the New York-Penn League. We\u2019d bring a whole team here for the morning before a game when we played in Oneonta.\u201d<\/p>\n A highlight of the stroll through baseball history was stopping to watch the film Generations of the Game<\/em> inside the Grandstand Theater.<\/p>\n \u201cGetting to watch the movie, and the emotions that that stirs up, you just consider how lucky you are to have been a small part of this game,\u201d he said. \u201cThe people that you\u2019re watching speak in that film are the best of the best. Some of them I idolized growing up, and others were before my time, but just to hear about what they think about the fabric of the game, and what it means to the fans, too, and how they connect to the fans, and the fans connect to them, it\u2019s just really special.\u201d<\/p>\n With the 2025 season being Quatraro\u2019s 30th in professional baseball, that kind of longevity brings with it a unique perspective when visiting the Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n \u201cLike a lot of things, it becomes more meaningful the older you get. I think when you\u2019re a kid and you\u2019re bouncing around here and you\u2019re thinking about your Little League game or your high school game that day, whatever, you\u2019re not quite as into the \u2018what it means\u2019 as part of the fabric of the game,\u201d said Quatraro, who turned 52 on Nov. 14. \u201cBut as you get older, you understand how lucky you are to be a part of it.<\/p>\n \u201cThirty years in pro baseball makes me feel old, but at the same time, I still feel young at heart as someone that\u2019s involved in the game. And as the players stay the same age and you get older, you have that boyish drive to stay in the game and just make it fun.\u201d<\/p>\n After starring at Old Dominion University \u2013 where he was named Male Athlete of the Year in 1996 \u2013 he spent seven seasons in the minors with Tampa Bay. His second life in the game began after being cut by the Yankees during Spring Training in 2003.<\/p>\n \u201cI always knew I wanted to coach. I didn\u2019t know I would be doing it at the pro level. I thought maybe I\u2019d be coaching in high school or college. But then once I finished my playing career, and I was asked to come as a coach in Spring Training with the Devil Rays at the time, once I got into it, I fell in love with it, and I was very fortunate to stay in ever since,\u201d he said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t something that I set out to say, \u2018I want to manage a major league team.\u2019 I knew I wanted to coach baseball, and I\u2019ve been fortunate to be able to be in it in some form or fashion ever since I stopped playing.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Quatraro, it\u2019s hard to believe he was named Royals manager a little more than three years ago, on Oct. 30, 2022.<\/p>\n \u201cIt flies by. The first year is basically a blur, as you\u2019re getting used to everything, and then these last two years, you kind of hit your stride a little bit,\u201d Quatraro said. \u201cYou\u2019re still getting to know people and understand the organization.\u201d<\/p>\n Quatraro joins a long litany of former catchers who\u2019ve gone on to successful managerial careers, a list that includes Connie Mack, Yogi Berra, Bruce Bochy, Mike Scioscia, Kevin Cash and A.J. Hinch, to name a few.<\/p>\n \u201cI know there\u2019s plenty of great managers that played other positions or didn\u2019t play at all, but I think you\u2019re just involved in so much, so many of the meetings with the pitchers, and so many of the relationships you have, whether that\u2019s people that speak different languages, pitchers, catchers, infielders, you\u2019re involved in everything,\u201d Quatraro said. \u201cSo, just probably that has the most to do with it, that you\u2019re used to navigating a lot of different relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n As for his current team, catcher Salvador Perez has spent his entire 14-year career in Kansas City, having been named to nine All-Star teams, captured five Gold Glove and Silver Slugger awards, and named MVP of the 2015 World Series.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m hoping to come here someday and see his plaque on the wall. I certainly think he\u2019s deserving,\u201d Quatraro said. \u201cHe\u2019s the captain of our team and he\u2019s deserving of all the accolades he gets, but everything you see about him on the field is dwarfed by the person he is off the field. His generosity, his energy, his professionalism. He\u2019s a Hall of Fame person.\u201d<\/p>\n Shortstop Bobby Witt Jr., arguably one of the best in today\u2019s game, is another player Quatraro gets to see on an everyday basis. In his young career, the 25-year-old has already finished in the top seven of American League MVP voting three times, been named to two All-Star teams and won a pair of Gold Glove and Silver Slugger awards.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHe is one of the best players in baseball, and just like Salvy, even a better person. The humility, the work ethic, all those kinds of things, but his physical talent is second to none,\u201d he said. \u201cThe combination of speed, power, defense, hitting ability, all the five tools are there, but the sixth tool, being the person, is even more remarkable. And he\u2019s still so young, so I think we\u2019re just seeing the beginning of what he can do.\u201d<\/p>\n Having earned a history degree at Old Dominion, Quatraro\u2019s tour through decades of baseball history had special meaning,\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I was young, my goal was I wanted to work in a museum. I thought this would be a really cool thing to do, not necessarily a baseball museum, but a history museum,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, I have this kind of in my blood, and to be here and soak this in has been great.<\/p>\n \u201cAs you know, it\u2019s a game, but at the same time, it\u2019s a pastime. It means a lot more than just a game to a lot of people, myself included, so to see the way things are preserved, and to be able to read the articles and see the videos from the past, it\u2019s remarkable. It\u2019s very moving.\u201d<\/p>\n Bill Francis is the senior research and writing associate at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source baseballhall.org \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kansas City Royals manager Matt Quatraro views George Brett\u2019s\u00a0Hall of Fame plaque during his Nov. 24 visit. (Jon Shestakofsky\/National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum)\u00a0 Matt Quatraro, born and raised 60 miles east of Cooperstown, had visited the mythical birthplace of baseball many times. But this most recent trip was his first as manager of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2177141,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2177140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Welcome-Matt-Royals-manager-savors-visit-to-Hall-of-Fame.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2177140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2177140"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2177140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2177142,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2177140\/revisions\/2177142"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2177141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2177140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2177140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2177140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Matt](\"https:\/\/baseballhall.org\/sites\/default\/files\/inline-images\/230A9998.jpg\"\/)
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