Tom Matchick, an all-star shortstop for the Toledo Mud Hens who played on the 1968 Detroit Tigers World Series championship team during a 15-year professional baseball career, died Tuesday at Regency Hospital Toledo in Sylvania. He was 78. 

He had coronavirus the last two months, his son, Brian Matchick, said.

Mr. Matchick of Springfield Township still received fan mail, often requests to sign a baseball card or other memento, his daughter Heather Sutphin said. He was happy to oblige — and fans who enclosed payment for his trouble got their money back, too.

“He would love to talk about his career, but it was never his focus,” his daughter said. “He was always more interested in hearing about you and telling you the latest joke he heard and spending time with the people he cared about.”

John Thomas Matchick was born Sept. 7, 1943, in Hazleton, Pa., to Anna and John Wesley Matchick. He played baseball and basketball at Hazleton-Freeland High School. He turned down a basketball scholarship to Stetson University to pursue a baseball career. In 1962 he was signed to a contract with the St. Louis Cardinals organization and first played for the Cardinals’ team in Brunswick, Ga. 

He was drafted by the Detroit Tigers after the 1962 season and played for the organization’s teams in Knoxville, Lakeland, and Syracuse before arriving at the Toledo Mud Hens in 1967. He finished that season with a 73-66 record. He played in 120 games for Toledo and compiled a .289 batting average, .329 on-base percentage, and .435 slugging rate. He was named to the 1967 Triple-A All-Star team as a shortstop and won the Rawlings Silver Glove Award.

The Tigers called him up to Detroit after the 1967 season, and he was a utility player in the Tigers’ successful 1968 pennant run. Dramatic comeback victories seemed routine that championship season, and Mr. Matchick hit a notable two-run homer to clinch a key victory against Baltimore.

“How I remember that one,” Mr. Matchick said in 1975 after hearing a tape of Tigers broadcaster Ernie Harwell calling the play.

“Ah, 1968,” Mr. Matchick told Blade sports columnist Tom Loomis. “All through the year I never saw a club that, from the seventh inning on...we’d come back and win the ball game.”

He recalled, in 2006, “We were a loose bunch. We had great team chemistry. I’m not sure what the final stats were that year, but I know we won 30 or so games in the final three innings. We were a great comeback team.”

He took part in periodic team reunions, including a 2018 ceremony at Comerica Park for the 50th anniversary of the ’68 Tigers.

He was a rookie in the majors in 1968, his wife said, “and he was in with Al Kaline, Denny McLain, Willie Horton.”

His son added: “He had all these people to learn from. He was never conceited about it, and he didn’t talk about it unless people were asking.”

He played six years in the major leagues, including stints with the Boston Red Sox, Kansas City Royals, Milwaukee Brewers, and Baltimore Orioles. He also played with several minor league teams and closed his career in 1976. He received an International League Silver Glove Award at Rochester in 1971 for fielding excellence at third base.

In the off-season, he sold cars and made commercials. His wife is a Toledo native, and after baseball, the area remained home. He worked for a South Toledo sporting goods store, making sales to high school athletic departments. 

“He had this way that people listened to him and believed him,” his wife said. “Tom is very outgoing and just loved talking to people. That’s how he’s gotten so many friends wherever he goes.”

His son said: “He loved goofing on people and always had some new corny joke.”

He worked in sales for years with aerial photography firms and was a former vice president of Great Lakes Aerocam in Woodville.

He took time to encourage youth ballplayers — even giving them tips one-on-one.

“He loved coaching kids and helping them out,” his son said. “Some parents would say, ‘Johnny is so happy because he had trouble with this or that — and my dad helped him in 15 minutes.

Mr. Matchick and his wife in the 1980s and 1990s became foster parents, taking in more than 30 children for varying periods of time. They adopted their daughter Amanda after caring for her as foster parents when she was an infant.

Daughter Heather said: “There are no words for what this man was. He was my dad and my strength and support my whole life. He just gave and gave and gave and never took.”

Surviving are his wife, the former Linda Lang, whom he married Oct. 14, 1967; son, Brian Matchick; daughters Heather Sutphin and Amanda O’Hearn; sister, Anna Mae Balas, and five grandsons.

A memorial service will be held later, his family said. Arrangements are by the Cremation Society of Toledo in Holland.

First Published January 6, 2022, 2:56 p.m.