Ferd Lewis: Matias was much more than his 4 home runs

Growing up, John Matias Jr. never heard his father, John Roy “Gido” Matias Sr., bring up the four home run high school state tournament game of 1962 that remains, to this day, one of the legendary achievements in local baseball lore.

Part of it was because John Sr.’s humility was as remarkable as his ability to hit a baseball.

And, besides, “Everybody else was always mentioning it,” recalls John Jr., a former University of Hawaii star. “So many people would say that they were there.”

John Sr. would joke that old Honolulu Stadium must have had twice its listed 25,000 capacity that day given all the people who said they were on hand.

Matias Sr., who died Tuesday at age 75 after an extended illness, did things on the baseball field that made others sit up and take notice in stadiums across the U.S., Mexico, Venezuela and Puerto Rico. But, for him, it was all about the love of the game that he grew up with and felt blessed to pass on to two generations of his family and others.

Truth be told, the four homers in as many at-bats for Farrington against Waimea in the state semifinals had a rival in the personal scrapbook of his heart.

From the moment he went to the Chicago White Sox organization in a 1967 trade with the Baltimore Orioles, who had signed he and his brother Bob out of high school, Matias wondered what it would be like to launch a homer at Comiskey Park in Chicago, where entrepreneurial owner, Bill Veeck, had introduced the first “exploding” scoreboard years earlier.

When a White Sox player homered, strobe lights on the center-field scoreboard flashed, panels rotated and fireworks were shot high into the sky.

After working his way up through the minor leagues to the White Sox 1970 opening day roster, Matias got his chance in May with a ninth inning leadoff homer against Hall of Fame-bound Jim “Catfish” Hunter of Oakland. Though decorum dictated that he couldn’t slow down and enjoy the fireworks.

“For him, that might have been the pinnacle,” John Jr. said. “Though people in Hawaii always talk about the four homers in a game.”

John Sr. would be acquired by the Kansas City Royals and San Diego Padres, but the 58 games he appeared in with the White Sox in 1970 would be the sum of his MLB experience and just the beginning of his exploits.

With Juarez in the Mexican League he added pitching to his resume and was an MVP in 1976, winning 20 games and hitting over .300.

Overall, in an 18-year pro career that included three stops with Hawaii Islanders (1972, ’73 and ’80), Matias played in more than 1,500 games with almost 5,500 at-bats and hit. 290.

“He was a very disciplined hitter,” recalled Mike Lum, who teamed up with Matias for the Holsum Bakery team in Hawaii’s Puerto Rican League and played against him at Roosevelt, before going on to his own major league career. “He was something to see with that left-handed swing.”

“Throughout his life, people would come up to him and talk about that (state tournament game),” said Pauline, his high school sweetheart since age 15 and, later, his wife.

But for all the thrills he provided that remarkable May day, Matias also relished the nearly half-century spent as a coach at Farrington, McKinley, Pearl City, Damien and Kamehameha, sharing a lifelong pride and passion for the game.

Services will be announced at a later date, the family said.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.