There’s a banking executive in Georgetown, Texas, who likes to play the popular online game Immaculate Grid. The trivia challenge tests a baseball fan’s knowledge of MLB player connections and, as with golf, the goal is to get a low score. Obscure players are prized over famous ones.
This banker’s advantage is that he can sometimes type in his own name.
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“When I use myself,” Matt Kata, 45, said, “my Rarity Score is super low.’’
But the former infielder’s anonymity took a hit this week when baseball’s internet sleuths determined that all roads in this League Championship series lead to Kata, and only to Kata.
He is the lone player in major-league history who can connect the dots from the Texas Rangers to the Houston Astros to the Arizona Diamondbacks to the Philadelphia Phillies.
Kata suited up for all of them. He is an Immaculate Grid of one.
“I’m pretty cool in my kids’ minds now,’’ Kata said with a laugh, referring to twins, Tripp (boy) and Gentry (girl), who are high school freshmen. “So I’ll take that for as long as I can.”
Kata (rhymes with “theta”) totaled five seasons in the majors between 2003 and 2009, batting .239 with 12 home runs and a .660 OPS over 278 games. That stat line might have remained in mothballs forever, but late Thursday night the Phillies defeated the Braves to finalize a bizzaro LCS field lacking any of the three 100-win teams from the regular season. A baseball writer named Jay Cuda was the first to unearth Kata’s distinction and posted on X about it before Game 4 began. It amassed more hits in a few days (322,000) than Kata did in his career (166).
This guy named Matt Kata played for the Rangers, Astros, D'backs, and Phillies. pic.twitter.com/l7EvEAYsDe
— Jay Cuda (@JayCuda) October 12, 2023
The Athletic reached out to Kata via text on Friday morning. But we were hardly alone. His rarity score was already rapidly rising.
“Crazy,’’ Kata replied, “my phone is blowing up.”
As it turns out, a text is how he learned of his claim to fame in the first place. Kata had been blissfully unaware of his impending 15 minutes (times four, so call it an hour) of fame, even as a diehard postseason viewer.
But baseball connections come in handy beyond just time-killing internet games. Kata heard about it from the old gang. The Ohio native spent a few years working for the Cleveland Guardians after his playing days, overseeing youth baseball and softball development. Ten or so of his coaches from that era, including former Diamondbacks catcher Robby Hammock, started lighting up the group chat.
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“One of those guys saw it online and sent it,’’ Kata said. “And then from there, I think just a couple of other people saw it on social media, and it just spreads pretty fast.”
Kata gets a huge kick out of his belated buzz, in part because being associated with the game’s history is what he loved most about his career. Kata played professionally and was serious about his craft. But all along, his inner child was silently screaming “Whoaaaaaa, this is rad!” After all, his teammates included Randy Johnson in Arizona and Lance Berkman in Houston and Mark Teixeira in Texas and Chase Utley in Philadelphia.
“I obviously was still on cloud nine and living out my dream,’’ Kata said. “I always loved playing against guys who I grew up watching, especially the former (Cleveland players). The first thing I did after getting to Philly was to go over to Jim Thome and just introduce myself.
“I was so fortunate for all the opportunities I got, and I appreciated every moment and never took it for granted. So many great memories and relationships, and I still stay involved in the game as a fan.”
Kata’s re-emergence this week as a human Connect Four is giving him those same feelings all over again.
“I feel like I’m a humble person. I don’t go around telling everyone, ‘Hi, I’m Matt Kata. I’m a former major-league baseball player.’ You just keep it in the background,’’ he said. “The cool part is that when things like this come up, you get to kind of get to relive some awesome experiences and some great memories, for sure.”
The Diamondbacks selected Kata out of Vanderbilt University in the ninth round of the 1999 MLB draft. He made his big-league debut in 2003, at age 25, and enjoyed the best season of his career as a rookie, batting .257/.315/.420 with seven homers in 288 at-bats.
Perhaps foreshadowing recent events, Kata had a knack for tangential immortality. That 2001 spring training game in which Johnson drilled a dove with a fastball and sent feathers exploding into the sky? Kata was playing second base at the time.
22 years ago Randy Johnson murdered a bird pic.twitter.com/MQmrNPNUE8
— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) March 24, 2023
More significantly, Kata was also the second sacker for Johnson’s perfect game against the Braves on May 18, 2004. In fact, he helped keep it perfect. Kata made three assists in the game, all late. He threw out Julio Franco, a childhood idol whose batting stance he used to imitate, for the second out of the seventh. Then it was J.D. Drew for the last out of the eighth and Mark DeRosa for the first out of the ninth.
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“Mentally draining, you know?” Kata said. “It’s so natural to kind of want to go negative, so from the sixth inning on, I must have said a million times: ‘Hit it to me. Hit it to me. Hit it to me. Hit it to me.’ I didn’t let my mind even have a split second of dead space to think or visualize something negative.”
In all, Kata spent three years and 150 games with the Diamondbacks, but his brief times with the other current playoff squads also left an impression.
He played 10 games for the Phillies in 2005. “Philly was everything you’re hearing Bryce Harper talk about right now ‘in the town.’ And that team was awesome. I was a bench guy. I got six at-bats on that team. But it was really exciting just to be part of a playoff run and race. … Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard. I mean, some great veterans on that squad.”
He played 31 games for the Rangers in 2007. “I just remember Ron Washington working with the infielders. That was his first year managing and (me) making the team as a non-roster invite was a big thing. … Sitting next to Mark Teixeria and talking baseball and learning so much from him, from Michael Young, Ian Kinsler. I still randomly text with Ian Kinsler.”
He played 40 games for the Astros in 2009. “I mean, being teammates with Aaron Boone, Geoff Blum, Lance Berkman. Those are people who make it so the first thing that I always look back on with those memories is really just the relationships and the players.”
Remarkably, the player with links to all four LCS teams never ever reached the playoffs himself. (His other team was the 2007 Pittsburgh Pirates).
So now is his second chance to dive full bore into October. Kata earned a paycheck from baseball’s Final Four, so who is he rooting for?
“Yeah, I’m gonna play this politically and just say that I love watching baseball, and I hate sweeps,’’ Kata said. “I’m passionate about growing the game and want to introduce it to kids and get them playing because it’s such an awesome game. I hope every series goes seven games.”
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Kata paused.
“OK, that’s boring. I know. That’s the copout.”
The interview concluded with one last question. Why not just say, I’m rooting for my former team?
“You want to add in that actually?” Kata said, laughing. “That’s great. Because whoever’s the last one standing, I can say that I was able to put on that uniform. That’s the cool part.”
GO DEEPER
The Phillies have owned October. They have that look again, but this feels different
(Matt Kata during his days in the majors: Jed Jacobsohn, Brian Bahr, Marc Serota, Robbie Rogers / MLB, Getty Images)
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