Holy Toledo! Bill King is Hall of Fame announcer, finally
Bill King is Hall of Fame announcer, finally
Late A’s broadcaster Bill King, known as the best three-sport announcer in history, was named the winner of the 2017 Frick award Wednesday after finishing as a finalist for the honors seven times.
King, beloved in the Bay Area for his superb work on the Raiders and Warriors, as well as the A’s, was championed for the Baseball Hall of Fame’s broadcasting award by current A’s play by play man Ken Korach.
“It’s just incredible,” Korach said by phone.
A lot of tears, to be honest with you.
Bill King was a one-in-a-million person.
“Hallelujah,” former A’s broadcaster Monte Moore.
For goodness’ sake, this should have happened a long time ago.
A’s Hall of Famer reliever Dennis Eckersley is from Fremont and as a teen, he listened to King broadcasting the Raiders and Warriors, and later became good friends with him.
“I grew up with Bill and I loved him on the Warriors and Raiders, so when I got to the A’s, it was great - we both loved to sit in the sun and we spent a lot of time by the pool together,” Eckersley said.
What I remember is him wearing flip-flops everywhere, and that was the least of it, he was a character.
A’s television color man Ray Fosse worked with King and Simmons when Fosse began his broadcasting career in 1986.
Lon was so easy-going, but Bill had everything in that big binder of his, he’d hand-write every stat, he was so meticulous and his vocabulary was incredible.
[...] as a former A’s player, Fosse was well aware of King’s talents in other sports, too.
To do football, basketball and baseball professionally, fulltime?
Many people believe Bill was the greatest football announcer ever and many people say he was the best basketball announcer ever.
[...] he’s in the baseball Hall of Fame - it’s just tremendous.
With his sandals and his devilish handlebar mustache “Best mustache in the world,” former Giants manager Dusty Baker said Wednesday.
“Like Shakespeare!” and Van Dyke beard, King’s appearance was as distinctive as his highbrow broadcast style, and he had some of the most memorable calls in Bay Area sports history, including his magnificent description of the famous Raiders’ “Holly Roller” touchdown against San Diego in 1978.
The Oakland Raiders have scored on the most zany, unbelievable, absolutely impossible dream of a play!
King also called Rickey Henderson’s record-breaking stolen base in 1991 and Scott Hatteberg’s pinch-hit walkoff homer in 2002 to extend the A’s league-record consecutive win streak to 20 games.
“I really enjoyed listening to Bill when I was growing up, I thought he was just great,” Lansford said.
When I was a rookie with the Angels, I saw Bill at the ballpark and during batting practice, I went up and introduced myself and told him how much I loved hear him call games.
[...] getting to know him was even more of a pleasure.
Longtime A’s director of team travel Mickey Morabito was King’s friend and regular dining partner.
The next, he’s at a dive bar eating tacos.
King, who was still working as the A’s radio play-by-play man, died of a post-surgery pulmonary embolism on Oct. 18, 2005, at the age of 78.
King is the only NBA announcer ever to have had a technical foul assessed against him after using an expletive during a rant against an official during a Warriors’ game; he was forthright in his criticism of officials and umpires throughout his career.
“Basketball, he was just unbelievable,” said A’s manager Bob Melvin, who is from Menlo Park.
“I think it's high time that he won,” said Giants broadcaster Jon Miller, who won the Frick award in 2010 and was among the 17 who voted this year.
“Bill King’s enthusiasm for every game he called carried through the airwaves and into the hearts of fans throughout Northern California for 25 incredible years with the Oakland Athletics,” Baseball Hall of Fame president Jeff Idelson said in a press release.
From his distinctive word choices in describing the action to his unabashed love of Oakland and the Bay Area, King crafted a career that became synonymous with the action at the Oakland Coliseum and throughout the sports world.
The other finalists were Gary Cohen, Jacques Doucet, Ken Harrelson, Pat Hughes, Ned Martin, Dewayne Staats and Giants TV color man Mike Krukow.
Staff Writers John Shea and Henry Schulman contributed to this report.
Susan Slusser is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.