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| Bill King --Hall of Famer |
Bill KING --last name in capitals, on purpose, is
in the Baseball Hall of Fame,
finally ...the recipient of the
Ford C. Frick Award for 2017. As the HOF notes, "
presented annually for excellence in baseball broadcasting by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum."
Bill King was the
greatest radio play-by-play broadcaster ever.
Period.
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| Bill King interviewing Warriors' Charles Johnson |
Yes, many will debate that baseball wasn't Bill's best sport--guess what? It wasn't, he was merely
extraordinary broadcasting baseball and
magnificent in his two other sports, pro basketball, (
Warriors) and Pro Football, (
Raiders) Think of it like this: Basketball: 1, Football: 1, Baseball: 1A
I'm delighted King has got his due;
felt he might never get this award. Knowing Bill, as I did covering Bay Area Sports in the 80's and 90's, this type of award; prestigious and grand as it is, would be the last thing on Bill King's mind. He was that way.
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| Bill King and Lon Simmons, Oakland A's, 1981 |
Can't believe it's been
eleven years since Bill's passing. He was the most gracious, dedicated, professional broadcaster I've ever met. A true and decent gentleman dedicated to his craft and made growing up in the Bay Area in the 1970's a memorable time. Bill transcended sports; he was the only sports announcer I knew who loved Russian Opera, Ballet, --and oh wait, great food too. Bill King is the only guy I know who concocted his own culinary jamboree --a mixture of peanut butter, corn chips, and onions too. (
Warning --clear the broadcast booth, Bill is eating; danger ahead, check the winds.)
Those of you that remember those days will agree with me we'll never be witness to someone broadcasting three sports --
in the same year--as Bill King did. The
Coliseum in Oakland was his second home. The legitimate "
House of Thrills", as
Curt Gowdy named it while broadcasting
Raiders' games for
NBC.
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| Bill with fellow A's broadcaster, Ken Korach, 2004 |
Bill King,
Hall-of-Famer.
Holy Toledo!
No offense Rich, I know he was a hero to you as teen, but his baseball work was only so-so. Excellent on radio for football and basketball however.
ReplyDeleteI think he got in due to his body of work, there are no announcer wings in the football or basketball HOF so, like you I am glad he got in.
I also never understood why locals hyped Bill King so much. I thought he was a little better than average. Nothing more.
DeleteBaseball work so-so? I've followed Bill King in all 3 sports for many years and he was excellent in all. I'd give his basketball pbp an A+, football and A and baseball an A-.
DeleteVery much well deserved. Meanwhile across the bay, the idiots will be disappointed that Kuiper and Krukow didn't get to this plateau. Folks, they can't even hold a microphone next to Bill King. Or a lot of other people for that matter.
ReplyDeleteTrue, but they are better baseball announcers. King was also a homer, big time. K and K are smooth announcers with the insight only ex-players can bring.
DeleteSome insight: "Grab some pine, meat." Not even in the same category.
Delete@11:12am... King was not a homer, no way. Ray Fosse is and so was Monte Moore, the pbp guy of the A's in the earlier years. K and K are the ultimate Giant homers that you call smooth...lol.
DeleteI have vivid memories of Bill King doing Warriors play by play on the radio (KNEW). Nobody did it better.
ReplyDeleteBill loved baseball the most, but he was great in all three sports. I thought his later baseball years suffered just a little by his vision. His mind was always 20/20.
ReplyDeleteBoston had Johnny Most, but we had the KING! A long and overdue induction was finally righted.
ReplyDeleteRichly deserved... his PBP of a Chargers loss where the Raiders rolled the ball forward as well as a PBP of a fight in a Warrior St.Louis Hawks game are classics.
ReplyDeleteYou forgot the garlic.
ReplyDeleteSo glad he FINALLY made it and that the one fraud on the ballot didn't (looking at you "Kruk").
ReplyDeleteBingo.
DeleteGreat news. Greatest play by play man I've ever heard. Loved when he would rip the NBA refs: "Joe Gushue,the epitome of ineptitude!" I loved that.
ReplyDeleteSo Bill King gets into the Baseball HOF, but all the talk and reminiscence is for his Basketball and Football work. Why is this? 1) His Basketball work was legendary...no one better at blending the English language with rapid pace description (not to mention is critical and hilarious attack on the referees), 2) Iconic '70s Raiders teams had many memorable moments and games, 3) The A's have a tiny fan base and are extremely poor at celebrating their past. 4) The A's lack of continuity on radio meant that highlights are likely lost in rights ownership, or scattered in different places. Also, even though, the A's won the WS in 1989 and had strong teams with Canseco and McGwire, the steroid controversy makes that period unloved...and hence highlights are not savored. It's too bad he can't get properly recognized for what he was really great at...Basketball and Football. In Baseball, his staccato delivery and over use of facts just was not an enjoyable listen in the back yard...when compared to a Lon Simmons, Vin Scully, Jon Miller, Duane Kuiper etc.
ReplyDeleteBonds, Kent, Santiago, Galarraga, Rios all all of your favorite Giants teams were the epitome of the Steroids Era.
DeleteSave it. Keep drinking your orange and black Kool Aid and say "hi" to Amy G for me.
He is so deserving of this award, but truthfully, baseball was his third-best sport. He was always excellent calling MLB, but his football work was even better, and what more can be said about his basketball broadcasting? He really was to basketball play-by-play on the radio what Vin Scully was to baseball. There was simply nobody who was ever better at it. You could see the entire court in your mind when Bill King called a Warriors game.
ReplyDeleteBill KING in the HOF post humously?
ReplyDeleteMs. Clinton is somewhere saying "What difference @ this point does it make?"
Bill king and lon Simmons were the best announcers for the a's IMO.
ReplyDeleteTravesty that Miller won before King
ReplyDeletePerhaps baseball wasn't his best sport. But after his passing, I've realized how good he was when he was calling those A's games. And how much I've missed that unique personality, style, and talent, that transferred so well (during any sport that he worked).
ReplyDeleteA side note: John Madden has called Kenny Stabler the perfect quarterback for the Raiders of the '70s. During that wild and successful era of Raider football, Bill King was the perfect announcer.
ABOUT TIME! While baseball may have been his least effective sports announcing, he was still excellent.
ReplyDeleteWhy do people feel a need to bash Kruk as part of this? Maybe just be happy Bill King got this overdue recognition and debate Krukow's broadcasting abilities another time.
ReplyDeleteBecause he was also on the ballot. Which is a complete joke.
Delete316 -- Because he was up for consideration. Why? Probably because someone trying to kiss Larry Baer's ass decided to do so. Go listen to a Giants Replay tonight.
DeleteI remember in 1978 when some Warrior games radio feed were simulcast on TV36 and I was watching. The ref, Ed Rush made a call against the Warriors and Bill King started screaming "No guts Ed Rush".
ReplyDeleteHoly Toledo! It is about time.
ReplyDeleteIn the spring of 1967, Bill had gone thru a full season with the Warriors and the playoffs too. He was tired and just wanted to relax. So, when Bob Marshall Program Director at KGO Radio (yes the same Bob Marshall who went on to a long and distinguished career at KGO-TV) called Bill about reprising his summertime role as Captain of the KGO Marine Cruiser, Bill said he'd pass. KGO did boating, fishing and weather reports on Saturdays and Sundays starting in April and ending on Labor Day. They had a 26 foot cabin cruiser equipped with a marine radio and two-way at the time
ReplyDeleteI was working at KFRE AM, FM, TV in Fresno back then.
Bob knew my father thru their mutual yachting activities and asked my Dad if he knew any possible people to take Bill's place.
Just so happens, said my Dad, my son is at KFRE in Fresno. (The station was owned at the time by Walter Annenberg's Company, Triangle Broadcasting. He also owned TV Guide and The Daily Racing Form and was a good friend of a fellow named Reagan. Triangle was ultimately bought by Cap Cities, which renamed it KFSN-TV. The radio stations went to other purchasers. Disney now owns all the Cap Cities properties.
Anyway, Bob called me and asked for a tape. I cobbled together a 2 minute tape and sent it off to him.
A week later he called and tole me I had the gig.
10 to 4 every Saturday and Sunday.
Pay wasn't bad thanks to AFTRA. KFRE was AFTRA and I got $155 for my 5 day 40 hour week there.
KGO was AFTRA and I got paid $150 for those two weekend days. I was 26 years old and $305 a week in 1967 was real money.
My wife was finishing a teaching contract in San Jose, so I'd get off the air at 11:30 on Friday night, drive over Pacheco Pass to San Jose and then be in The City by 9 am to get what I needed for that days reports.
My producer was Leo Lawrence who became quite a mover and shaker in the Gay Liberation movement. (But that's another story.)
All this is a long winded way of saying that Bill King was instrumental in getting me started on my 19 year career at KGO, KGO-TV and ABC Radio News. No better man ever lived.
Gosh, after reading your interesting stories, I'm dying to know your name!
DeleteWhile in college I worked at KFRC. Bill King and Roy Story were the sportscasters. When Bill wasn't talking sports, he would regale about his life on his boat berthed in Sausalito. Few know about an event that almost cost his life. While leaving his boat one morning, on his way to work, he felt an unusual pressure on his back. As a sailor, he knew that this was danger and quickly ran up the dock ramp as debris rained down around him. The boat berthed next to his exploded after it's owner lit a cigarette in the hold full of gas fumes. Bill loved cigars and was a broadcaster's broadcaster. He researched the teams for hours before each game. Many times he took me, a young pup, with him to Warrior games at the Civic Center asking me to carry some equipment for the engineer so I could get in with the radio broadcast crew. Years later, after I was entrenched in my own broadcasting career, I would bring him a Cuban cigar in the radio booth at that day's "A's" game. It was a token of thanks for help guiding my career when I was younger. I miss him to this day.
ReplyDelete@Anon 7:01am...great stories on Bill. I am so jealous you worked with him!! Thanks for sharing. I've followed his career since the early 70's and get chills when I hear his voice on Raider highlights. It's amazing he did all 3 sports from 1981-83 while finally giving up basketball. Way too much travel he was saying. I heard him on an A's rain delay just before his death and he said he filled in on pbp calling college hockey way back in the day. I bet he did that exceptionally well too. Korach, Poppa and Tim Roye are all very good but there's no one like the King. I,too, miss him to this day.
DeleteBill King may be the KING.
ReplyDeleteBut Vin Scully is GOD.
(PS...why does everyone spell it "Kruk?" John Kruk?
It should be "Kruke.")
When I worked for many years on-air at KNBR, someone was nice enough to send me tapes of great Bill King calls that I didn't have. One was his 9 minute call of the Kirk Gibson at bat that culminated with the memorable HR off of A's deliver Dennis Eckersley in the opening game of the 1988 World Series. King's call is so much better than those made by Scully and Jack Buck. Buck goes nuts and really doesn't give you much detail on his radio network call and Scully as usual, doesn't say anything for about 30 seconds, letting the crowd sound tell the story, (which was ok since he was doing the game on National TV). If you listen to King's call, you really can't tell if he were working for the A's, Dodgers, or a network. His call is so objective and yet to so exciting. It sounds as if King just KNEW something special was going to happen. These was what he said at the height of that call: "So this moment is approaching excruciatingly tense proportions. Eckersley, the premier closer in baseball and Gibson, the hobbled hero of the Dodgers all season in an incredible duel here. Eckersely has yet to throw that backdoor slider…Here it comes….there's a swing, a high fly ball to right…going….GONE! GIBSON HAS HOMERED AND THE DODGERS HAVE WON GAME ONE!!! AN INCREDIBLE MOMENT!! GIBSON IS MOBBED T HOME PLATE AND TOMMY LASORDA GIVES HIM A BIG KISS ON THE CHEEK!!! AND THE DODGERS HAVE THROWN THE FAVORED A'S A HUGE CHALLENGE, AS OAKLAND MUST NOW TRY TO COME BACK TOMORROW NIGHT TO EVEN THIS SERIES UP AGAINST DODGER ACE OREL HERSHISER! WHAT AN INCREDIBLE FINISH HERE AT DODGER STADIUM!!"
ReplyDeleteInteresting to note that King was prescient about Eck's final pitch; his patented 'backdoor slider,' a pitch that usually had hitters swinging and missing.
Bill was a true gentleman to all of the younger sportscasters such as myself and it was a pleasure ego have known him well for the last 37 years of his life. Russ Hodges (who lived in my hometown in Marin, and who I got to know while in high school in the 1960s), gave me contact info for Bill when I was trying to look him up to do an interview with him for my high school newspaper. Bill not only spent about 20 minute with me doing a taped interview before a Warriors game at old Civic Auditorium in the city, but in later years while I was attending the University of Denver in Colorado, Bill would leave me a booth pass at the press gate at Denver's Mile High Stadium so that I could sit in with him and color announcer Scotty Sterling and producer Ron Fell, and help out with stats in the booth during the one game the Raiders played in Denver each year.
I later traveled with the Raiders on the road and on the return from Denver on New Year's Day 1978 (the Raiders were dethroned in the AFC Title game that day), Bill was nice enough to give me a ride home to Marin to my folks' house where I stayed overnight before returning to my TV sportscaster job up the coast in Eureka. When we got to Bill's car in the parking lot, I notice the windshield was cracked on his old 'flivver' and that a coat hanger was substituting for the radio aireal which apparently had been torn off. On the drive home, I noticed that even with the windows rolled up, some cold air was coming into the car under my feet. I looked down and saw a hole the size of fist in the floorboards. "Bill, do you know you've got a hole in your floorboards? " I asked him incredulously. "Oh that? That's nothing but natural air conditioning!" he checked;. That was Bill King….one of the kind. Thanks for writing the nice piece about him Rich. We all miss him!
I remember going to A's games back in the earlier 80's and listening to his broadcast on radio, often I'd close my eyes and sit back and just listen to the master of his craft.
ReplyDeleteThe game became alive with Bill calling it, me and my transistor radio and headphones.
Beer here!!
I loved King on all three sports, but I have to say that football was his absolute best. Who can forget "Get your big butt out of here" when describing Madden on the field after one of the many, MANY miraculous plays of the Raiders of that era. Football (at least during that generation) was a much more exciting game than it is now (penalty-laden and replays of everything, including breaking the huddle) and Bill epitomized that excitement with his calls.
ReplyDeleteI have to wonder what Bill would think of the big 3 sports today. I find all three of the major professional sports unwatchable these days. I've always felt baseball is unbelievably dull on TV. It must be seen in person to get the best experience. I used to love to watch both professional and college basketball, but the total lack of team play exhibited by most basketball teams (the Warriors of the last two seasons being the major exception, as they played a fundamentally sound, team oriented game) makes basketball unwatchable. And the NFL, for the reasons I listed above, has been rendered unwatchable.
Anybody listening who thought Bill King didn't want the Warriors or Raiders to win was foolish. But in no way was he ever a "homer." He described every play with equal detail and relish, and called a good play or bad play for what it was, for either team. His love of the game and the event was evident every minute. It might be true that baseball was not the sport he was best suited to, if for no other reason than the slower pace of the game limited his style. I think Lon Simmons was a far better baseball broadcaster than football announcer for this very reason. Others will not like this, but my opinion is that Simmons was a "homer" on Forty-Niners games; he would seem to lose interest if the team was losing and barely bother to describe big plays by the opponent, often getting derisive and wisecracking in the last stages of a rout, like the ones the Niners experienced a lot in the middle and late seventies. Goodness knows how he'd treat today's edition.
ReplyDelete