A ‘Holy Toledo!’ of his very own as King inducted
COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — At long last, Bay Area radio icon Bill King was awarded the highest honor in baseball broadcasting Saturday.
King, the A’s radio play-byplay man for 25 years, posthumously received the Ford C. Frick Award in a star-studded ceremony at Doubleday Field, with his stepdaughter, Kathleen
Lowenthal, accepting on his behalf.
“I think this is a ‘Holy Toledo’ moment,” Lowenthal said, using her stepdad’s catchphrase with dozens of Hall of Fame players and managers applauding behind her on the stage. “It is for me. Holy Toledo.”
Hall of Fame second baseman and Oakland native Joe Morgan introduced the Frick Award presentation Saturday and said of the three-sport marvel who also called Warriors and Raiders games, “Bill King is truly a man for all seasons. He taught me, in listening to Warriors basketball, A’s baseball and Raiders football . ... His voice was synonymous with excellence.
“His turns of phrase were as taut as his handlebar mustache. He was the prince of the Bay Area airwaves.”
Lowenthal said that while King was famously unconventional, “when it came to baseball, he had tremendous respect for its traditions. And he would have been tremendously moved” by Saturday’s honor.
Several former A’s executives and Bay Area broadcasters traveled to Cooperstown to help honor King, including Hank Greenwald, the voice of the Giants during the same time King was calling A’s games, who attended along with his wife, Carla.
“Bill and I worked together for so many years with the Warriors, but we spent more time talking about baseball,” Greenwald said. “It was obvious baseball was what consumed Bill the most, and it was great we got to work opposite each other, so to speak, with Bill doing the A’s and me doing the Giants. My one big regret was that we never worked together” calling baseball games.
King died of a pulmonary embolism following hip surgery in 2005, and A’s broadcaster Ken Korach, King’s former partner, lobbied for him to receive the Frick for the past decade.
“The fact it’s taken this long makes it that much sweeter to be here for this,” Greenwald said. “I don’t get around quite as well as I used to, but there was no way I wasn’t going to be here for this.”
Former A’s owner Wally Haas said that when King and Lon Simmons — who won the Frick Award in 2004 — were hired early in the Haas family’s ownership, the pairing helped legitimize the organization.
“Bill and Lon coming together, it was such a turning point for us as new owners,” Haas said. “And, for me, as someone who’d loved Bill since I was 9 years old listening under the covers on my transistor radio to Cal basketball, to have him be part of our organization was really one of the high points of my life. There are so many memories and moments, but getting to know him was really pinch-me kind of stuff.
“It was so frustrating to watch someone who was so good — the best, I thought — in all three sports not get recognized, so I am thrilled to be here. I’m so happy just thinking about it.”
Mets general manager Sandy Alderson, who was the A’s general manager from 1983-97, offered to co-host a party with the A’s in King’s honor following Saturday’s ceremony.
“I’m very happy this finally happened for him,” Alderson said. “It’s probably trite to say, but I’d describe Bill as iconoclastic. He was a professional broadcaster, but even in that sense, he was so unique. I remember how he broadcast basketball, and it was like watching it on TV. I always refer to him as a pointillist, painting this broad picture, this mosaic, of infinite details.”
That’s a comparison that King, a lover of the fine arts and a painter himself, would have enjoyed. King had varied interests, including history and sailing, and his erudite style set him apart from many sportscasters. He never stopped learning, teaching himself Russian because of his love for Russian history.
Lowenthal said that a party in King’s honor last winter dubbed him “the most interesting man in the world,” but she said that, in reality, “he was the most interested man in the world.”
“Bill was very comfortable in his own skin, a unique guy,” Haas said. “So smart, so interesting, so vibrant, and his love of the game came through, always. Such an authentic person.”
King wasn’t all highbrow, though. He wore flip-flops most of the time, drove a beat-up used car and snacked constantly. And one of his most famous broadcasting moments included a vulgarity while calling a Warriors’ game in 1968, the “Mother’s Day” incident, in which his invective toward referee Ed Rush led to a technical foul being called on the Warriors’ bench.
Mike Marquardt, King’s engineer for Warriors’ broadcasts, was on hand Saturday, and he recalled that, one year later, on the anniversary of King’s on-air curse, Rush presented King with a Mother’s Day card at the courtside table.
“He hands him an envelope and goes to center court,” Marquardt said with a laugh. “Eddie said later, ‘Do you know how hard it is to find a Mothers’ Day card in December?’ ”
A’s president Dave Kaval was making his ninth visit to Cooperstown on Saturday, but his first trip for Induction Weekend, in order to pay tribute to King.
“This is tremendous,” he said. “Bill exemplifies the history of our proud franchise. And, to me, coming to the Bay Area from Ohio, he really helped cement a love of Bay Area sports.”