Amaury Pi-González

“That’s Amaury News and Commentary”

PHOENIX–One of the nice things about baseball, is that if you stay long enough, and the good Lord gives you a long life, you can have a lot of experiences, seen thousands of games, and talk to people who have not, and either were not born, or just in another line of work.

The 1989 baseball season for the A’s was a truly unforgettable season. Just to think that it culminated with an earthquake and against the Giants, is enough to make a movie, not like Money-ball, but a very interesting one nonetheless, and with a lot of real drama.

As I walk in the Athletics press box during the years, I find more and more people that were 2 years old, not born, or not following baseball in 1989 and that memorable year. But most people alive today, that were 8 years or so in 1989 here in the Bay Area, remember one thing; they remember what they were doing on October 17, 1989 around 5:05 PM.

Some of us where working the game at Candlestick Park, my young engineer was Erwin Higueros, now broadcasting Giants games, my broadcast partner was Evelio Areas Mendoza, he is living and retired in Nicaragua.

I remember just a year before 1989, Gene Hogan, General Manager of KNTA 1430AM radio in Santa Clara called me to his office, as I was doing Sports there and told me he wanted to introduced me to a young disc jockey who loved baseball, Erwin was working the midnight to 5 AM shift, playing music for lonely people.

Most people(not all) who listen to music on the radio those hours are lonely, suffer from insomnia, or simply have no life.

Evelio Mendoza,I knew from the early 1980’s when I was sports director of KIQI 1010 AM radio in San Francisco. In those years KIQI 1010AM featured live news,traffic,weather and sports for four hours each morning. I knew Evelio could do baseball, because I listened to his tapes of play by play from the Nicaraguan leagues, prior to arriving in the United States.

The three of us were installed almost with our heads touching the roof at Candlestick Park, a real auxiliary broadcast booth, just built for that World Series. Evelio suffered from high blood pressure and after the first shake, I looked at his face it was as red as a tomato, I thought he was having a heart attack. Erwin much younger, looked at me very scared and didn’t know what to do, we lost our broadcast line and we were “off the air”like most stations doing remote from Candlestick that afternoon.

After the game was stopped by the quake, we were informed by then Commissioner Fay Vincent that the Series will be “postponed” as it was for eleven days.

I had to drive from San Francisco to Fremont, where I had my house, there was my wife,and my two sons 10 and 9 years old. The Bay Bridge was closed, and it was complete mayhem, as I had to drive the 101 south all the way to the Dumbarton Bridge, with very very heavy traffic, to get home.

Just outside of Candlestick Park next to the freeway, there was A’s superstar José Canseco filling his car tank with gasoline, and he was wearing his uniform. I had to stop at my parents retirement home in the San Francisco Mission District first. They were very nervous but doing well, I then had to drive to Fremont. It took me all afternoon to get back home. I think I got home like at 10:30 maybe later.

This season the Oakland A’s will have a 1989 reunion on July 19, World Series Champion team. Yes, it has been almost 25 years since that memorable World Series, which the A’s took by sweeping the San Francisco Giants in four games.

The Oakland Athletics broadcast team that 1989 World Series: On the radio: Bill King who died in 2005, and Lon Simmons, retired and living in Maui, Hawaii. Monte Moore and Ray Fosse on television. Amaury Pi-González and Evelio Areas Mendoza on Spanish radio. Today some 25 years later, Ray Fosse and yours truly are currently, the only ones remaining on the Oakland Athletics broadcast.

Amaury Pi-González is Spanish play by play announcer for the Oakland Athletics,KIQI 1010AM radio and also travels to Anaheim were he is play by play in Spanish for Fox Sports West/Prime TIcket, Angels television.