by Jerry Feitelberg

OAKLAND–Bay Area Sports Hall of Famer Amaury Pi Gonzalez is entering his 42nd year behind the microphone whether it was covering the Oakland A’s and Major League Baseball or doing Spanish play by play or as a reporter. Amaury who writes in this space each week doing podcasts and his “That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary” has seen such great Oakland A’s teams from the 1972-74 A’s World Championships to the A’s World Series years from 1989-1990 and the Billy Beane Money Ball years, Amaury also did radio play by play for the San Francisco Giants and Seattle Mariners and is currently calling L.A. Angels games for Spanish TV.

We did a three hour program with Amaury with players who came from Cuba before the embargo going all the way back to the 1920s as well as after the embargo, and of course later on with the more well known former players Minnie Minoso, Camilo Pascual, and Tony Oliva, and of course the White Sox current superstar Jose Abreu.There is such a great history of these players who came to Majors from Cuba. There was such a huge influx of Cuba players who came to America and that all got shut down in 1959 when Fidel Castro took over.

I got to do a two part cable TV program with Amaury in 1998 about Hispanic players in MLB that included the great Roberto Clemente and the notorious and current New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez, we did the program and it was well received. Amaury has been able to work with many of the great Cuban players for decades and the list is going to explode with a huge crop of Cuban players coming to MLB.

So this being Amaury’s 42nd year covering or doing play by play in baseball is just another chapter, another thrill as he enlightens the fans for the 2015 season. What makes it all come together now is he gets to make calls on such current Cuban greats Abreu, Yonder Alonso, Erisbel Arruebarrena, Yuniesky Betancourt, Yoenis Cespedes, and Yasiel Puig.

New spring training stadium for A’s in Mesa AZ: The new A’s training facility in Mesa is a much bigger stadium than the previous A’s facility Phoenix Municipal. The new facility holds 12,500 fans and the new facility is a nicer facility than the Oakland Coliseum. The players now have a first class facility and baseball has a lot money so there is no reason why the players should have substandard facilities.

Don’t expect the A’s to redo the locker rooms at the Coliseum and the team would like a new stadium. From a comfort level for the players it is crucial, case in point if you go over to AT&T Park in San Francisco their clubhouse is first cabin. The A’s should have something on par with the Giants and have a first class MLB facility.

Jerry Feitelberg covers Oakland A’s baseball for http://www.sportsradioservice, listen to Jerry’s podcast below on 49er players that maybe leaving the team