Oakland A’s photo: After Bill King passed in 2005 the Oakland A’s players wore the “Holy Toledo” patch on their uniforms to honor the great announcer

Bill King wins the Ford Frick Award, Finally!

by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

That’s Amaury News and Commentary

OAKLAND–We all know the Bay Area needed some good news, after the terrible Oakland fire. We got the good news this morning. Bill King, the legendary Bay Area Oakland Athletics play by play man, finally was inducted into Cooperstown winning the Ford C. Frick Award for Excellence in Broadcasting. We live in a fast-moving-word, nowadays, with instant messages, Twitter (which allows a 140 letter character limit), and so much more, but anybody that was really into sports in the Bay Area, I do not know how can Bill King could be ignored. He was a broadcasters broadcaster.

The Ford C. Frick Award procedures have changed in recent years, once it was on Facebook for the public to vote, but whatever changes it might have gone through, one thing that it will never change is the quality and professionalism of Bill King. We all know that all these awards become political, and extremely subjective, but we all learned from Mr.King during his years on this earth. Bill King was a treasure. Although not a national broadcaster and in a market not the size of New York or Los Angeles, where people in the media get much less exposure and in many cases less respect, Bill King was always the mark of excellence.

For those of us lucky enough to have known him and listened to him, there was nobody better. And by the way,(in my opinion)should also be in the NBA Basketball Hall of Fame of broadcasters,as he painted a picture as the radio play by play voice for the Golden State Warriors, that “looked” better that same game you were watching on television. How many people in the Bay Area used to turn the television audio down so they could listen to him? More than you think.

Too bad Bill is not around to enjoy this well deserve award in person, but he is in heaven today saying  “Holy Toledo….do I need this?”

Amaury Pi Gonzalez does That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary at http://www.sportsradioservice.com