Author: lleonardbw

by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

OAKLAND–Lon Simmons passed this past April 5th, here in the Bay Area on MLB Opening Night and Easter Day. Lon was 91 years old. One of the truly great broadcasters of the time when there was no Internet, when people listen to each baseball game on the radio, no distractions, no e-mails, Instagram,Twitters, text messages. Lon Simmons broadcasted for the San Francisco Giants, the San Francisco 49ers and the Oakland Athletics, on a long and very distinguished Hall of Fame career of over 50 years on the radio.

In either 1997 or 1998, while traveling with the San Francisco Giants, while we were at Montreal Olympic Stadium, Montreal Canada. Lon (who always had a great sense of humor) told me prior to the game; “do you want me to read your disclaimer for you broadcast in French?” Our booth was next to that of the Expos French radio broadcaster Jaques Doucet. Lon was a storyteller, not only on the radio during the games, but also if you sat with him he always had a story. My favorite all-time singer was Frank Sinatra and I remember once telling Lon about that, he told he met Sinatra in the 1960’s during some-kind of sporting event with athletes from different sports, as well as personalities, including then golfer great Ken Venturi, who by the way was born in San Francisco.

During the last few years when he lived in Maui, Hawaii, and during Christmas I would sent him a Christmas card. He will always call a few days before Christmas to thank me, and right away he told me almost like in apologetic way, that he didn’t write anymore. My wife has a baseball signed by many Major League broadcasters, and Lon was one of the first ones to sign it, she always tells me with a smile.

Today, in a culture, where everybody wants to be famous, just for the sake of being famous, a world of reality television shows, and where you see people sitting next to each other, not talking, but texting and doing everything except communicating verbally, Lon Simmons was a treasure, a real broadcaster who could communicate and could establish a special relationship with the audience. When you broadcast baseball, a sport with so many games, a sense of humor is very important. But a genuine and spontaneous sense of humor is even more precious, and Lon Simmons had that. A baseball broadcast should me more than statistics, it should be fun and entertaining. There is no school for that.

Rest in Peace Lon.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez will be paying tributes to Lon Simmons this week, Amaury is the Spanish TV voice for the Angels and the Spanish radio voice for the A’s and does News and Commentary on http://www.sportsradioservice.com

amaury pi-gonzález

by Michael Duca

OAKLAND–To review the first two A’s pitching performances at the Coliseum versus the Texas Rangers the A’s pitcher Sonny Gray on opening night had a no hitter going through seven innings. Gray is a quiet young man with a confidence that is well placed. When you look at young pitchers you look at two things you look at their attitude and you look at their mechanics.

I’m not as impressed with stuff as other people are, the world is full of pitchers with great stuff who are earning a living on the sidelines on the DL or whatever. He’s got very solid repeatable mechanics he’s very compact and he’s the leader on the mound and the leader on the mound is somewhat in charge of his control and expected to win and he’s got those and those are two excellent things.

If you throw six or seven innings and you give up three runs your team expects to be in the game and they expect to win. Nobody was really disappointed by A’s pitcher Jesse Hahn’s performance on Tuesday night except maybe for Jesse Hahn. I told people when the A’s pulled off that trade they had stolen another great pitcher and I firmly believe that.

The disappointment came from the offense that seemed to muster essentially nothing in five or six innings. Your not going to win games if your not hitting no matter who’s out on the mound for you. Clayton Kernshaw gave up three runs in his first start and I don’t think anybody is standing around saying he was disappointing. Jesse Hahn will work out just fine and again he was a steal getting him in the off season from San Diego.

San Francisco Giants update: My concerns about Ryan Vogelsong who got touched up for six runs and seven hits in four plus innings on Tuesday night in Phoenix is that he didn’t have a great year last year. There is just no way to get around it he’s getting on in age and skills erode as you get older.

Vogelsong is able to get the ball around 90 MPH there is not as much late movement as before but then again their playing in an altitude in Arizona. People don’t realize that Arizona is over 2.500 feet in altitude. It’s half the distance up from sea level as Denver and the ball is effected by that and the movement is effected by that.

So the ball will rise for pitchers and you have to have a different grip on the ball, it’ll be interesting to see how he comes back from that. He was mentally concerned about how he was going to make the adjustment to the bullpen and of course his first outing is a scheduled start and he should be in the rotation for a little while due to injuries to pitchers Matt Cain and Jake Peavey.With Peavy and Cain out Vogelsong will be expected to stay in the rotation and pitcher Chris Heston will be in Arizona tonight to start after getting called up from Triple A Sacramento on Tuesday.

Brandon Belt the Giants first baseman has a groin pull and groin pulls tend to be outrageously bad our mutual friend and reporter Dave Albee managed to pull a groin while playing basketball and explained what it’s like to have a groin pull. First he was blue and purple from the pull, it effected his walk and when he did walk it was painful and that was two weeks after he got the injury. It takes about a month to recover and for Belt he may not be back well into May.

Michael Duca does A’s and Giants commentary each week on http://www.sportsradioservice.com listen to his podcast below

by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

OAKLAND–Lon Simmons who called Oakland A’s games he and I crossed paths when he used to call San Francisco Giants games and then he did the A’s starting in 1981. He did the Giants from 1958-1981 and the returned back with the Giants in 2002 after finishing up with the A’s 1995. He’s a legend, he’s a Hall of Famer.

Simmons was a broadcast great who left us at age 91 on Sunday morning Easter morning on opening day of the MLB 2015 season. He had a tremendous sense of humor. Here’s a funny anecdote that’s true it was late 1997 that I was traveling with the Giants doing all the games in Spanish on KIQI Radio and KNBR was the executive producer of the broadcasts.

I was the Spanish voice of the Giants during those years and worked with Renee De La Rosa who also owned the station, we were in Montreal and a couple of hours before the game in the pressbox I was around looking for notes and looking for the lounge to eat. Lon ran into me and he asked me “how do you like Montreal?” I said “I love it” it’s like a European town and he said “do you have a disclaimer?”

I told Lon “of course we have a disclaimer he then asked “can I do the disclaimer for you in French?” I said “you speak French?” and he did something and it was in French. I’m not kidding you, Lon was an incredible man and we read about the sad news about his passing on Sunday but God gave him a long life.

We all would be blessed to make it to 91 less face it that’s for starters, Lon was one of those guys according to the news today and last night he didn’t even want a funeral and I can’t talk for him he’s in Heaven now but leave it to Lon God bless him he passed away on Easter Sunday and on Opening Day of the MLB season. He was like that comedian and God bless him it would be Lon to say, “I don’t want to be bothered I’m going to pick two big days when I go first it’s Easter and the MLB Opening Day with the Cubs hosting the Cardinals.” It’s only fitting that Lon checked out on a day with two big events. We’ll miss you Lon.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez was the former Spanish radio voice for the San Francisco Giants and is the current Spanish radio voice for the A’s and worked with Lon Simmons at both the A’s and Giants and does News and Commentary at http://www.sportsradioservice.com listen to the podcast below