In 1968, Mother’s Day came on December 6. The Golden State Warriors NBA basketball team was playing a game that night. Bill King was the radio announcer. After watching the referee call a penalty on the Warriors, King ripped off his microphone and ordered his engineer to cut the feed. King bounced his microphone, began beating on the announcer’s table and yelled at the referee who blew the call.
Unfortunately for King, there was a crowd microphone two seats away. It was live and it caught his voice loud and clear. The arena and everyone listening on the radio heard King yelling “Mother------“ at the referee.
That night, according to legend, King became the only announcer in a major American sport to be charged with a technical foul.
“He really used to get on the refs,” said former Golden State Warriors owner Franklin Mieuli, quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle. “The league couldn’t do anything to him, but they fined the team. I would get the bill.”
Years later, Bill King became friends with the referee from that game, Ed Rush, and they laughed about what became known as Mother’s Day. One December, Rush had the idea to send a Mother’s Day card to King (though he had a hard time finding one in December). It became a tradition and they both had fun with it.
Mother’s Day was one of many colorful stories in the life of Bill King, the greatest sports announcer that nobody (outside the San Francisco Bay Area) knows. Besides calling sports games in all three major American sports (football, baseball, and basketball), King was a Renaissance man and a very colorful character. After he died in 2005, one of his former broadcasting partners came out with a book about him.
Having listened to King call games when I was a kid, I was excited to find and read this book. For anyone who is a fan of sports and broadcasting, it’s a good read. You can find more info on the book at the end of this post.
The San Francisco Chronicle/SFGate obituary of Bill King included a quote from former Oakland Athletics President Sandy Alderson, who said, "He was probably the best I've ever heard at describing a sporting event, ever, on the radio. He was so adept at all three sports. There was so much information packed into his description.”
NBA basketball Hall of Famer and Golden State Warriors star Rick Barry added: "I cannot believe that there ever was a better radio basketball play-by-play man than Bill King. Nobody, nobody had the vocabulary. ... It was like poetry almost. ... You could visualize with Bill. He created television in your mind."
Here are some things that made King so unique
• Lead announcer for three teams, one in each major American sport. King served as a play-by-play announcer for the Oakland Raiders (NFL football), Golden State Warriors (NBA basketball), and Oakland Athletics (MLB baseball). At one point, while other announcers were specializing in one sport, he held the position of lead announcer for all of them at the same time. If he’d stuck with just one sport, he would be in that sport’s national Hall of Fame today, but sadly, he is in none. Earlier in his career, he also broadcast games for the San Francisco Giants, and at other times he also announced San Francisco Seals hockey and University of California football and basketball.
• He ate anything and everything. King dined at famous restaurants and was known as a gourmand. But he also loved to eat whatever was nearby. At ballgames, he would eat popcorn “with all the fixins”, meaning that he would cover it with mustard, ketchup, and pickle relish from the hot dog stand, mix it all up, and eat the whole mess with a fork.
• He also enjoyed peanut butter and onion sandwiches (also a favorite of Ernest Hemingway). Several times, King was seen eating a stick of butter as a snack. He often ate throughout a game, even while he was announcing, which he did with crystal clear diction. When asked how he could eat and announce so clearly, King said he’d learned to pack the food away like a chipmunk.
• King did not believe that anyone should pay more than $250 for a car. The car he drove for many years had a large hole in the floor and, his passengers reported, lots of “ventilation” coming up from down below.
• He was highly cultured and had a wide range of interests. King loved attending the ballet and opera. On road games, he attended museum shows in many cities. He taught himself Russian and was a student of Russian history. Whenever he met anyone with Russian ancestry or who spoke the language, he would talk with them for hours, practicing the language and asking them for every story they could remember from their family history.
• He looked like the devil and acted the part. Once in Milwaukee, a woman came up to Bill King and mistook him for the devil. He played along, twirling his moustache, and told her “we shall surely meet again at my place. Down there.” That scared her off.
• King had a boat and spent much of his free time sailing, barefoot, with a cat named Hank.
Aside from his trademark “Holy Toledo” expression, King may be best remembered for his call in a controversial Oakland Raiders victory that became known as the Holy Roller game. You can watch the crazy end of this game and hear Bill King’s call in this video clip.
And here’s a baseball call of the dramatic walk-off home run that gave the Oakland Athletics a 20-game win streak.
Here is a quote from Bill King when asked why he liked doing radio better than TV:
“Radio is the theater of the mind. There's nothing left to the imagination in television. On radio you have to be all senses. That is the source of satisfaction. There's a bit of the walking-the-high-wire aspect to it. If you blow the call on the instant of the play, you can recap brilliantly, but you'll never have the opportunity to do it again. That's the exhilaration and energy-creating force of doing radio.”
To read more, here is a great interview with King: http://bayarearadio.org/bard/bill-king_bard_1990.shtml
Growing up as a kid in Northern California, in the era when there was more sports on radio than on TV, I often listened to Bill King call the games. A lot of times, when I watch a sports game today, I can still hear King’s voice running through the play-by-play. He was one of the few announcers who could step back from the immediate action and paint a bigger picture for the listener. Even so, King never missed a play.
As the late Raiders owner Al Davis said in memory of Bill King, “Time never stops for the great ones.”
If you love sports and broadcasting, then please consider reading Holy Toledo: Lessons from Bill King: Renaissance Man of the Mic by Ken Korach.
Photo credits: All photos licensed for public use by the National Basketball Association (thumbnail) or the Oakland Athletics (all others).
Other references:
Lucky Devil, He Found Heaven (SI): http://www.si.com/vault/1975/05/12/617000/lucky-devil-he-found-heaven
SF Chronicle/SFGate obituary (source of several quotes above): http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/BILL-KING-1927-2005-Erudite-voice-of-Bay-Area-2601265.php#photo-2089413
Bay Area Radio Museum interview (transcript): http://bayarearadio.org/bard/bill-king_bard_1990.shtml
USA Today obituary: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/al/athletics/2005-10-18-obit-bill-king_x.htm