Voices of Summer: Ranking Baseball's 101 All-Time Best Announcers (40 page)

By 1979, KSFO had built the Giants since Lon's carpentry. Succeeding
it, KNBR tapped Lindsey Nelson, who found replacing him uphill. In 1981,
Simmons joined the A's, crazies terming him "that Giants SOB." Easier to
take: bottom-line marketing. Oakland played "Billy [Martin] Ball."The NFL
Raiders became L.A's. "We made the Oakland [-Alameda County] Coliseum
a baseball place. Whichever team won drew"-e.g., 2,900,217, hailing a
1990 A's flag.

Lon planned to retire in 1987, "thirty years enough in radio." Instead, his
investment firm lost $400,000. Widowed again, "He put his energies into
broadcasting," said then-partner Wayne Hagin, "because he had nothing else."
Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco forged the "Bash Brothers." Dave Stewart
won 20 games a fourth straight year. Rickey Henderson's 130 steals set a
single-season record: Career No. 939 topped Lou Brock.

"Brock was a great baserunner," said Rickey, "but today I'm the greatest
of all time." Lon's Oakland time was ending. "I find that kids screaming,
messing around on the bus, bothers me more than it did. I'm not the
same"-or was he? Simmons paid a $4,000 team dinner bill. In Baltimore,
learning that Hagin had never visited Washington, he brought a limousine to
the A's hotel.

"He's exceedingly generous, but in many ways an introvert," said excolleague Bill Thompson, "working out crises by himself."The '93-94ers
finished last. Next year the Raiders returned, added 22,000 seats, and
made a hash of baseball. The farce compounded Lon's sense of wanting to
come home.

Simmons recrossed the Bay in 1996. A listener admitted a crush since childhood. Winked Lon: "You must have been terribly deprived." Another told of
falling asleep, radio in bed, to his baritone. "That's okay. A lot of people fall
asleep listening to me." In 1997, native ion Miller arrived from Baltimore.
Wrote a columnist: "Miller and Simmons in the same booth is like McCovey
and Mays."

Once pitcher Robb Nen struggled. "It looks like he's trying to overthrow
it," said Simmons. "Which is fine, if you're pitching against a government."
The bases were loaded. "And I wish we were, too."

In 1999, Candlestick's last game capped "Tell It Good-Bye Week." The
Stick was contrary to the end, voiding a teary eye or twitching jaw. Most
were glad to see it go.

Pacific Bell Park opened April 11, 2000, by San Francisco Bay. Next year,
Barry Bonds hit homer 60, tying Ruth, ending with a record 73. "As I recall,"
mused Lon, "it was a little cooler day when [Babe] hit his 60th."The '02ers
won the flag. "It's great, but nothing rivals when you're young."

At 80, retiring, Simmons moved to Maui. "I wish you could broadcast
baseball," a woman gushed.

"That's what they used to tell me in the broadcast booth, too," he said, in
reality not wanting to. "I've found the last several years I prefer going to the
ballpark and, say, sitting with McCovey than being on the air."

In 2004, Lon made Cooperstown on a huge Hall website vote. "I don't
think I belong," he demurred, feeding peanuts on a Maui porch to the cardinal he named Stan Musial. Knowing better, the Bay helped complete the
resume of a gentle, humane, and modest man.

Try telling that good-bye.

LON SIMMONS

MONTE MOORS

We shun apologia in our me-first age. Never look back. Never express regret.
I am sorry by what I once wrote of Monte Moore. What made me deem the
Voice of the Oakland (nee Kansas City) Athletics radio "Caligula's Horse"?
The local media mugged him. Employer Charles O. Finley bought mule
Charlie 0.: the real jackass was plain. The Oakland Coliseum sunk baseball
in the East Bay. I did not distinguish among image, boss, and park.

Monte forged an iron streak (2,801 straight games), did three network
Series (more than Lindsey Nelson), and aired the A's from Bobby Del Greco
to Mike Gallego. Later NBC and USA TV capped a career unworthy to be
flushed down the drain.

Vin Scully recalls pitcher Don Bankhead chiding a Dodgers teammate.
"You're not only wrong," he said, "you're loud wrong." Jackie Robinson was
J
not alone.

Moore started in radio at Duncan and Lawton, Oklahoma, Hutchinson,
Kansas, University of Kansas, and Kansas City. Finley bought the A's in 1960.
Next year, Monte joined flagship KMCO's four-state 20-outlet network. By
1964, the American League told Finley to sign a lease or lose his team. Cruel
and cheap, he grasped baseball like a farmer senses rain. Catfish Hunter
signed a $75,000 bonus. John (Blue Moon) Odom got $64,000. Sal Bando,
Reggie Jackson, and Rick Monday launched the free-agent draft. Charlie was
less able to win and woo.

Only the Yankees drew. "What a social occasion," writer Ernie Mehl said
of a visit. "People from Mid-America came by car, bus, and train." Inevitably,
envy flowed. Q: Why did the Stripes win? A: To Finley, The Stadium's 296foot right-field line. "Only Charlie would make the tie!" said Moore, or build
an identical "Pennant Porch."The bigs mandated 325. Finley complied, then
indented it to 296 feet away.

About this time some began calling Charlie the voice behind his Voice.

"Charlie had his ear," said partner Lynn Faris. Another, George Bryson, said:
"Hey, the A's needed someone to cheer." Moore outlasted 16 play-by-playmen.
"I wasn't Finley's mole," sniffed the native Okie. "I did understand him.
Maybe that's why it worked."

One year, Finley built a children's zoo of China golden pheasant, Charlie
0., peafowl, dog named Old Drum, rabbits, and Capuchin monkeys. The Farmers' Market kept them happy. Tigers pitchers fed the monkeys Vodkasoaked oranges. Finley gave one Nebraskan a tour of the zoo. Said shortstop
Bert Campaneris: "They took a wrong turn and wandered on the field as a
pitch was being thrown."

Daily, Charlie listened by radio from Indiana. Style was home style: born
poor, he felt for umpires. "Finley disliked how they had to carry baseballs,"
said Moore. Enter Harvey the Mechanical Rabbit, holding a basket, buried
behind the plate. On signal the ballboy pushed a button. The hare rose,
unloaded stock, and vanished in the ground.

Finley even sired "Little Blowhard," a compressed air jet, to clean the
plate. Not everyone knew the brainchild. Once, the air jet hissed; a startled
batter fell. The A's, falling too, skipped town in late 1967.

The Midwest stirs more or less a blend, among other things, of duty, propriety, and individualism spiked by plain-speaking. Oakland---"liberal, avantgarde," Monte said-marched to a different tune. The cement Coliseum was
built for football. Foul ground reached to San Mateo. A bleacher deck
trimmed the outfield. A hill lay beyond. "Given the sterility," read the Oakland Tribune, "you focus on the hill, not field."

Moore fixed on coping. "In Kansas City you reported. This was Raiders
country. We had to sell." Finley hoped to grow the market. Instead, he and
the Jints divided it. On May 8, 1968, 6,298 saw Hunter's perfect game. In
1971, the A's won the A.L. West-and placed seventh in attendance. "Empty
seats, though we bloomed through Charlie's talent." It peaked in 1972.

Hunter won 20 games for the second of five straight years. Reliever
Rollie Fingers wore a handlebar mustache: "Charlie says, 'No raise, but you
get a year's supply of mustache wax."' The A's fought like most teams played
pepper. Unwowed: giant KNBR Radio, orphaning them to college station
KEEN. "Our flagship!" said sidekick Jim Woods. Recompense: that fall.

"Tony Taylor moves up to the plate. The count is two balls, two strikes,"
said Monte in L.C.S. Game Five. "There are two down, there's a runner at
first base. Vida [Blue] gets set.... There's a drive into center field. Back goes
Hendrick. He is under it! The Swinging A's have won the American League
championship [2-1, over Detroit]! The Oakland A's are champions!"

Next: Cincinnati. Twice Oakland's Gene Tenace went yard in the Series
opener. Next day Joe Rudi robbed Denis Menke of a game-tying dinger.
Moore aired NBC TV/Radio. "Curt Gowdy happened to be on [Game Three]
when Bench got fooled." Manager Dick Williams pointed to first. Fingers readied a two-out/on pitch. Big John: "I thought they were putting me on"
till Rollie kicked, Tenace crouched, and Bench took strike three.

The A's won the title. Williams and Charlie partied by kissing their wives
atop the dugout. "Mr. Finley has been wonderful to me," said Dick. Forthwith, the skipper yearned to punch him in the nose.

The film The Way We Were lit 1973. The A's aped One Flew Over the Cuckoo's
Nest. MVP Jackson led the league in homers, RBI, runs, and slugging. Finley
finally drew a million-1,000,763. Fewer heard on KEEN.The A's radio network girded Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon,
Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. "Monte, who cares 'bout Hawaii?" jibed a
caller. "You're invisible here!" On occasion, Moore wished he was. "A lot of
newspapermen have criticized me and if they've got a right, I've got a right
to criticize them," he said, knocking writer/official scorer Edgar Munzel.

Highlight: He did another Series. Low: Charlie disqualified infielder
Mike Andrews, who sued him for libel and slander. Trailing 3 games to 2,
Oakland twice beat the Mets. Said Williams, resigning: "Finley's a raving
maniac. A man can take only so much."

In 1974, seven A's took to second base. Fingers and Odom clashed: Five
stitches closed a cut on Rollie's head. "The record is 15," he said, "held by
many." Moore and Vin Scully called the less gripping all-California Classic. In
Game Five, the Coliseum crowd began pelting L.A.'s Bill Buckner. Reliever
Mike Marshall stopped warming up to watch.

"In a case like this," said Rudi, "you expect the pitcher to throw a fastball." Marshall (lid. Joe found the seats: A's, 3-2. Monte had now called more
1970s World Series than anyone but Curt Gowdy. The road ahead was about
to fork.

"Three straight titles! ['72-74]," Finley hailed the first three-peat since
1949-5 3's Yankees. "Take that away!" Baseball tried. Hunter became a free
agent, claiming unpaid bonus. Campy, Fingers, Jackson, and Rudi left. Suddenly, their unswinging Voice seemed a last link to the Swingin' A's.

"Monte is a homer," read a Chronicle letter, "but he tells me what's hap-
pening"Another added, "[Want] a solution to California's pollution? Install a
catalytic converter in Monte Moore's mouth." Texas scored five first-inning
runs. "Throw [it] out," he said, "and we'd have a great ballgame here." In
1976, KNBR re-signed the A's. The concord didn't last.

That November, Moore and 10 players, including three free agents, took a free cruise to Mexico. Returning, he found a Blue Cross bill, for back surgery, that the A's had always paid. "It's nobody's business if Monte's fired,"
said the boss man. Axe The Loyalist? Had the man, not mule, no shame? "A
misunderstanding," he amended. "Monte is the greatest announcer in baseball." It didn't keep KNBR: The '77ers lacked a flagship Opening Day.

Having never missed an A's exhibition, regular-, or post-season game,
Monte left, bought a Porterville, California, radio station, and joined USA
TV's Thursday "Game of the Week."The series knit the outlands: "like radio
in fifties Oklahoma." It ended in 1983, Moore repairing to family, church,
and NBC's backup "Game."

From 1989 to 1991, he called another three straight A's flags, then retired in
1992, avoiding guilt by association: a year later, Oakland placed last. Today you
recall decency, humanity, and The Mustache Gang eclipsing a prairie twang.

MONTS MOORE

For Moore, a son of Mayberry, the early 1960s seemed to extend Ike's 1950s.
By contrast, the new administration in Washington drew "a picture of total urbanity," said a writer, "the first true reflection in the Presidency of America
at the turn of mid-century, a country of city dwellers, long gone from Main
Street."

Little in the Kennedy White House ran counter to self-congratulation.
Pablo Casals played the cello. JFK had Stravinsky perform. A group of Nobel
Prize laureates became "the most extraordinary collection of talent ... ever
gathered together in the White House-with the possible exception of when
Thomas Jefferson dined alone."