Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Holy Toledo Lessons From Bill King Renaissance Man of the Mic by Ken Korach Big League Life: Five Questions with… Oakland Athletics Broadcaster Ken Korach. This is the fourth piece in a series of posts centered on life inside professional baseball. March 3 0 marks the eve of Opening Day in Major League Baseball as well as the release of my third book, a novel titled Big League Life . While a work of fiction, this story is the result of years of research about and interview with the men and women who make the “big league life” their life. Many people contributed to the realism of the characters woven into this story and one of those individuals is the subject of today’s “Five Questions with…” post, longtime Oakland Athletics broadcaster Ken Korach. The drama of a Major League Baseball game centers on the performances of athletes competing on the playing field. However, you can’t unstitch the greatest moments in baseball history from the broadcasters that are connected forever with those moments. Is the “shot heard ‘round the world” remembered as clearly today without Russ Hodges’ iconic narration? Does Sandy Koufax’s Perfect Game in 1965 resonate the same way without Vin Scully’s masterful call? Scan through baseball’s archives and you will, undoubtedly, find coupled with every moment a call made by the game’s best broadcasters. Not always beautiful, not always perfect. Each, however, honest, emotional, and timeless in its own way. Red Barber. Dave Neihaus. Ernie Harwell. Harry Kalas. The list goes on and on and it continues to grow today as history unfolds before our very eyes. My attachment to baseball on the radio is a product of my own experiences. As a lifelong Phillies fan growing up in Central N.J., the legendary tandem of Harry Kalas and Richie Ashburn provided voice over for the summers of my youth. And now, living a stone’s throw from the Oakland Coliseum, I’m fortunate enough to hear the game unfold through the melodic sound of Ken Korach behind the mic for the Oakland Athletics. Korach got his start in the broadcast booth more than 40 years ago, handling various assignments across the high school and college ranks. In 1992, he got his first shot in Major League Baseball, calling games for the Chicago White Sox briefly before transitioning to Oakland to work alongside the incomparable Bill King. It’s hard to share a broadcast booth with an all-time great and not pick up a few tricks of the trade; if King was the eccentric teacher, then Korach served dutifully as his diligent student. Many years later, Korach remains a fixture in the A’s broadcast booth, painting a portrait of the action for the team’s sprawling fan base across the Bay Area and beyond. In due course, and if the right people are paying attention, I’d like to think that Korach will find a spot alongside his mentor in the Hall of Fame. He fought hard to raise awareness of Bill King’s greatness — if you haven’t read his excellent book, Holy Toledo: Lessons from Bill King, Renaissance Man of the Mic , I highly recommend doing so — and I’m hopeful there are people in the game doing the same for him. As I introduced broadcasters and live gameplay into the story of Big League Life, it was important to me that the game narrations and the broadcaster experience etched into the book were authentic and honest. Ken Korach was kind enough to share his take on life in the game from a broadcaster’s perspective and his impact can be felt each time the story shifts to the playing field. I’m pleased to share with you this brief snapshot below from a conversation I had with a man who learned from the very best and now, in this writer’s humble opinion, is the very best at his craft. You’ve been on the mic for some of the most historic moments in the recent history of the Oakland Athletics. Any highlights come to mind? I’ve been very fortunate. The A’s have been in the postseason 11 times in the last 21 seasons. I suppose the most emotional game — especially when it reached the ninth inning — was Dallas Braden’s perfect game [on Mother’s Day]. Hard to script that kind of a story. I was holding back tears when he was hugging his grandmother after the last out. The 20-game winning streak and the other two no-hitters (pitched by Sean Manaea and Mike Fiers, respectively) come to mind as well. I’ve said for years that the best postseason game I’ve called was game two of the 2013 ALDS, a 1–0 A’s win over the Tigers that culminated in Stephen Vogt’s walk-off single. You have remarkable chemistry with the many peers that have shared the booth with you through the years — from Ray Fosse to the many rotating guests that have come through in recent times. In the early days with a new booth partner, how do you foster that connection? What do you do to bring out the best in each other? We’ve had consistency in the booth. In my 26 seasons it’s been Bill King and then Vince Cotroneo for almost every game, and then [color commentator Ray] Fosse when he moves over from TV. There’s a bit of “you either have it or you don’t” when it comes to chemistry, but one thing that stands out is that all my broadcast partners have been incredibly thorough when it comes to preparation. There’s no shortage of things to talk about. Getting to your question about the early days in the booth — I think that you learn your partner’s rhythm and tendencies. Having a feel for their approach to calling a game or doing analysis. The hope is that you don’t think about it. It’s a little like playing in a band. It’s a feel thing, when it flows well, and you have a sense of where the other person is going without thinking about it. Those are the best times. Turning to the game, can you walk me through your typical pre-game routine? How do you prepare for each day’s call? That’s changed a bit over the years, and it’s totally different now with the COVID protocols. We do all our interviews over Zoom, for instance. There’s no contact with the players and staff. If it’s a night game, I usually spend about 90 minutes to two hours in the morning preparing. Let’s say it’s a 7 p.m. game — I try to arrive at the park around 3. But, again, it’s different now and much of my schedule revolves around the Zoom calls. There were days last year when they [Zoom calls] started at noon and lasted until 4 or 5 p.m. As podcasts and streaming services continue to take off, do you see the role of the broadcaster evolving in years to come? To me, there is something special about listening to a baseball broadcast on the old AM/FM dial and I hope we never lose that. I hope not! I think podcasting and streaming can co-exist with baseball play-by-play. I’m biased, of course, but I think people still enjoy baseball on the radio. It’s part of the soundtrack of summer and I don’t think it’s going away. This past season was particularly gratifying because I heard from so many people who felt that baseball on the radio served as a diversion and provided a sense of normalcy and something familiar during difficult times. As up-and-coming broadcasters are learning the tricks of the trade from you, I’m sure you learned much from your former broadcast partner, Bill King. Was there one lesson that stands out to you? Bill and I spent 10 great years together as you know, but I also grew up listening to him and he had a profound influence when I was a kid, and he was [broadcasting for] the Warriors and Raiders. I think the biggest takeaway from when we worked together was his passion. Even in his mid- 70s, he was energized for every broadcast. Even a noon game after a night game. He used to tell me, “No matter if it’s a lopsided game; you have to keep your energy up.” As revered as he was, he would have had the license to coast a little on occasion, but he never did. He set very high standards. A's to Host "Holy Toledo" Book Signing with Ken Korach Sept. 6-8. In conjunction with Wellstone Books, the Oakland Athletics will celebrate the official release of Ken Korach's new book, Holy Toledo - Lessons from Bill King: Renaissance Man of the Mic , by staging book-signing sessions at O.co Coliseum prior to the final three games of the A's-Astros series on Sept. 6-8. Korach, voice of the Oakland A's since 2006 and King's broadcast partner from 1996 through 2005, will be available in the Bar & Grille (located in Sections 212 to 216) from 6:00-6:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 6 and from noon-12:30 on Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 7-8, to sign purchased copies. The book will also go on sale on Amazon.com and at select Bay Area book store locations Sept. 6. The paperback price is $18.99, while the digital price is $9.99. The book will also be available during the Sept. 6-8 weekend at the Oakland A's team stores at Gates C and D. In addition, "Holy Toledo" t-shirts will be on sale during the book signing and up until first pitch in the Bar & Grille. The shirts will also be sold in the Gates C and D team stores during the Sept. 6-8 weekend, as well as the remainder of the season. Korach's first book store appearance will be at Books Inc. in Alameda at 5 p.m. after the A's game on Saturday, Sept. 7. The store is located at 1344 Park Street in Alameda. King, an unmatched figure in Bay Area sports and media history, was the long-time voice of the A's, Warriors and Raiders. His remarkable story was told by Korach, who drew on a lifetime of listening to and learning from King, as well as doing extensive research which included more than 50 interviews with King's family members, colleagues, friends and associates, to create a rich portrait of the man whose passion, precision and style were legendary. Many of those interviewed considered King-who passed away Oct. 18, 2005-to be the greatest radio sports broadcaster ever heard. Holy Toledo features a moving foreword by Hall of Fame broadcaster Jon Miller and a brilliant cover by Mark Ulriksen, internationally recognized for his New Yorker magazine illustrations, that captures the flair and personality that made King an utter original. Korach's work brings to life the great calls that will never be forgotten-"Holy Roller," "Sea of Hands," "Mother's Day," Rickey Henderson's record-breaking 939 th stolen bases, the streak-extending Scott Hatteberg home run immortalized in the film, "Moneyball," and more. The book also tells the story of Bill King, the student of Russian literature, the passionate sailor, the voracious and quirky epicurean and the remarkable painter (with a beautiful back-cover reproduction of one of King's Impressionist-inspired works). Holy Toledo takes readers to King's early days as a minor-league broadcaster, encountering the likes of Casey Stengel, Stan Musial and Bill Dickey, and to the jazz, food, wine and conversation-filled late nights in San Francisco and Sausalito with such Warriors' luminaries as broadcasting partner Hank Greenwald, team owner Franklin Mieuli and All-Star forward Tom Meschery-and maybe an occasional visit from Wilt Chamberlain, pulling up in his lavender Bentley. The book also tells the stories behind King's great days with the Warriors, A's and Raiders, like when Al Davis first spotted the bronzed, shirtless and shoeless King on the sideline at training camp and asked: "Who is this scrawny little guy and what can he possibly know about football?" Korach's beautifully-written account presents a persuasive case for King, with expert analysis and input, on the eve of the selection process for the annual Ford C. Frick Award by the Baseball Hall of Fame. King has been a finalist for the Hall's top broadcasting award on several occasions. Following his death at age 78, the A's permanently named their Coliseum broadcast facilities the "Bill King Broadcast Booth" after the team's revered former voice-a voice like no other. Hitting the Books with Gary Thorne: “Holy Toledo: Lessons from Bill King, Renaissance Man of the Mic” One of the joys of broadcasting sports is the great people you get to meet that are involved in the business. With this “Hitting the Books,” I get to speak of two of my favorites. Bill King was a longtime sports announcer in the San Francisco Bay area, covering all sports, including the Oakland A’s. Ken Korach is currently the radio voice of the A’s and an announcer I often listen to after Orioles games on the East Coast when he is out west. Korach worked with King and his book, “Holy Toledo - Lessons from Bill King: Renaissance Man of the Mic,” is about a man he much admired. “Holy Toledo” was a favorite phrase of King and “Renaissance man” refers to the life of King in and out of the booth. I respected and admired Bill for the same reasons, and I have the same feelings towards Korach. They both put the games above themselves. Both were/are of excellence for the purpose of providing the best broadcasts for fans. Bill loved enthusiasm for the games. What you heard during his broadcasts were his immediate and honest feelings. His love of music, books and life were just as honest and enthusiastic. Bill took the time to approach me and commend my work, as he did in the book. That is humbling to me because my respect for him existed long before he approached me. Ken continues that honest broadcasting today and no one could better write this memory of King. Ken captures that essence of Bill King in this book. I thank Ken for his time and, more importantly, for his devotion to Bill in the work done for this book. Substance over sizzle is so important in and out of the booth. Both Bill and Ken represent that. “Respect yourself and others will respect you.” ― Confucius, “Sayings of Confucius” Gary Thorne is the play-by-play voice of the Orioles on MASN, and the 2016 season is his 10th with the club and 31st covering Major League Baseball. His blog will appear regularly throughout the season. The Orioles and Sarasota County have partnered on the Big League Reader Program, which rewarded kids who read three books in February with tickets to a Grapefruit League game at Ed Smith Stadium in March. Bill King and the Baseball Hall of Fame: What they said in Cooperstown. Kathleen Lowenthal, the stepdaughter of the late broadcaster, accepted the Ford C. Frick Award on his behalf. Here’s what she told the audience from the stage at Doubleday Field in Cooperstown. (The Facebook page for the National Baseball Hall of Fame has the entire ceremony here. The Awards Ceremony will also air the MLB Network at 8 a.m. PT on Sunday morning.) KATHLEEN LOWENTHAL’S ACCEPTANCE SPEECH. I think this is a Holy Toledo moment. It is for me. Holy Toledo. I am incredibly honored to be here at the Baseball Hall of Fame to accept the Ford C. Frick Award on behalf of my stepfather, Bill King. I’d like to acknowledge and congratulate my stage mates, Claire Smith and Rachel Robinson. I’d also like to thank Jane Forbes Clark and Jeff Idelson and the whole Hall of Fame staff for hosting this amazing annual gathering that celebrates the very best of America’s national pastime. And a very special thank you to the Frick voting committee, with a nod to Bay Area kid and Baseball Hall of Fame award winning announcer Jon Miller, who couldn’t be here today. If Bill were here today, I know that that we would want to give a very special nod to his close friend and Warriors broadcast partner Hank Greenwald. There’s a very special person I cannot begin to thank enough, who persistently campaigned to get Bill into the Hall of Fame. And that’s Bill’s Oakland A’s broadcast partner Ken Korach, who not only worked with Bill the last 10 years of his life but literally wrote the book on Bill — “Holy Toledo: Lessons from Bill King, Renaissance Man of the Mic.” Both Ken and I have been asked many times how we think Bill would have thought about being honored with the is Frick Award. And it’s really strange to be asked how you think someone else would respond to something as momentous as receiving this honor from the Baseball Hall of Fame, especially someone like Bill. Everyone who knew Bill, from his fans to his colleagues to his friends, they all of an opinion about how they think Bill would have responded. It is pretty well known that Bill had an aversion to authority and a disregard for convention, but when it came to baseball, Bill had a tremendous amount of respect for the traditions of the game. And both Ken and I know that Bill would have incredibly moved and honored by this Frick Award. Bill never sought out awards of any kind but he was only human and he certainly enjoyed the accolades. But never in a million years did he believe he would be in the Baseball Hall of Fame. When people would bring it up, he would brush it aside. Fans and friends and colleagues brought it up all the time — even I did. Bill loved broadcasting. He just really loved talking — to you. Bill once told a San Francisco Examiner reporter: “To not be able to verbalize is almost crippling to me.” And he was always verbalizing. He was an expert verbalizer. When the Haas family brought Bill on in 1981 to broadcast the A’s games with Lon Simmons — another Frick Award winner — Bill was already broadcasting for the Golden State Warriors and the Oakland and Los Angeles Raiders. Adding baseball to his already demanding schedule meant that there would be no more summertime cruises on my parents sailboat, Veruna. Sailing was very important part of my parents life. Ultimately, A’s team president Roy Eisenhardt had to win over my mom before Bill would commit. Roy still winces when recounting negotiations with my mother. Joining the A’s meant that Bill was broadcasting year round — the Warriors, the Raiders and now the A’s. But you have to remember that as much as Bill loved announcing basketball and football, Bill’s first love back to when he was a young boy in Bloomington, Illinois was baseball. So now his career not only encompassed America’s three major sports, but now he had come full circle and he was back in the game of baseball. Those early days with the A’s were especially heady times with Roy Eisenhardt, the Hass Family, Andy Dolich, Sandy Alderson and Billy Martin. Throughout his career with the A’s, Bill enjoyed a really strong rapport with the A’s managers — Tony La Russa, Art Howe and Ken Macha. He always looked forward to his pre-game interviews with the managers. And ultimately, Bill was with the A’s for 25 years. During his career in sports broadcasting, Bill ended up announcing championship games for the Warriors, the Raiders and the Oakland A’s. But he is also the only announcer to ever receive a technical foul in basketball. The only one. Growing up, I never paid much attention to sports. Baseball was just something Bill did for a living. However, as a teenager, I figured out that easy access to professional sports games gave me a great advantage in attracting boyfriends. I didn’t really start paying attention to baseball until the 2005 season. Bill had injured himself during spring training. The pain was bad enough that he couldn’t drive to the baseball games. But not bad enough to keep him from broadcasting. So I arranged to drive Bill to his home games — all 81 of them. Being at the ballpark for all those games was the first time it struck me how much his colleagues and family loved and respected him. I was amazed when sitting in the stands I would see people watching the game live at the ballpark and still listening to Bill with their ear buds connected to their radio. Fans could not get enough of Bill. Even though they were at the game, they still wanted to hear what Bill had to say about what they were seeing. Then of course there were the people at home watching the game on TV with the sound off so they could still listen to Bill on the radio. Bill had a really special relationship with his audience. He told me one time that he would have one person in mind when he was broadcasting. And I think that’s why his broadcasts came across so personal — as if he was talking to you. He loved to be able to tell you what he was seeing on the field. He saw everything, sometimes before it even happened. Watching and listening to the interaction in the radio booth — that was the privilege of driving Bill. I got to be in the radio booth. Watching the interaction with his broadcast partners, Ken Korach and Ray Fosse and his engineers Mike Baird and John Trinidad and his broadcast manager Robert Buan and pregame host Marty Lurie — this was such a treat. Bill relished this interaction and these men really enjoyed each other and loved what they were doing. The love and admiration they had for Bill was palpable. After the announcement came out last December that Bill was going to be honored by the Baseball Hall of Fame with the Frick Award, a bunch of friends and colleagues gathered together in San Francisco. Organizers christened the party as a celebration for “Bill King: The Most Interesting Man in the World.” Yes, Bill was a pretty interesting character. A real original. In truth, he was really the Most Interested Man in the World. His curiosity was boundless. Bill didn’t just have interests. He passionately threw himself into these interests. He was passionate about sailing. He found a beautiful sailboat and cruised up and down the Pacific Coast and over to Hawaii and back. He was passionate about ballet and was a founding board member of San Francisco Smuin Ballet. He loved opera. He loved jazz. He was passionate about the fine arts and would spend hours in art museums all across the country. And eventually became a very good landscape artist himself. His intense interest in Russian history inspired him to learn the Russian language. All of his varied interests and his encyclopedic knowledge of baseball and his voluminous vocabulary made him the broadcaster he was. Bill really loved announcing baseball. Baseball was Bill’s first love and even after a lifetime of announcing sports he honestly couldn’t imagine his live without announcing baseball. Bill only visited Cooperstown once, in 2004, when A’s closer Dennis Eckersley and Bill’s former A’s broadcast partner Lon Simmons were both honored. To the day he died, he was still exhilarated by his visit to Cooperstown. I was stunned when Bill passed away in October of 2005. By the fans, the outpouring of emotions. It was as if the fans had lost a family member. The grieving went on for weeks. And in the newspapers — and especially in talk radio shows — it was inconceivable that Bill’s voice could be silenced. Never in a million years did Bill imagine that he would someday be honored in the Baseball Hall of Fame. And I really wish he could walk out of that Iowa cornfield right now and see for himself the tremendous respect and fondness his fans and colleagues still hold for him today. Five non-Raiders tidbits about legendary broadcaster Bill King. Bill King was much more than a football, baseball and basketball broadcaster, says former A’s sidekick Ken Korach of Las Vegas. He was a Renaissance man. EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part of an occasional series acquainting fans with the Raiders’ illustrious 60-year history as the team moves to Las Vegas for the 2020 season. It was one of the most iconic plays in Raiders’ history, and Bill King punctuated it with a reference to the ample backside of Raiders coach John Madden. Who can forget the legendary broadcaster’s call of the almost equally legendary “Holy Roller” that produced a 21-20 Raiders’ victory against the San Diego Chargers on Sept. 10, 1978: “The ball, flipped forward, is loose! A wild scramble, two seconds on the clock … Casper grabbing the ball…it is ruled a fumble … Casper has recovered in the end zone!! The Oakland Raiders have scored on the most zany, unbelievable, absolutely impossible dream of a play! Madden is on the field. He wants to know if it’s real. They said yes, get your big butt out of here! He does! “There’s nothing real in the world anymore! The Raiders have won the football game! The Chargers … they don’t believe it. Fifty-two thousand people are stunned. This one will be relived forever!” Bill King, who died in 2005, was right about that. But here are five non-Raiders tidbits about the longtime voice of the team the casual Raider fan may not have known, as told by King’s Oakland A’s broadcast partner Ken Korach of Las Vegas in his book “Holy Toledo: Lessons from Bill King, Renaissance Man of the Mic”: 1. He was an aficionado and patron of the ballet and served on the board of directors of the Smuin Ballet. In fact, members of the ballet company performed at his memorial ceremony at the Oakland Coliseum Arena. Holy Toledo! Ken Korach will sign copies of his new book about Bill King tonight thru Sunday. http://t.co/RDXfXCeA8Q pic.twitter.com/GPAxuLRFB2 — Oakland A's (@Athletics) September 6, 2013. 2. He and his wife Nancy were accomplished sailors. They sailed to Hawaii and back, sailed the Black Sea and to British Columbia and back. They had, over the many years, several boats that were docked in Sausalito Harbor. (Despite reports to the contrary, they never lived on the boat, except for a stretch after a fire at their house.) 3. He had a fascination and was well-versed in Russian history and literature. Tom Meschery, the ex-Warriors basketball star, deserves a big assist for that. Meschery, known as “The Mad Russian” during his playing days — Tom’s parents were born in Russia and he was born in Harbin in northern China — called Bill “the brother I never had.” Tom Meschery recounts his relationship w/ the great Bill King & much more in our 'Catching Up' series. VIDEO & INTERVIEW: http://ow.ly/6DtYm — Golden State Warriors (@warriors) September 25, 2011. 4. He was an accomplished painter who drew much of his inspiration from The Impressionists. Claude Monet was his favorite painter. Bill used to go to the Marin County countryside to take photos of landscapes and then paint them at his home. My all-time #Raiders announcer is the legendary Bill King … Touchdown Raiders, Holy Toledo! pic.twitter.com/URQFZ4ZuK3 — AFL GODFATHER (@NFLMAVERICK) July 30, 2017. 5. He never liked to be thanked by his broadcast partner. This was a request Ken Korach stubbornly refused while speaking during King’s memorial service. “Sorry partner,” Korach said. “But thanks for everything.”