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Bill King

Bill King died today after complications from hip surgery.

When I was a kid, Bill King made me want to become a sports announcer. I'd never heard anyone so eloquently master the ability to describe so many sports with such skill. At one point in the early '80s, he was the play-by-play voice of the Oakland A's, the Oakland/L.A. Raiders, and the Golden State Warriors, all at the same time. It was an incredible feat, and he was stellar at each gig.

In 1990, sometime after I determined I'd stand a better chance of making a living as a writer instead of as a talker, I interviewed Bill King for a feature article that appeared in the Bay Area Radio Digest. It was only my second professional feature interview, and I simply idolized the guy. It went off without a hitch, albeit through no doing of my own; he happily responded to each of my lame questions and contently discussed some of the amazing personalities he'd encountered through the years -- Lon Simmons, Hank Greenwald, Al Davis, John Madden. A couple of days later, when I interviewed Greenwald for the same feature, I was far less nervous thanks to the way King handled our discussion. Greenwald shared with me during that interview that King was his best friend in broadcasting.

From 1981 to about 1995 (I'm doing this all on memory here, so forgive me if my exact dates are off), King and Simmons teamed with whomever else the A's would bring in to be the third banana in the booth (including a then-unknown Wayne Hagin, who as radio voice of the St. Louis Cardinals got to describe last night's home run by Albert Pujols to the greater Midwest). I've heard past generations talk about how wonderful Simmons and Russ Hodges were on Giants broadcasts from years ago. For my generation, the King-Simmons pairing was as good as it got. To me, at least, that was the sound of baseball. Simmons was recently inducted into the broadcasting wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame, and King -- who as voice of the A's for 25 years was at the microphone for some of the greatest moments in franchise history -- belongs there with him.

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that longtime A's public-address announcer Roy Steele was absent from a handful of A's games due to illness. I remember thinking to myself that A's baseball would have a hard time still being A's baseball without those two voices as part of the packages. One of those voices was silenced today.

Holy Toledo, Bill. We'll miss you.

An omen?

Yesterday, the House of Dear Leader leaked that a special commission will recommend taking the hatchet to the mortgage interest deduction in the tax code. While Congress will likely never come within 50 miles of this recommendation, the mere thought of it leaves a number of Californians with that cold, "soon we'll be living on the street" feeling. The talk is that the commission will recommend trimming the interest deduction from its current levels ($1 million) to levels that are hilariously comical in California (somewhere around $310,000, which is considerably less than the Bay Area's $619,000 median price paid for a home).

Anyway, the reason I bring any of this up is because I have learned on good authority that KGO-TV in San Francisco reported on this story during last night's newscast. And when they mentioned how difficult it is to stretch one's dollar in the Bay Area housing market, and how Bush's little plan would probably ruin an awful lot of Californians financially, they showed footage of the exterior of our home -- the one Tiersa and I just bought a couple of months ago.

Is KGO-TV trying to tell us something?

Lower-budget concerts

Hot off the presses, this just came across the AP wire:

(10-13) 08:28 PDT Los Angeles (AP) -- Tommy Lee was burned Wednesday when a pyrotechnics stunt went wrong at a Motley Crue concert in Casper, Wyo.

Lee was taken to a hospital for treatment, but wasn't badly hurt, said Sgt. Doug Beran of the Casper Police Department. Beran declined to discuss details of Lee's injuries, citing privacy considerations.

The 43-year-old drummer, who was injured toward the end of the band's set, played one more song before the concert was cut short, Beran said.

Tom Morton, a reporter for the Casper Star-Tribune, said Lee appeared to be injured when sparks began flying as he swung above the stage suspended from a wire, back and forth among several drum sets.

Another witness, Del Kinswoman, described the pyrotechnics as Roman candles.

Roman candles? What, they couldn't afford those things that spin around really fast and look like flowers?

Tommy Lee should be thankful. On their last tour, the only pyrotechnics Poison could afford were sparklers and snakes.

A nation of fiberglass dog heads mourns

According to today's Chronicle, Harold Bachman has passed away. You probably don't know who Harold Bachman was, but you know his designs. Or, more specifically, you know about the big fiberglass dog heads he once designed.

It turns out that Mr. Bachman is the man who designed the Doggie Diner heads. Bay Area natives know all about these things. Once upon a time, there were quite a few Doggie Diners in the area, and each had one of these big, spinning fiberglass dog heads sitting atop them. (I believe our local Doggie Diner was on the corner of Hesperian Boulevard and Lewelling Road in San Lorenzo. I don't recall ever eating at a Doggie Diner, but that might be because my parents and grandparents had the good sense not to feed stuff served under a giant rotating dog head to children.

As the Doggie Diners around the area were put to sleep, these huge dachsund heads with their chef hats and bow ties became collectors items. As it would turn out, Mr. Bachman himself got his paws on one of these things in the '70s. Now, not everybody has the space to properly store a 12-foot-high dog head -- not even Mr. Bachman. But enterprising minds know how to solve problems, and Mr. Bachman was no different.

From the obituary:

Another of the dogs was salvaged in the 1970s by Mr. Bachman himself, and he installed it in the bedroom of his young son, Will.

"It scared me sometimes," Will Bachman recalled. "I'd wake up in the middle of the night and see that thing staring at me from the corner of my bedroom. It could be frightening."

To this day, Will Bachman -- who probably only owns cats, thanks to his dear old dad -- presumably can't be in the presence of a dachsund without breaking into a cold sweat.