Bill King

Wilbur "Bill" King (October 6, 1927 – October 18, 2005) was an American sports announcer.

In the early 1950s, King served as the lead play-by-play announcer on WTAD 930 AM in Quincy, Illinois.

He later announced basketball games for Bradley University and basketball and football games for the University of Nebraska.

Earlier in his career, he had been a member of the San Francisco Giants' original broadcasting team (together with Russ Hodges and Lon Simmons) when the Giants moved west from New York in 1958, and had called University of California football and basketball games.

King was widely recognized by his distinctive handlebar moustache and Van Dyke beard, as well as his broadcasting catchphrase, "Holy Toledo!"

King was born in Bloomington, Illinois, and was stationed on the island of Guam at the end of World War II when he began his broadcasting career with the Armed Forces Radio Network, converting play-by-play accounts of games as they came in over the wire and broadcasting them in a manner that made it sound as if he were actually at the game.

After the war, he began his professional sportscasting career in Pekin, Illinois, broadcasting high school football and basketball games as well as Minor League Baseball games.

King moved to the Bay Area in 1958, when the San Francisco Giants hired him as an announcer.

For the first 15 years as A's announcer, King was paired with another legendary Bay Area sports announcer, Lon Simmons, with whom King had worked briefly with the Giants in 1958.

A major turning point in King's career came in 1962, when the Philadelphia Warriors of the National Basketball Association moved to San Francisco and hired him as their play-by-play announcer.

King announced Warrior games from 1962 to 1983, through the Wilt Chamberlain, Nate Thurmond, and Rick Barry eras and the team's first NBA Championship on the West Coast, in 1974–1975.

Franklin Mieuli, the owner of the Warriors upon their transfer to the Bay Area, had worked with King on Giants baseball on KSFO and the Golden West Radio Network, serving as executive producer for the broadcasts.

King was not shy about disagreeing with the referee's calls during the course of his play-by-play work, and was a notorious ref-baiter.

In his most infamous incident, he used an expletive on the air to describe a referee's call, and the Warriors were charged with a technical foul.

He may be the only professional sports announcer ever charged with an infraction during the course of play.

In 1966, while continuing to call Warrior games, King was hired as the play-by-play announcer for the Oakland Raiders, then of the American Football League, a post he held until after the 1992 season.

Another famous call came on November 8, 1970, when George Blanda came off the bench in the fourth quarter against the Cleveland Browns, threw for a tying touchdown with less than 2 minutes left, and kicked the winning field goal as time ran out.

King reacted by declaring "George Blanda has just been elected King of the World!"

Perhaps King's most famous call came during the Raiders' infamous Holy Roller game against the San Diego Chargers on September 10, 1978.

In the final seconds of the game, Raider quarterback Ken Stabler tossed the ball forward, and tight end Dave Casper grabbed it in the end zone for a disputed, game-winning touchdown.

King's description:

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!

King was the radio voice of the Oakland Athletics baseball team for 25 years (1981–2005), the longest tenure of any A's announcer since the team's games were first broadcast in Philadelphia in 1938, as well as the longtime radio play-by-play announcer for the Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders football team and the San Francisco/Golden State Warriors basketball team.

Though carrying a substantial workload as the announcer for two professional sports teams, King was persuaded by the new owners of the Oakland Athletics to become their lead announcer in 1981.

For a time, he commuted to Los Angeles when the Raiders relocated to Southern California from 1982–1994.

He announced the Raiders' three Super Bowl victories, as well as countless other memorable games.

King continued to call Raider and Warrior games, though he retired as the Warriors' announcer after 1983 and was fired by the Raider owner Al Davis after the 1992 season.

He was there during the "Billyball" and "Bash Brothers" eras, as well as the Moneyball era of the late 1990s and early 2000s.

In 2016, the National Baseball Hall of Fame named King recipient of the 2017 Ford C. Frick Award, the highest honor for American baseball broadcasters.