Voices of Oakland: Ken Korach took over iconic job, became Mr. Reliable for A’s radio listeners

OAKLAND — Ken Korach came to the Athletics a veteran broadcaster, having worked from Sonoma County to San Jose and Chicago.

Korach was 44 years old and no babe in the play-by-play woods, but there was still a lot to live up to given the two luminaries he had admired from afar.

Think about it — Korach replaced Lon Simmons and joined a booth with Bill King. Both were Bay Area icons. Simmons was a voice of the Giants and 49ers before joining the A’s in 1996 and working through 2002. Simmons was dry and understated but with a grasp of the moment, a deadpan sense of humor and a hugely popular following.

Then there was King, who once upon a time also worked with the Giants but became an institution keeping Bay Area listeners informed and on the edge of their seats with the exploits of the Golden State Warriors and Oakland Raiders before settling in for a run with the A’s that began in 1981 and ended with his death in 2005.

“Lon was one of my heroes,” Korach said in a recent interview, “and when I grew up in Los Angeles, late at night you’d get the games on the radio when the sun went down and I’d be listening to Bill doing Warriors games and just be enthralled.”

Through meticulous preparation to go along with a smooth delivery and a love for the game that shows through whether the A’s are good or bad, Korach has been the epitome of professionalism for 29 years — the longest-tenured member of the Oakland broadcast team since Charles O. Finley brought the franchise west from Kansas City in 1968.

Korach is working the A’s home schedule this season at age 72 and is under contract through the 2025 season, which is scheduled to be played in Sacramento.

“I didn’t think I’d work into my 70s when I first got into it,” Korach said. “I didn’t know how long it was going to last. You never know in this business. I never took it for granted and I’ve always tried to reflect on how fortunate I’ve been. I never thought I’d be here for 29 years, that’s for sure. A lot of things have to go right for that to happen.”

Korach estimates he’s broadcast “slightly north of 2,000” A’s games at the Coliseum and the thought of Sept. 26 being the end of that run is difficult to comprehend.

That won’t even count the games Korach called into a tape recorder sitting in the Coliseum stands and taping himself doing play-by-play of the 1979 A’s in between calling high school games in Petaluma.

“I really don’t know how I’ll feel,” Korach said. “It’s going to be emotional for sure, and we’ll try and do it justice. but I don’t know, and I can’t predict.”

At the time of his hiring by the A’s, Korach was doing University of Nevada-Las Vegas football and basketball, some Triple-A baseball and also doing some work with the Chicago White Sox on weekends.

One of those White Sox games was against the A’s, and Korach included it in the cassette tapes he sent to the club when applying for the job.

King, who died in 2005 of a pulmonary embolism, was such an influence Korach wrote a book on him in 2013 entitled “Holy Toledo: Lessons from Bill King, Renaissance Man of the Mic.”

Greg Papa, who has called games for the Raiders, Warriors, Athletics, Giants and 49ers, held King in such high regard he once told Korach he would have been so intimidated he’d be worrying about every word he said.

What Korach discovered is that King was a willing mentor who eventually became a close friend.

“I’d replaced Lon, and Lon was one of my heroes. when I was living in Sonoma County, it coincided with Bill and Lon being paired in 1981,” Korach said. “That was my link to A’s baseball. It was daunting to replace Lon, but Bill made it so much easier for me because he accepted me. I always owed him a huge debt for that because he was so welcoming he could have been the one big-leaguing me. But he was accepting and it was very gracious of him.”

It got so Korach and King would talk baseball and the craft of announcing long into the night.

“I’d get off the phone and my wife would say, ‘Do you know how long you guys were talking?’ ” Korach said. “I don’t know if it was an hour, or an hour and a half, but it was just such a trip because the voice coming out of the phone was the same one coming out of the radio all those years. Literally 30 years before I got there. What a gift that was.”

For all the conversations, it was King’s work in the booth that impacted how Korach does his job to this day.

“He had this amazing capacity to lock in and the reason for that was he was just so passionate about what he was doing,” Korach said. “That was the greatest influence on me, the passion and dedication that he brought to everything he did. To be honest, when you work with Bill, you have to bring it. He had extremely high standards and I didn’t want to let him down.”

While television has taken over the sports industry, Korach is old-school radio through and through. He’s the voice on the square transistor perched on the porch while doing yard work, the one in the car painting word pictures on your way to the store or work.

“I grew up listening to Chick Hearn, and he used to dedicate his broadcast to shut-ins and do that every broadcast,” Korach said. “And that’s something I’ve never forgotten, that we’re really fortunate to do this and if we can be the eyes and ears of people who can’t get out to the ballpark, that’s a gift we can give to some people. I’ve tried to live up to that.”

Voices of Oakland

A list of television and radio voices for the A’s over the years, some you’ll remember and some you won’t:

Monte Moore 1968-80, 1985-92

Harry Caray 1970

Al Helfer 1968-69

Bob Elson 1971

Red Rush 1971, 1979-80

Jim Piersall 1972

Jim Woods 1972-73

Jon Miller 1974

Bob Waller 1975-77

Bud Foster 1978