Idiots Write About Sports

There are some A’s fans who do not care for Hank Greenwald as the A’s part-time TV announcer. Perhaps they find it weird that the long-time Giants announcer is now calling A’s games. Perhaps they just don’t care for Greenwald’s dry wit. Or perhaps, they are infantile, foul-mouthed dullards. Whatever the reason, they are wrong, wrong, wrong.

Hank Greenwald is a great announcer. Back in the early to mid-1980s, he was the only reason to tune into Giants games on KNBR. (It certainly wasn’t to hear about the exploits of Johnnie LeMaster and Tom O’Malley, was it, Jason?) And these days, you’re guaranteed at least one laugh-out-loud moment per nine innings when Hank is calling balls and strikes.

Tonight’s moment came in the in the ninth inning of tonight’s A’s-Rangers game (say, did you know that Oakland is now in first place in the A.L. West?) when Texas pitcher Frank Francisco relieved Brian Shouse.

My Main Man Hank introduced Francisco as “one of the cast of thousands traded for Carl Everett over the years” and then began riffing on Francisco’s stint in Double-A ball with the Frisco RoughRiders of the Texas League. “He could have worn the same name on the front and the back of his uniform,” Greenwald mused. High comedy.

At the end of the day, this is supposed to be a game, a diversion. Hank Greenwald understands that and so he doesn’t take the sport — or himself — too seriously. In a world of blowhards and marble-mouthed cliché-spewers, that’s a pleasure to listen to.