“Wow.”
It’s a simple word, but when Ray Fosse said it, the meaning was clear — the A’s were up to something good, and he was thrilled to share it with the world.
The A’s half-century in Oakland has been more colorful than a Rothko. And no one was prouder to share that history than Fosse, the longtime A’s broadcaster and former World Series-winning catcher, who passed away last week at the age of 74.
“He had such a passion for the A’s that I felt the minute I got here, and it resonated with me immensely,” A’s manager and East Bay native Bob Melvin said. “It made me feel good that you had somebody here that had been with the organization so long that I’d listened to that had been part of the history and cared so much about the organization.
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“He’s just a true Oakland A, somebody who you couldn’t help but feel his passion for the team and the organization.”
In the days since Fosse’s passing, there has been an outpouring of grief and appreciation for the man whose voice helped narrate the childhoods of generations of A’s fans. On social media, baseball greats including Johnny Bench and Mike Trout tweeted their sorrow to learn of Fosse’s passing and their joy at having known him.
“(He was) kind of the ambassador of the A’s,” longtime Bay Area broadcaster and former A’s TV play-by-play announcer Greg Papa said. “When you came in to play Oakland, you were going to get that Ray Fosse handshake.”
But it was the thousands of heartfelt posts from A’s fans, players past and present, and team employees that resonated the most. An entire baseball community had lost a patriarch.
“It’s just, Ray was ours. He was here as a player, he was here as a broadcaster,” said legendary Oakland sports fan and radio personality David “Bleacher Dave” Peters.
Ray Fosse was my mentor & far more importantly to me, he was my friend. I will cherish our time together these last few years so much as you took the time to show me your tricks & share your stories. Our time in your office before the game was my favorite. You ARE A’s Baseball! pic.twitter.com/BVb9FuYmCB
— Dallas Braden (@DALLASBRADEN209) October 15, 2021
“It just speaks to the incredible impact that he made on so many people around baseball and especially with the A’s and their fans,” longtime A’s broadcast partner Ken Korach said.
So how did a man from a small town in Illinois grow to become a favorite son in the City of Oakland? It is a story of hard work, dedication, kindness, and, above all, an unwavering love of baseball and the Oakland A’s.
Ray Fosse’s baseball journey began in Cleveland in 1965, when the multi-sport star from Marion High School was selected seventh by the Indians in the first-ever MLB amateur draft. But his entire career could have taken a different route if he had gone to the University of Alabama, as he had originally planned. Legendary football coach Bear Bryant wanted Fosse to suit up for his Crimson Tide, but Fosse was so singularly focused on baseball that even the opportunity to play for Bryant couldn’t keep him away from the diamond.
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“He was just a baseball guy,” Robert Buan, who hosted A’s pre- and postgame show for 15 years, said. “He didn’t really care much about other sports. … Other than his family, there’s nothing that he loved more than (baseball). You don’t get that from a lot of people anymore.”
“He had this incredible love of the game,” Korach said. “I don’t know anyone that loved the game any more than Ray.”
Dubbed “the next Johnny Bench,” Fosse rose through the minor leagues quickly and made his MLB debut on Sept. 8, 1967. In 1970, Fosse hit 16 home runs during the first half of the season and made his first All-Star team. It was in the 12th inning of that Midsummer Classic that his career was forever altered when Pete Rose barreled him over during a play at the plate. Fosse fractured and dislocated his left shoulder on the play, although the extent of the damage to his shoulder wasn’t discovered until after the season, so he played through it despite not being able to lift his arm over his head. He hit .297 after that injury and .307 for that season.
“He was bitter about the Rose play for, I think forever, really. I didn’t bring it up on the air for years. He would bring it up occasionally, as it related to something. But we just didn’t talk about it,” Papa said. “His main thing was, I think, to a lot of people it made him look weak. Because Rose barreled him over. And he was not a weak player.”
Fosse would make the All-Star team again in 1971, but the shoulder injury and several fractured fingers eventually robbed him of his power at the plate — he would hit only 29 home runs after 1971. Despite the physical limitations, Fosse still accomplished a lot during his 12-year playing career — winning two World Series with the A’s, orchestrating Dennis Eckersley’s 1977 no-hitter, catching numerous Hall of Fame pitchers and building a library of knowledge and stories about the game that colored A’s broadcasts for more than three generations.
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Eckersley first met Fosse when the right-hander was pitching in minor-league camp at Indians spring training in 1973 and Fosse came over to watch the young guys work. Fosse was traded to the A’s later that spring, and Eckersley didn’t reconnect with him again until 1976, when Fosse returned to Cleveland.
At the time, the future Hall of Famer was a fireballing second-year starter who had posted a 2.60 ERA in his rookie season in 1975. He was paired up with Fosse as his catcher, and on May 30, 1977, the two combined on a no-hitter against the Angels. Fosse was traded to Seattle later that season, but he made a big impact on Eckersley in their time playing together.
Eckersley says Fosse was a commanding presence behind the plate, and forced him to cede control on the mound, something he wasn’t used to doing.
“He was controlling (behind the plate), and I was just the opposite. ‘Don’t you dare control me,’” he said. “I was a very anxious kind of guy on the mound, and he’s trying to tell me what to do several times, and I’m shaking him off. And he puts it right back (down). He controlled me as much as anyone could at that time. I was kicking, but I agreed with him.”
Dealing with a young Eckersley was nothing compared to the sea of huge personalities Fosse played with on those Swingin’ A’s teams. He joined the reigning World Champions in the spring of 1973. He once remarked on a broadcast that he feared he’d arrived on the club one year too late, but he not only helped the A’s defend their ’72 title, he also helped make them the only franchise other than the Yankees to win three World Series in a row when they won it all again in 1974.
The 1970s were halcyon days for the Oakland sports scene, with the A’s winning three straight titles, the Raiders winning the Super Bowl in 1977 and Warriors capturing an NBA title in 1975, and all three franchises doing it with a unique flair that reflected the dynamic and diverse city in which they played. For a city often overshadowed by its neighbor across the Bay, it was a shining moment.
Fosse left the A’s in 1976, but when he returned a few years later, he served as a connection to those glory days, educating fans on the air about the team’s rich, and often overlooked, history in Oakland.
“I think he took the responsibility really seriously of representing the club, and being a conduit on the air with the fan base,” Korach said.
Fosse’s tenure with the A’s stretched across four decades and spanned nearly the organization’s entire history in Oakland. After retiring as a player following spring training in 1980, Fosse got into broadcasting, narrating baseball videos for TRS Video Sports Productions. He soon joined the A’s front office, holding a variety of roles, including director of public relations, before joining the A’s broadcast team in 1986.
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Fosse joined a booth that included future Hall of Famers Bill King and Lon Simmons, and longtime A’s broadcaster Monte Moore. He provided color commentary on both the TV and radio sides of the broadcast and hosted a pregame show that featured engaging and informative interviews not only with A’s players and coaches but members of the opposing team, as well.
“He was somebody that when he got to the park and went to the field, Ray was immediately holding court,” Papa said. “Around the batting cage, he’d have his tape recorder with him. And he’d be working both sides of the diamond. He’d be in the visitors’ dugout, talking to all the visiting players as much as he was the A’s.
“He just had a commanding presence on the field. Very self-assured. Very accommodating and welcoming to everybody.”
Melvin first met Fosse as a visiting player and later as an opposing manager. Fosse’s interactions with the opposing team pregame helped him provide unique insight during the broadcast, but Melvin says game preparation wasn’t Fosse’s only motivation for those chats.
“He just loved everybody in baseball, everybody in baseball loved him,” Melvin said. “So whether he went over and talked to other teams, or they came over and talked to him, everybody kind of gravitated toward Ray, and knew what a big part of the early days (of the Oakland A’s) he was.”
Fosse didn’t want to just be informed about the game in front of him. He also sought out information on the A’s future.
“He was always a great advocate for the players and loved the rich history and tradition of the A’s,” A’s Hall of Famer and longtime farm director Keith Lieppmann said. “He treated me very well and always pushed for more recognition of the role the minor-league system played in developing players. He understood the big picture of our organization and how it flowed from top to bottom.
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“He was very thoughtful, respectful, and knew how to ask interesting and insightful questions. A true professional and friend.”
Fosse was able to gather that information and put it to good use because of his incredible recall about the game, Korach noted.
“He really knew the game backwards and forwards and, of course, having a catcher in the booth was like an added bonus because he could take you inside the game and the dynamic between the pitcher and the catcher. That was really fun,” Korach said. “He had this incredible memory where he could draw on things from decades before, and I was always stunned by that. ‘Yeah, it was a 2-1 slider in the bottom of the second inning in 1988,’ or something. ‘Ray, come on!’ He just did.
“He didn’t rest on his laurels as a former player and have this attitude where he could just show up and do the game because he played. He worked incredibly hard, and he had volumes of notebooks and stats and figures and notes that he took on players and games in the past. So he had this incredible wealth and reservoir of information at his disposal.
“I always respected just how hard he worked.”
Fosse always had a special appreciation for catchers, which led Melvin to share a special bond with him.
“It was just just so easy to talk to him,” Melvin said. “He was understanding of the position and, and what the leadership part of it was and so forth.
“Early on, when I got here, he gave me a no-hinged old catcher’s glove, and I put it up in my office. I look at it every day, and I’ll look at it every day from here going forward because of what he meant to me and what he meant to the organization. That catching bond was felt right away, and I think it just enhanced our relationship.”
Fosse, in some ways, was an extension of the A’s coaching staff.
“Kind of acted like he was still a player,” Papa said. “Always in a respectful way, of the players and everybody. But he just kind of, he was one of them. And I think that when it came time to go up to the booth and put the headsets on and do the game, he came across that way.”
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Although Fosse wore his affinity for the A’s on his sleeve, he wasn’t afraid to criticize the A’s play when it was warranted.
“He wasn’t a homer in the sense that he didn’t say ‘we’ or ‘us,’ like Hawk (Harrelson). But it was quite clear that he was looking at the game through green-and-gold glasses,” Papa said.
Eckersley joined the A’s in a trade in 1987 (Fosse’s second season in the A’s broadcast booth). He was dominant in his nine seasons as the A’s closer, but if Eckersley ever found himself in a rut, Fosse wasn’t shy about sharing what he was seeing.
“You don’t need any help when you’re dealing, and he wasn’t going to shy away from me when I wasn’t,” he said. “And that was helpful because it’s not easy to do something like that. But I always appreciated whatever he had to say because he had a way about him.”
“He would critique. He would criticize. He would speak his mind,” Papa said. “And he knew the game inside and out. Being a catcher, he just knew that ultimate confrontation between the pitcher and the batter so well because that was his life. Ray was an extraordinarily good catcher. And he just saw the complete game. So he was a joy to work with, from the moment I arrived at a park to the moment I left.”
Broadcasting baseball games, especially for one team for so long, is about more than what you say, though. It’s about how you say it. Or, more specifically, how you sound when you narrate the day’s action while also telling stories about the past. It’s a sport that requires its broadcasters to not just be informative, but also a welcome enough voice to be allowed in our cars and living rooms and backyards well over 100 times a year. Any broadcaster who boasts the longevity that Fosse achieved needs something a little extra.
Fosse had credibility as a former A’s player, but he also had something more difficult to define that made A’s fans consider him almost like a member of the family. This was clear when he worked with anyone, but he seemed to have an especially nice rapport with Glen Kuiper — a fellow native midwesterner — whom Fosse worked with on the TV side for almost two decades.
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“I really liked his voice,” Korach said. “I love the way he sounded. It was a comfortable listen. You have to wear well over all these years, which he obviously did. And he had that little southern Illinois, slight little southern kind of seasoning to his voice in a way, if that makes any sense. I loved the way his voice blended in with ours on the broadcast and I thought it was just perfect. He had a really comfortable sound.”
Like Fosse, Eckersley has created a successful second act as a broadcaster. Eckersley got his feet wet right after he retired, and called a handful of A’s games with Fosse in 1999 when Fosse filled in for Papa on the play-by-play and Eckersley was the color guy. Eckersley says Fosse taught him a lot during those broadcasts and again when he would come into town as a visiting broadcaster with the Red Sox.
But Fosse’s influence on Eckersley’s broadcasting began even before his playing days ended, when he’d listen to Fosse in the clubhouse before heading out to the bullpen in the sixth inning. As he’s grown into his own as a broadcaster, Eckersley says he appreciates even more the candor that Fosse had when critiquing players and coaches he knew personally.
“It’s not an easy thing to do to have relationships with people while you’re doing the game, right? Because you have to be critical when it’s time to be critical. He had a way about him of doing that job like that,” Eckersley said. “He helped me so much when I started broadcasting, I mean, immensely, you know? He just was so giving up till the end. He would send me scouting reports all the time. And every time I came into town, I was drawn to him.”
Eckersley was one of many broadcasters on which Fosse has had a significant impact. In 1995, Buan was only a few years out of school and working at KNBR when he heard about a job opening with the A’s. A friend gave him Fosse’s number and told him he’d likely get his answering machine and to leave a message. Much to Buan’s surprise, Fosse called back roughly an hour and a half later. Not long after that conversation, Buan had an interview and, soon thereafter, a job with the A’s that lasted 15 years.
Now the producer and co-host of CountryFastball, Buan says he is even more appreciative of the time Fosse gave him at the start of his career.
“The thing that you come to appreciate with any job, anybody who has any kind of renown, whether it’s a broadcaster, or athlete, or somebody that’s in the public spotlight, you become hyper aware of how valuable their time is,” he said. “It was something that obviously I appreciated more as I got into (my career) and really understood how much of a real treasure or blessing it was that he opened that door for me.”
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Buan recorded thousands of segments with Fosse during their years together with the A’s, but he says what he remembers most are the things Fosse did off the mic, like helping him get a suit early in his career, giving him advice on how to approach Bob Feller for an interview, and where to get the best tables at a restaurant on the road.
Korach says Fosse’s welcoming nature and kindness also helped him when he took over for Simmons as the second A’s play-by-play announcer alongside King in 1996.
“Lon and Ray were very close, they were very close friends, and spent a lot of time together. And yet, Ray welcomed me into the booth from the first day,” Korach said. “It’s hard to repay someone for that, when you’re replacing an icon. Lon was one of my heroes. Yet Ray was welcoming from the first day. And so there’s no price you can pay for something like that, that kind of acceptance and credibility.”
Ray made me feel welcome on day one and I am forever grateful. Nothing but great memories. Lots of stories and laughter and baseball. It is an enormous hole in the A’s family and in the booth . Prayers to Carol, Lindsey, Nikki and the grandkids. Love you Ray. pic.twitter.com/VWC5VO42yD
— Vince Cotroneo (@vincebaseball) October 14, 2021
In recent years, the A’s have had several younger broadcasters make their major-league debuts, filling in when one of their broadcasters was away from the club. Fosse always went out of his way to make those “rookies” feel like they belonged.
Current Triple-A Reno Aces broadcaster Zack Bayrouty spent nearly 15 seasons as the broadcaster for the A’s High-A affiliate, the Stockton Ports. Before he called his first big-league game alongside Vince Cotroneo on Sept. 3, 2019, Bayrouty says he’d only met Fosse once before. But Fosse remembered the conversation and “incorporated me into his pregame banter with Vince and Shooty (Babbitt) and made me feel so at ease.”
“He asked me about Stockton and some of the guys I’d seen come up over the years,” Bayrouty said. “He made me feel like I belonged, and that time on the field will always be one of my fondest baseball memories. I’ll always be grateful to Ray for his warmth that day, which also helped me get through those butterflies.”
“If you were a good person, he celebrated your success. He wanted you to do well,” Buan said.
There is no single moment that can encapsulate 35 years of broadcasts, but there was “the scream.”
Say “the Fosse scream” to any A’s fan who has followed the team at length and they know exactly what you are referring to.
“The sound he made when Coco got the hit. That sound he made is priceless,” Bleacher Dave said.
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Oct. 10, 2012. The upstart A’s had captured their first AL West title since 2006 with a furious late-season comeback that included a sweep over the Texas Rangers to clinch the division in Game 162. The A’s took on the Detroit Tigers in the ALDS and immediately found themselves in an 0-2 hole. After winning Game 3, it looked as though the A’s magical season would end quietly, as they entered the ninth of Game 4 trailing 3-1. But the A’s had one more punch left in them. A Seth Smith double tied the game and, with two-outs, Coco Crisp came to the plate. (Skip to the 3:05 mark in the video)
On the radio side, Korach delivered a call for the ages — “And Coco hits a base hit to right field, Smith to third, the ball is bobbled in right by García, and the A’s have won it!” Just as the ball is bobbled, you can hear Fosse let out a scream of joy.
“It’s been known ever since as the Fosse scream play,” Korach said. “And he was apologetic after that. He said, ‘Oh man, I hated to do that on your call.’ And I said, ‘Ray, it’s fine. If anyone had the license to do that, it’s you because our fans love that unbridled enthusiasm and the pure joy that came out of your voice and so you have the license to do that.’
“And I think our fans get a kick out of hearing that call, even now. Just the spontaneity of it all, I think, kind of made it. That to me kind of represents his love of the game and his love that he had, the deep-seated love that he had for the A’s. That something like that, as dramatic as that, just brought this out of him.”
That love was easily reciprocated by the fans, who displayed banners and wore T-shirts saying “Win for Fosse” when he announced earlier this season he was stepping away from the booth to focus on his cancer fight.
The lasting impression Fosse left on the game was obvious in the sheer outpouring of concern and later grief when Fosse first announced he was stepping away and when he passed away. Melvin said he was contacted by “so many people, it was incredible, Hall of Famers included, all looking to see how they could express their good wishes for him.”
As Eckersley talked about the man who made such an impact on his life, his voice cracked with emotion: “Sometimes it takes something like this to happen to make you really realize how much you cared about a guy, you know?”
(Photo: Jason O. Watson / Getty Images)