Courtesy San Francisco Chronicle

(January 26, 2009) Harry Caray lasted only one year in the Bay Area. He claimed he left the A's broadcast booth because of interference from owner Charlie Finley. Nonetheless, the act that made him a hero in St. Louis and later in Chicago didn't go over here.

A play-by-play broadcaster who rejoices when his team does well but blasts the unfortunate soul who fails in the clutch - like Caray's anguished groan, "He-e-e popped it up!" - is much more common elsewhere, especially in the Midwest.

In the Bay Area, you'll rarely hear a broadcaster refer to the home team as "we" or "us." You won't hear somebody root openly like the late Bob Prince, the voice of the Pittsburgh Pirates, who when an opposing catcher muffed strike three to batter Bob Bailey, could be heard screaming out of the booth, "Run, Bob, run!"

The kelly green perspective that Boston Celtics fans loved from raspy-voiced Johnny Most from the 1950s through the '80s - and still get from TV analyst Tom Heinsohn - would be considered way over the top here.

Analysts, like the Giants' Mike Krukow, typically have more leeway to be supportive, but it's Bay Area play-by-play broadcasters who seem to be showing more hometown bias than they used to. Even while most of the local pro teams have struggled in recent years, there seems to be more of a tendency to root at the microphone than there used to be.

Maybe it's because they're generally employed by the teams rather than by stations, as broadcasters used to be. Maybe it's because they feel it's the best way to connect with viewers or listeners in an increasingly fragmented media world.

Listeners are the most important judges, but some of the broadcasters themselves see a trend toward "homerism," or excessive boosterism.

"The Bay Area has changed," said Greg Papa, the voice of the Raiders since 1997 and a member of the Giants' broadcast team. "The broadcasters have changed. I'm not sure how it changed or why."

Papa is as professional and polished as any sports broadcaster in the Bay Area, but he includes himself when he says, "I think we've all become a little softer to the teams we cover.

"Maybe that's the right way. You're speaking to your audience, and they want the team to win. There is a little more 'homerism' in the Bay Area than there was when Bill (King), Hank (Greenwald) and Lon (Simmons) were in their prime."

Joe Starkey agrees. He recently stepped down as the voice of the 49ers after two decades but will continue to broadcast Cal football, as he has done since 1975.

"I think we've become a little more rah-rah over the years," he said. "When I was starting out, the tone was drastically different from what I grew up with in the Midwest, with Jack Brickhouse in Chicago, Harry Caray in St. Louis and Ernie Harwell in Detroit. All of them had the ability to captivate you because they were great entertainers, but they gave the company line. It was 'we' and 'us.' The ultimate is Hawk Harrelson, who still refers to the White Sox as 'the good guys.' "

Stylistically, local broadcasters may be inching into the Hawk's airspace.

"I agree there is a trend toward homerism in the Bay Area," said the retired Hank Greenwald, whose wit enlivened Giants broadcasts for many years. "When I started in the Bay Area, the general attitude among fans was that they were too sophisticated for that approach, but I think it's changing. Maybe there's pressure from above, pressure to sell (tickets)."

Play-by-play people realize they're expected to be sympathetic to the local team. They generally do it by the inflection in their voices rather than by overt rooting, but there's no question who they want to win. That's especially true of the Giants' TV team of Duane Kuiper and Krukow, a duo that Papa thinks helps set the tone for other Bay Area broadcasters.

"If Manny Ramirez hits a homer to beat the Giants at Dodger Stadium, it's going to be a dramatic moment," Kuiper said. "If Bengie Molina does it at AT&T Park, you're probably going to fall out of your chair making the home-run call. You have to capture the moment."

Until the late 1970s or early '80s, broadcasters generally worked for stations. Since then, most of them have been employed by the teams. That might explain an increase in bias. But Kuiper thinks part of it is just human nature.

"If we're going to televise 162 games, get on a plane with these guys, go in the locker room every day, it's going to be a little harder to criticize them than the other team," he said. "But you have to tell the truth when a guy misses the cutoff, or doesn't run hard. It's not that we're calling them out. We're explaining what happens. There's a way of doing that without creating enemies."

ho's signing the paycheck?

The prevailing view of the broadcasters interviewed was that club executives generally resist the urge to tell them to ratchet up the hometown support. None thought a broadcaster would be more apt to be a booster if his paycheck came from a club rather than a station because a club (or a university) always had the right to reject a broadcaster at contract time.

Ted Robinson, the new voice of the 49ers and a former member of the Giants' and A's crews, grew up in New York idolizing Marv Albert, whose NBA style was the antithesis of homers like Most. "You hope to communicate your preference through the tone of your voice," Robinson said.

Years ago, he interviewed for a Cubs broadcasting job, and a key question was, "Could you bleed Cubs blue?" He stammered through an answer and didn't get the job.

Most local broadcasters would recoil against being labeled a "homer." Not Bob Fitzgerald, a Chicago native who broadcasts the Warriors' games on TV.

"So a guy is a homer, so what?" he said. "You live with these guys (the players). You care about them and their families. You wouldn't be human if you didn't care about them."

He said his support for the Warriors doesn't stop him from criticizing their play. "If players are not getting back on defense, you have every right to be critical," he said.

Referring to the late voice of the Warriors, Raiders and A's, he said, "If Bill King were announcing today, he would be considered one of the biggest homers in the history of broadcasting."

He might get an argument from some of the people King worked with or mentored.

"You have to appreciate the good plays the other team is making," said Lon Simmons, the former longtime 49ers and Giants broadcaster who worked with King on the A's games. "I thought Bill was great at that."

Ken Korach, about to enter his 14th season calling the A's games, credits King and Simmons for "a tradition of fairness" on the club's broadcasts. "You're not yelling for the ball to go foul or over the fence," he said.

Where King was most apt to stray from calling or analyzing the action was in his tendency to blast officials, especially when the calls went against the Warriors.

"He didn't have room for incompetence," said Roxy Bernstein, who calls Cal basketball and used to do Florida Marlins games. "He expected perfection from himself and he expected the officials to be perfect too."

ompeting for audience

Creeping homerism may be a response to the increasingly fragmented audience, according to Papa. He points out the proliferation of games on cable TV and satellite radio has given audiences more alternatives than ever. Local broadcasters may feel the need to stake out a unique identity by aligning themselves more closely with their teams.

"I think it's a good thing," said Papa, who is employed by KSFO to do the games but does a weekly in-season TV show and some offseason work for the Raiders. "You're speaking to your audience. That's what they want."

Greenwald disagrees. "It compromises your objectivity," he said. He didn't want to criticize any broadcaster by name, but he said, "There are instances when the home team is down by a huge margin, and somebody hits a double, and it sounds like it's the seventh game of the World Series. Any home run that's hit isn't the most exciting thing that ever happened."

Nor does he think the number of media alternatives can be used to justify homerism. "If you're broadcasting the Giants or the A's or the 49ers, people are tuning in specifically to hear about that team. You're not competing with other broadcasts."

Not every local broadcaster sees an uptick in homerism. Korach is one of them. Rather, he senses a national trend of broadcasters making over-the-top calls that will be more apt to make ESPN's "SportsCenter." "Instead of simply making the call, they're trying to make sure it gets played on a highlights package," he said.

The Giants' Dave Flemming doesn't sense any creeping local homerism either. "I don't think you can fully enjoy a broadcast if you don't think a broadcaster is being honest with you," he said. "Fans can see right through any company line."

He said, "Two announcers who were among the greatest in Bay Area history - Russ (Hodges) and Lon (who teamed up on the Giants' games) - were friends of players. My perspective is that those guys were more attached to the team than anybody now."

immons' retort

Simmons said he and Hodges used to get letters accusing them of being homers. So they started playing the other team's broadcast for an inning, and fans got an earful of Midwestern or Eastern boosterism. When Giants pitcher Mike McCormick was struggling, for instance, the Pirates' Prince would bellow advice for Giants manager Bill Rigney: "Come and get him, Rig! Stick a fork in him! He's done!" According to Simmons, the criticism of him and Hodges died down after that.

One old-school fan of Hodges and Simmons seems untouched by homerism accusations in his own play-by-play. The Giants' Jon Miller, nationally known because of his longtime involvement with ESPN's "Sunday Night Baseball," rarely treats Giants foibles delicately. In fact, some listeners - including reportedly some within the organization - think he's too hard on the Giants.

"Sometimes when you really care how the team does, you can tend to be too harsh on them," Miller said. "If the other team makes a mistake, well, good. You're not as tuned into them."

His greater familiarity with the Giants, he said, makes him more apt to point out any habitual failings. "You want to be fair and accurate, but sometimes it's not fair or accurate - it's a gut response," he said.

"The ultimate differentiation between a homer and someone who isn't is: Are you getting an accurate reflection of what's happening?"

Wherever a broadcaster stands on the homerism scale, his popularity depends on subjective considerations, Starkey points out. "A play-by-play man is like a politician," he said. "Some people will vote for you every time, and others will say, 'God help you if you keep the job a day longer.' "

Starkey's most memorable call was imbued with homerism, however justifiable given the circumstances. That was his celebration of The Play in the 1982 Big Game: "THE BEARS HAVE WON! Oh my God, the most amazing, sensational, dramatic, heart-rending, exciting, thrilling finish in the history of college football!"

How would he have called the same play if it had been done by Stanford rather than Cal?

"I wouldn't have been as excited about the outcome," he said. "But I've always been so enthusiastic about broadcasting. I like to think I would have been as excited by what occurred. Who won was almost irrelevant. It was an electrifying situation."

"If you're employed by the station, you're one-eighth of their programming. They only care to the extent that they're selling advertising. If you're working for a team, you're working with the baseball end of the operation."

Hank Greenwald, former Giants broadcaster on why he'd rather work for teams than stations

"If there's any trend, I sense a little more reluctance to criticize the local guy and a little more tendency to accentuate the positive. If that's homerism, so be it."

Randy Hahn, Sharks TV play-by-play man

"I don't sense a trend. This kind of (homerism) concern comes up when teams are struggling."

Tim Roye, Warriors radio announcer