Hank Greenwald

Howard "Hank" Greenwald (born June 26, 1935 in Detroit, Michigan) is a former Major League Baseball announcer, known best for being a play-by-play announcer for the San Francisco Giants.

Biography

Early career

Greenwald changed his name from Howard to Hank to honor Detroit Tigers Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg. He began his broadcasting career calling games for his alma mater Syracuse University. He was also a broadcaster for the former NBA team, the Syracuse Nationals. In the 1960s, he broadcast Hawaii Islanders baseball in the Pacific Coast League.

San Francisco Giants (first and second stints) and the New York Yankees

Greenwald began calling games for the Giants in 1979, but ended this stint in 1986, after Greenwald had a disagreement with station management. After joining the New York Yankees radio broadcast team for the next two seasons, Greenwald returned to the Giants in 1989 when the team reached the World Series. Greenwald later expressed resentment toward Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, saying "Steinbrenner is everything you've heard, maybe worse."

He remained in San Francisco until 1996, when he announced his retirement. At the time he retired, Greenwald had announced 2,798 consecutive games. In his book This Copyrighted Broadcast, Greenwald cites disagreements with Giants' Vice President Larry Baer as his reason for retiring. The Giants hired former Baltimore Orioles and ESPN announcer Jon Miller as Greenwald's replacement.

Perhaps Hank Greenwald's most memorable call was his emotional description of the final out in Game 5 of the 1989 National League Championship Series (which sent the San Francisco Giants to the World Series for the first time since 1962).

Twenty-seven years of waiting have come to an end! The Giants have won the pennant!

Oakland Athletics

In 2004, Greenwald was hired as a television play-by-play announcer for the Oakland Athletics working about 1/3rd of the team's telecasts with analyst Ray Fosse. He announced games for the A's in the 2004 and 2005 seasons.

Other San Francisco Bay Area assignments

Greenwald also has called play-by-play for the Golden State Warriors with legendary announcer Bill King and the University of San Francisco Dons.

Doug Greenwald

His son Doug, named after General Douglas MacArthur, is the play-by-play announcer for the Giants' AAA team, the Fresno Grizzlies. His first game announcing for the major league Giants was on September 6, 2009; he filled in for regular announcer Dave Flemming, whose wife was expected to give birth. Most recently, he also had to fill in for both Flemming and fellow broadcaster Jon Miller during a July 23–25, 2010 series against the Arizona Diamondbacks since Miller had to go up to Cooperstown to receive the Ford C. Frick Award, and Flemming also had to be there to support him after Flemming solely called the first game on July 22. Like Flemming, Doug solely called the remaining three games on the radio accompanied by color commentator J. T. Snow.