Pi-Gonzalez now an Angel

Well, that didn't take long.

Add Amaury Pi-Gonzalez, an Spanish-language broadcaster who worked his first A's game in 1977, to the list of great announcers that Lew Wolff, John Fisher and Steve Schott let get away.

A reliable source has told us that Pi-Gonzalez has taken a job doing play-by-play in Spanish for the Los Angeles Clippers NBA team, and he will be at the mic starting this spring for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

Pi-Gonzalez wanted to stay with the A's, even though he had to take a pay cut last year as the broadcasts were taken off the air during the season and placed on the Internet.

"I have never had this happen to me in the middle of a season," he said. "It is an insult to the fans, to the Hispanic community."

It gets worse. The A's didn't even guarantee him that they're even going to have Spanish-language broadcasts at all this year. That's right -- the A's would be the only professional team in California not to have Spanish-language broadcasts, Pi-Gonzalez told us in a recent interview.

He added: "... the A's would like to keep our broadcast in Spanish, yes, as long as someone else puts it on the radio ... as long as someone else pays for it."

Once again, loyal Oakland A's fans suffer because the team owners do little but offer a weaker product. Same old Wolff and Fisher, same old cheapskate ways, and same old incompetent result.