Bill Mercer

From BR Bullpen

William A. Mercer

Biographical Information[edit]

Bill Mercer was the play-by-play announcer of the Texas Rangers starting with their inaugural season in 1972. By then he was a veteran of minor league broadcasts, first in his hometown of Muskogee, OK and in the Dallas, TX-Fort Worth, TX area starting in 1958, broadcasting the games of the Dallas Rangers and Dallas-Fort Worth Spurs. His first broadcast partner with the Rangers was Don Drysdale, who had worked the previous two seasons as part of the Montreal Expos' English-language broadcast team. The third member of the original broadcast team was Tom Vandergriff, the mayor of Arlington, TX, who had played an instrumental role in bringing the Rangers from Washington, DC to Texas.

Mercer only stayed in the booth for the Rangers for a couple of seasons, moving to team up with Harry Caray with the Chicago White Sox in 1974. He returned to work in radio in Texas after that stint and later retired to Durham, NC. In additiona to baseball, he broadcast a number of other sports including college and professional football, college basketball, and wrestling. He was also behind the microphone when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963 and wrote a book about his experience that fateful day and also taught broadcast journalisms to students. He published his memoirs in 2007.

He served in the United States Navy during World War II, from 1943 to 1946, after which he was able to go to college thanks to the G.I. Bill, obtaining a broadcasting degree from the University of Denver in 1949. He is a member of the Texas Radio Hall of Fame. His granddaughter, Emma Tiedemann, became a broadcaster for the Portland Sea Dogs.

Further Reading[edit]

  • Bo Carter: "Bill Mercer", in Steve West and Bill Nowlin, eds.: The Team That Couldn't Hit: The 1972 Texas Rangers, SABR, Phoenix, AZ, 2019, pp. 281-284. ISBN 978-1-943816-93-4

Related Sites[edit]