Name Bill Brown Education University of Missouri | Role Baseball player | |
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Born September 20, 1947 (age 76) ( 1947-09-20 ) Sedalia, Missouri Occupation Sportscaster, Houston Astros Similar People Jim Deshaies, Geoff Blum, Alan Ashby | ||
Bill Brown (born September 20, 1947) is a retired American baseball announcer. After spending several years working Cincinnati Reds broadcasts, Brown worked for the Houston Astros from 1987 to 2016.
Biography
Brown did play-by-play for the Cincinnati Stingers Television Network for the 1975-76 season and the Cincinnati Reds Television Network from 1976-1982. He worked four years with Ken Coleman and another four years with Ray Lane. Brown also called Xavier Musketeers and Cincinnati Bearcats basketball and Cincinnati Swords hockey early in his career, and was a senior producer and anchor of the Financial News Network's SCORE programing and sports director of the Sports Time Cable Network. he was sports director of Home Sports Entertainment in Pittsburgh.
With the Astros, Brown was often called "Brownie" by his play-by-play partner Alan Ashby. He has developed a reputation as a broadcaster who often played the straight man to former partner Jim Deshaies' humorous asides. Brown retired on September 28, 2016, after the final Astros home game of the 2016 season. He lives in Houston with his wife, Dianne. They have a daughter and three grandchildren.
Brown was inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame on November 12. 2004. In 2011 Brown was inducted into the Media Wall of Honor at Minute Maid Park. The Texas Italian-American Sports Foundation presented him with a community service award. The Houston baseball media presented him with the Fred Hartman Award for Long and Meritorious service in 2012. In 2013 Brown was voted Texas Sportscaster of the Year by the Texas voters in the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association (now the National Sports Media Association) in Salisbury, N.C.