I have to admit I’m a frontrunner. Although I have stuck by the San Francisco 49ers through thick and thin ever since I was 5 years old in 1970. Of course they were a winning team when I became a fan.

But I have to admit I sort of look down on those Johnny Come Lately 49er fans who are about my age who are “post-Joe Montana” 49er fans.

To show you how long I’ve been a 49ers fan my favorite 49ers quarterback isn’t Joe Montana it’s John Brodie (who belongs in the Hall of Fame by the way). And my favorite 49ers receiver isn’t Jerry Rice it’s Gene Washington (who had an awesome afro by the way. I have to admit a close second is John Taylor because he racked up a lot of points for me in my Fantasy League.

For some reason my parents were 49er and Oakland Athletics fans when I was a kid so I also became an Oakland A’s fan. I remember on my 6th birthday in 1971 my parents took me to the Oakland Coliseum to see my first Major League Baseball games when the A’s hosted the Washington Senators in a doubleheader.

The A’s swept the doubleheader. The A’s won 5-2 and Vida Blue pitched a no-hitter in a 9-0 win in the nightcap.

All I remember is Blue Moon Odom was warming up in the bullpen in the nightcap and with Blue pitching I remember a fan sitting near us yelling out to him “Aw Blue Moon you can sit down we don’t need you today.”

The other thing I remember was Frank Howard may have been the worst defensive first baseman in Major League history and it was sluggers like Howard that led to the, ugh, designated hitter.

Anyway I remained an A’s fan through 1977. But that time the team had been decimated by free agency and were a shell of themselves during their hey day. Although they were a losing team all of my favorite players from those A’s teams were gone by then so it just wasn’t the same being an A’s fan.

So in 1978 with the San Francisco Giants challenging the Los Angeles Dodgers and Cincinnati Reds for the National League Western Division title I jumped on the bandwagon and became a Giants fan. I’ve been a Giants fan ever since.

Anyway what was the point of this column? Oh yeah I just came across a wonderful documentary about the A’s in their hey day when they won three straight World Series titles. MLB Network’s The Swingin’ A’s came out eight years ago in 2017 so I can’t believe I just now came across the documentary.

The documentary focuses on the A’s mercurial owner Charlie Finley. MC Hammer narrates the documentary.

As a young boy Hammer would dance for money at the Coliseum before A’s games. Finley saw him and eventually brought him into the A’s organization where Hammer did various tasks.

He was a bat boy, ran errands and Finley went on to name Hammer even still as a boy as executive vice president although the position was actually semi-legitimate. Hammer’s main role as covered in the documentary was basically to be an eyes and ears of the A’s locker room and to report back to Finley on all the shenanigans that went on in the locker room. For this Hammer received the nickname “Pipeline” from A’s players.

Finley actually never went to the A’s games, remaining in Chicago where he lived. So another task of Hammer was to provide play-by-play updates of the games to Finley over the phone.

So now for the six degrees of separation from Porterville. You already know Monte Moore was the legendary play-by-play announcer for the A’s during their hey day and came to Porterville when he bought KTIP radio.

Well so impressed was Finley with Hammer’s play-by-play even though he was still quite young, Finley informed Moore he wanted Hammer to go on the air on the radio. While there are different versions of what happened Moore gives the definitive report of what happened when he experienced “Hammertime” in the documentary. Moore said after Hammer did one out he got a call from the general manager of the A’s flagship radio station and was told “get that kid off the air.”

It should also be noted MC Hammer got the nickname Hammer while he was with the A’s for his uncanny resemblance to Hank Aaron, who was known as The Hammer.

Which leads me to another tangent. There’s an absolutely hilarious episode of one of my favorite shows, Sports Night, featuring “The Cut Man,” who gave himself the nickname. Jeremy a producer pronounces you can’t give yourself a nickname to which Isaac the head honcho laments he wishes he could give himself the nickname Hammer but knows he can’t give himself a nickname and besides it’s already taken by Hank Aaron.

Back to the subject at hand now you know about the six degrees of separation from Porterville when it comes to MC Hammer.

So here’s to “Porterville’s” M and M boys, Monte Moore and MC Hammer.

And here’s to the Swingin’ A’s.

Charles Whisnand is The Porterville Recorder Editor. Contact him at cwhisnand@portervillerecorder.com or 784-5000.