A's PA Announcer happy to cancel cruise in the interest of playoff baseball

ORINDA -- Perfectly positioned at the climax of a glorious, improbable season as the Oakland A's public address announcer, Dick Callahan refuses to be a sacrifice flyer. That's no baseball typo -- it's the truth. In April, believing the naysayers, Callahan booked an $11,000 air and cruise vacation for his family that was to have happened this week. "I drank the Kool-Aid of the prognosticators," he admits, shaking his head. "People were saying they would lose 100 games. I thought, 'This team is not going to develop into a contending team.' " In the nine years since succeeding announcer Roy Steele after his 37-year run as the Coliseum voice of the A's, Callahan has used revenue from working for the A's to finance trips with his three grown daughters and their husbands. He has never scheduled a trip during the postseason -- until this year. read full story