Legendary broadcaster Lon Simmons, who introduced generations of Californians to major-league baseball and broadcast the 1989 earthquake-interrupted World Series and the 49ers’ road to Super Bowl XXIII, died at his Daly City home Sunday. He was 91.

Mr. Simmons, who was honored by baseball’s Hall of Fame as the 2004 Ford C. Frick Award winner, had credited the success of Bay Area sports teams with helping him cope with his three-year battle with cancer, especially the Giants’ championship teams and more recently the Warriors.

Featuring a baritone voice and a witty, casual approach, Mr. Simmons was the liaison between the Giants and the fans who listened in their living rooms, backyards or work locales, usually on a transistor radio, to the exploits of players from Willie Mays to Barry Bonds.

“Lon was like my big brother,” Mays said. “Anybody who knew him knew he was very genuine. He’d always tell you the truth. When I went into a slump, he was one of the guys I’d listen to. Just a nice man. He was always there for me in all kinds of situations. I’m really going to miss him.”

Both sides of the bay

Known for his self-deprecation and classic “you can tell it goodbye” home run call, Mr. Simmons teamed with Russ Hodges on Giants broadcasts when the team moved to San Francisco in 1958 and worked through 1973, then returned to the booth in 1976 for three more years and again from 1996 to 2002.

Mr. Simmons partnered with Bill King on A’s games from 1981 to 1995, including Oakland’s World Series victory over the Giants in 1989. The same year, he called the 49ers’ Super Bowl victory over the Bengals.

“Lon was the first guy to interview me when I came up in ’59 after my 4-for-4,” said Hall of Famer Willie McCovey, who broke into the majors with a four-hit game, including two triples. “That was my introduction to him. We’ve been friends ever since, and we got closer and closer over the years.”

McCovey recalled Mr. Simmons as “the quickest-witted guy I ever met in my life. You say something, he could come back with a joke right away as if it was rehearsed, he was that quick. He was amazing. I’ll miss his jokes.

“We had a little comedy routine that I didn’t realize. I didn’t talk a whole lot in those days. Lon would ask me a question and almost had to answer it for me. I always just said, 'That’s right, Lon.’ That line kind of became famous. We got a big kick out of that in later years.”

Self-deprecating humor

An example of Mr. Simmons’ humor was expressed in a 2013 interview with The Chronicle when he said, “I’ve had people come up to me, saying, 'Boy, I used to sneak up to my bedroom with my transistor and fall asleep listening to you.’ I’d say, 'Don’t worry about that. Everybody fell asleep listening to me.’”

Giants President Larry Baer’s recollection of Mr. Simmons dates to childhood.

“Like many fans, my earliest Giants memories were listening to Lon and Russ on my transistor radio,” Baer said. “Hearing his broadcasts ignited me and thousands of others’ passion for Giants baseball. He will be deeply missed by all of us.”

Former Giants marketing executive Pat Gallagher, who worked for the team from 1976 until 2009, said Mr. Simmons was as important in Northern California as Vin Scully has been in Southern California.

“He was as important as Mays, McCovey, (Juan) Marichal and (Orlando) Cepeda in developing the relationship fans had with the Giants during the formative years,” Gallagher said. “This was the first time many of those people had experienced major-league baseball. It’s not like they grew up with it. The guy they grew up with and who brought it to them was Lon Simmons.”

Gallagher said Simmons’ departure from Giants broadcasts in 1979 led to a major shift. Before that, radio stations employed the broadcasters. Simmons left after a tiff with the KNBR station manager and joined the A’s. After that, the Giants insisted on hiring and employing the broadcasters so something like that wouldn’t recur.

As the Giants were about to fly to Phoenix for Monday’s opener against the Diamondbacks, broadcasters Mike Krukow and Duane Kuiper were toasting Mr. Simmons’ memory.

A life well lived

“I can’t imagine a life more fulfilled than his,” Kuiper said. “Those had to be 91 of the most fun years a person could ever have.”

Said Krukow: “There wasn’t a pretentious bone in his body. He was a humble man. He was a gentleman — and he had that little twinkle in his eye.”

Krukow recalled a broadcast during which Mr. Simmons forced Krukow, who rarely does play-by-play, to call an inning solo. Krukow remembered being upset with himself after the game, thinking he’d done a poor job. He recalled Mr. Simmons putting his hand on his shoulder.

Said Krukow: “He said, 'Listen, remember: You’re never as bad as you think you are.’ And I looked at him right in the eye, and he said, 'But you’re never as good as you think you are, either.’”

Broadcaster Jon Miller grew up in Hayward, listening to Mr. Simmons and Hodges and said Mr. Simmons “made the game exciting and interesting, and the broadcast was always entertaining, whether the team was entertaining or not.

“He not only had a great sense of humor, (but) it was all off-the-cuff and sometimes it was wicked. … He didn’t mind if you were laughing at him or whatever. It was all about the laugh.”

Miller called the Simmons/King team on A’s games “probably the all-time blockbuster pairing in Bay Area sports broadcasting history.”

Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley, who was inducted into the Cooperstown shrine the year Simmons received the Frick award, grew up in Fremont listening to Mr. Simmons and got to know him well when both worked for the A’s.

“He was a special guy,” Eckersley said. “Everybody talks about listening to the radio in bed as a kid, but I really did. I listened to Lon — and then to end up being friends with him was thrilling. He was always a gentleman.”

Among Mr. Simmons’ memorable calls: Mays’ 600th home run, McCovey’s dramatic homer upon his return to the Giants in 1977, Mike Ivie’s grand slam against the Dodgers in 1978 and the final out of the 1989 World Series.

In football, Mr. Simmons’ calls included Minnesota’s Jim Marshall running 66 yards the wrong way, Joe Montana’s clinching touchdown pass to John Taylor in Super Bowl XXIII and Steve Young’s breathless game-winning 49-yard scramble against the Vikings.

“I ran into Steve Young afterward and said, 'You know, we both ran out of gas at the same time,’” Mr. Simmons said in the 2013 Chronicle interview.

Mr. Simmons’ daughter Robin Simmons, who cared for him in Hawaii, where he retired, and more recently on the Peninsula, said despite the sickness later in life, “He knew he had a terrific life. He was one of the lucky ones to do all the things he got to do. He loved the Giants and the organization, which stood by him.”

A fan to the end

Amid visits to the hospital for tests and in some cases surgeries, Mr. Simmons said, “What helped me, I didn’t think about what was happening to me when the Giants were playing.”

More recently, Mr. Simmons jumped on the Warriors’ bandwagon. Robin Simmons said a Chronicle article on Klay Thompson inspired them to more closely follow the team, adding, “They’re great guys, and watching the Warriors, he forgot about all the trouble he was having.”

Mr. Simmons is survived by daughters Robin and Cindy, stepdaughters Lisa and Kelsey, and a brother, Dale. No funeral is planned. A memorial will be scheduled for a later date.

Staff writers Henry Schulman and Ron Kroichick contributed to this report.

John Shea and Steve Kroner are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. E-mail:[email protected], [email protected] Twitter: @JohnSheaHey, @SteveKronerSF

Signature calls

On the radio: To hear some of longtime Bay Area broadcaster Lon Simmons’ calls compiled by the Bay Area Radio Museum go to http://bayarearadio.org/audio/simmons/sounds.shtml.