DiFabio calls it a career with the Wild Things
The public address voice of the Washington Wild Things has made his last call.
Bill DiFabio, who has been with the team since its inception, has decided to give up the job of public address announcer. But that doesn’t mean he’ll be slowing down.
The 70-year-old Washington County resident had the chance to do play-by-play with the Wild Things back in 2002 but turned it down because of the demands of his media network that at one time spread over five states.
“So I said I have experience doing PA because I did nine years with the Steelers,” said DiFabio. “I’d done a lot of March Madness games.”
Including the upset by Coppin State, seeded No. 14, over No. 2 South Carolina in 1997 in Pittsburgh.
“I think it was a no-brainer for me to do the Wild Things,” said DiFabio. “I was there from Day 1 but I got sick in January and couldn’t work this year. There was no way I could commit to 45, 47 games. It’s not fair to me or the Wild Things or the owners. I think it was a year ago that I had myself hauled out of the press box and taken to the hospital with a heart problem.”
DiFabio said he has done everything he wanted to do in the business.
“I’ve done my rodeo around sports,” DiFabio said. “Behind the microphones and TV stations, I got to work TV with Beano Cook. No brag, just fact: no one has done what I’ve done with radio and TV. I’ve done a column for (the Observer-Reporter). I think the thing that hurt me was that with the exception of a few weekends, for 12 years, I never took a vacation.”
In the 1980s, DiFabio ran what was probably the largest web of independent television and radio networks.
“At one time, I had 59 stations across five states,” DiFabio said. “At one time, it grew to 68 and I was doing real well.”
DiFabio credits Joe Gordon, the longtime public relations maven for the Pittsburgh Steelers, for helping him along the way.
“Joe Gordon was probably responsible for me getting a lot of work,” said DiFabio. “I’ve never had to show a resume. Even when I came here from Boston, where I went to college and worked Friday nights taking football scores at the Boston Globe, I got to know a lot of people. And when I came back, they told me to make sure you touch base with the Pittsburgh Steelers. I did that, and sometimes I felt like I was a Rooney.”
DiFabio has worked for the four major sports programs in Western Pennsylvania: the Pirates, Penguins, Steelers and Pitt.
“In the 1979 World Series, I was working for everybody,” he said. “Every time I turned around, I’d get a check and say, ‘When did I do that? Was I working for them?’
“What I did back then, I couldn’t do today. Every Tom, Dick and Harry has a podcast. They Twitter. Everybody is a sportscaster.”
DiFabio has worked 32 Super Bowls and did security work for the National Football League.
“It paid me well but I worked 11 hours a day,” said DiFabio. “It took a lot out of me.”
DiFabio said he always wanted to work in sports. First, he tried his hand at football while attending Trinity High School.
“I was a geek until I got to college,” DiFabio said. “In high school, I was a not a bad football player, a decent baseball player but that’s not what I wanted to do.”
DiFabio said he had a strong relationship with Pirates legendary broadcaster Bob Prince.
“He took me under his wing,” said DiFabio. “He told me always stand behind him and I knew what he meant. Three hours before the game, he was at home plate, talking to all the guys and he would introduce me. He introduced me to Willie Mays, he introduced me to Vince Scully, he introduced me to everybody.”
DiFabio recalls one day while at Three Rivers Stadium spying Atlanta Braves owner Ted Turner dressed in a Braves uniform before a game with the Pirates.
“That was probably the biggest story I ever broke,” said DiFabio. “That’s when we had a gas shortage. Well, John Houlihan, the Pirates equipment manager let me sleep at the stadium because I couldn’t go back and forth because of the gas crunch.
“So I went out to the field to do some running and I noticed Ted Turner, the owner. So I approached him and jokingly said, ‘Mr. Turner, you playing tonight?’ He said, ‘No, I took over the team.’ He had fired (Dave Bristol). So I had a lot of quarters in my pocket and I went to the nearest payphone and I was calling everyone about the big story in Pittsburgh.”
DiFabio had a knack for convincing the sports teams and others to lend out trophies and such, which he took on a fund-raising tour around Western Pennsylvania.
“I’d go to malls and haul the stuff around,” said DiFabio. “Once, I had the four Super Bowl trophies, Tony Dorsett’s Heisman Trophy, the World Series trophy from 1979. I even had the Game 7 jersey worn by Roberto Clemente in 1960.”
In 1992, after the Penguins won their second Stanley Cup, DiFabio brought the Cup to Washington as a fundraiser. More than 1,000 people showed up at the Washington County Courthouse and paid to have their picture taken with the iconic trophy, the proceeds going to charity.
“I knew Howard Baldwin, who was the Penguins’ owner at the time. I had done PA for the New England Whalers when I was in college and Howard owned that team,” DiFabio recalled. “I walked into Howard’s office and asked if I could borrow the Stanley Cup for a day to raise money for charity. He said, ‘Sure, take it.’ Can you imagine that happening today?”
Christine Blaine, who has been with the Wild Things as long as DiFabio, said he will be missed.
“Bill was a fixture at this park for 20 years,” she said. “I remember him coming to our office at the Crown Center in 2001 before we even moved up here on the hill. He had a great voice and was excited about the project and was willing to take a chance with us.
“Bill worked in the press box with a whole host of different people, different production directors, and different writers, all who came into their roles with their own version of how things should be done. He survived all of that as well as all the technological and physical changes that were made to the press box area. And he was a trooper the whole time.
“I don’t want to speak for Bill, but I’d say he loves the Wild Things, and, frankly, we love him too.”