Podcast: Renel Books-Moon
The long-time announcer for the San Francisco Giants talks her Bay Area roots, her journey into broadcast, and what’s it’s like to be the voice of the hometown team for over 2 decades.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Welcome to our monthly podcast, produced in Partnership with Storied: San Francisco and hosted by Jeff Hunt.
Renel Brooks-Moon has always enjoyed entertaining people.
Born in Oakland and raised there, in Berkeley, and in Richmond, Renel suffered when her family moved to Menlo Park on the Peninsula.
She went to Mills for college, where she studied classical voice and sang in a band with some guys who went to UC Berkeley. After college, she got an entry-level job at KCBS radio and worked her way to writing copy for on-air talent. Four years later, she got a sales job at KFRC, but ended up running the station's public affairs department, an opportunity that got Renel on the air while filling in for a colleague out on maternity leave.
She later got her own show on the station--Bayview: A Look at the Issues and Concerns of the Bay Area Black Community. That led to Renel's first music set: She debuted as "Rockin' Renel" at midnight on a Friday in 1985.
After a format change at KFRC, she got in at KMEL. Renel was with KMEL when it became one of the first stations in the country to play hip-hop. She eventually got the morning show on the station, the job she held until helping to launch 98.1 KISS FM (now "The Breeze" ... ya keeping up?).
And then ... The San Francisco Giants came a-knockin'.
Renel grew up going to Giants games at Candlestick Park.
So when the team reached out to her in 1999 about the possibility of becoming the PA announcer in their brand-new stadium, she immediately thought of her family and the long line of baseball fans she's a part of.
Renel shares her experience auditioning for the job at Candlestick in November 1999 and takes us through her journey as she approaches her 22nd year in the PA booth. We do a lightning round of Giants World Series experiences and move on to talk about the pandemic and the movement for racial, social, and economic justice.