Eight of the National Pastime’s beloved voices have been named as the finalists for the 2020 Ford C. Frick Award, presented annually for excellence in baseball broadcasting by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
Candidates from the Current Major League Markets category will be considered for the 2020 Frick Award in accordance with the three-year Frick Award election cycle.
The eight finalists for the 2020 Frick Award are: Joe Castiglione, Jacques Doucet, Tom Hamilton, Ken Harrelson, Pat Hughes, Ned Martin, Mike Shannon and Dewayne Staats. The winner of the 2020 Frick Award will be announced on Dec. 11 at the Baseball Winter Meetings in San Diego and will be honored during the July 25 Awards Presentation as part of the July 24-27 Hall of Fame Weekend 2020 in Cooperstown. All candidates except Martin are living.
The Frick Award election cycle rotates annually among Current Major League Markets (team-specific announcers); National Voices (broadcasters whose contributions were realized on a national level); and Broadcasting Beginnings (early team voices and pioneers of baseball broadcasting). This cycle repeats every three years, with the National Voices ballot to be reviewed in the fall of 2020 and the Broadcasting Beginnings ballot to be reviewed in the fall of 2021.
As established by the Board of Directors, criteria for selection is as follows: “Commitment to excellence, quality of broadcasting abilities, reverence within the game, popularity with fans, and recognition by peers.”
Final voting for the 2020 Frick Award will be conducted by an electorate comprised of the 11 living Frick Award recipients and four broadcast historians/columnists, including past Frick honorees Marty Brennaman, Bob Costas, Jaime Jarrín, Tony Kubek, Denny Matthews, Tim McCarver, Jon Miller, Eric Nadel, Vin Scully, Bob Uecker and Dave Van Horne, and historians/columnists David J. Halberstam (historian), Barry Horn (formerly of the Dallas Morning News), Ted Patterson (historian) and Curt Smith (historian).
The 2020 Frick Award ballot was created by a subcommittee of the voting electorate that included Costas, Matthews, Nadel, Smith and Van Horne.
To be considered, an active or retired broadcaster must have a minimum of 10 years of continuous major league broadcast service with a ball club, network, or a combination of the two. More than 200 broadcasters were eligible for consideration for the 2020 Frick Award based on these qualifications.
The eight finalists for the 2020 Frick Award:
– Castiglione has spent 40 years calling big league games, the last 37 as the Red Sox’s lead radio voice;
– Doucet spent 33 years broadcasting for the Expos as the play-by-play radio voice on their French network (1969-2004), and he returned to the booth in 2012 as the Blue Jays’ French-speaking TV voice;
– Hamilton has called Indians games on radio for 30 seasons, including the team’s three World Series appearances in that span;
– Harrelson has brought a passionate voice to the air for 42 years for the Red Sox, Yankees and White Sox, including the last 28 years in Chicago;
– Hughes has called MLB games for 37 seasons, starting with the Twins in 1983 before working Brewers games from 1984-95 and serving as the Cubs’ radio voice for the last 24 seasons;
– Martin worked as the Red Sox’s radio and television voice from 1961-92, covering the 1975 World Series for NBC-TV;
– Shannon called Cardinals games for 42 years from 1972-2018 following a nine-year playing career with the Redbirds;
– Staats has called big league games for 43 years, including the last 22 as the voice of the Rays on television.
Additional information on the eight finalists can be found at baseballhall.org/frickaward2020.
The annual award is named in memory of Hall of Famer Ford C. Frick, renowned sportswriter, radio broadcaster, National League president and Baseball Commissioner. Past recipients of the Ford C. Frick Award:
FORD C. FRICK AWARD RECIPIENTS
| 1978 | Mel Allen | 1992 | Milo Hamilton | 2007 | Denny Matthews |
| Red Barber | 1993 | Chuck Thompson | 2008 | Dave Niehaus | |
| 1979 | Bob Elson | 1994 | Bob Murphy | 2009 | Tony Kubek |
| 1980 | Russ Hodges | 1995 | Bob Wolff | 2010 | Jon Miller |
| 1981 | Ernie Harwell | 1996 | Herb Carneal | 2011 | Dave Van Horne |
| 1982 | Vin Scully | 1997 | Jimmy Dudley | 2012 | Tim McCarver |
| 1983 | Jack Brickhouse | 1998 | Jaime Jarrín | 2013 | Tom Cheek |
| 1984 | Curt Gowdy | 1999 | Arch McDonald | 2014 | Eric Nadel |
| 1985 | Buck Canel | 2000 | Marty Brennaman | 2015 | Dick Enberg |
| 1986 | Bob Prince | 2001 | Felo Ramirez | 2016 | Graham McNamee |
| 1987 | Jack Buck | 2002 | Harry Kalas | 2017 | Bill King |
| 1988
1989 |
Lindsey Nelson
Harry Caray |
2003
2004 |
Bob Uecker
Lon Simmons |
2018
2019 |
Bob Costas
Al Helfer |
| 1990
1991
|
By Saam
Joe Garagiola
|
2005
2006 |
Jerry Coleman
Gene Elston |
|
The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is an independent not-for-profit educational institution, dedicated to fostering an appreciation of the historical development of baseball and its impact on our culture by collecting, preserving, exhibiting and interpreting its collections for a global audience as well as honoring those who have made outstanding contributions to our National Pastime. Opening its doors for the first time on June 12, 1939, the Hall of Fame has stood as the definitive repository of the game’s treasures and as a symbol of the most profound individual honor bestowed on an athlete. It is every fan’s “Field of Dreams,” with its stories, legends and magic shared from generation to generation.
