2014 Ford C. Frick Award Winner Eric Nadel

Some five decades since his first trip to Cooperstown on a childhood excursion, Eric Nadel returned to Cooperstown as an honored guest.

Nadel, the longtime radio voice of the Texas Rangers, was selected as the 2014 recipient of the Ford C. Frick Award, presented annually for excellence in broadcasting by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

“I’m so excited, happy, tremendously flattered,” said Nadel on a media conference call only an hour after the announcement. “It’s an amazing thrill for a kid from Brooklyn who grew up as a radio junkie.

“The first time I went I was in summer camp, I think it was in 1963 or 1964, and they took us for the Hall of Fame Game on a field trip. I was 12 years old. And we went the following year, too. And then I’ve also been back a couple times with the Rangers when they played in the Hall of Fame Game.”

Nadel, a graduate of Brown University, joined the Rangers in 1979 and became the team's lead radio voice in 1995. He was inducted into the Texas Baseball Hall of Fame in 1991 and the Texas Rangers Baseball Hall of Fame in 2012.