Ford C. Frick Award
For broadcasters' contributions to baseball.
Tom Hamilton, who has called Cleveland Guardians games on the radio for 35 seasons, has been selected as the 2025 recipient of the Ford C. Frick Award, presented annually for excellence in broadcasting by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
Hamilton will be honored during the Hall of Fame Awards Presentation as part of Hall of Fame Weekend, July 25-28, 2025.
Skip Caray joined Turner Broadcasting in 1972 as voice of the NBA's Atlanta Hawks and was added to Braves' telecasts in 1976, spending the next 33 years calling games for the club. Caray and his son, Chip, made broadcast history when they joined Skip's dad, Harry, during a Braves-Cubs contest in May of 1991, becoming the first three-generation family to announce a major league game. He served as play-by-play announcer for baseball on TBS' coverage of the 1990 Goodwill Games and in 2002 participated in NBC's postseason baseball coverage. A six-time winner of the Georgia Sportscaster of the Year Award, Caray won a local Emmy for sportscasting and was nominated for a 1994 Cable ACE Award.
Rene Cardenas helped create the first Spanish-language MLB broadcasts in 1958, teaming with 1998 Ford C. Frick recipient Jaime Jarrín for the new West Coast Dodgers. He remained with the club through 1961 and then moved to the expansion Astros, pioneering Spanish language baseball as a broadcast director and announcer in Houston (1962-75) and Texas (1981). From 1982-98 he again teamed with Jarrín on Dodger broadcasts.
Gary Cohen has spent the last 36 years with the Mets and currently serves as the team's TV play-by-play voice on SNY. He has called games for ESPN Radio, was the radio voice of St. John’s University basketball from 1995-2002 and broadcast men’s and women’s hockey play-by-play at the 1992, 1994 and 1998 Winter Olympics for CBS Radio.
Jacques 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. Doucet was inducted to the Quebec Baseball Hall of Fame in May 2002, won the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame’s Jack Graney Award in 2004 and was elected to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 2020.
Tom Hamilton has called Guardians games on radio for 35 seasons, including the team’s three World Series appearances in that span. Hamilton is a seven-time recipient of the Ohio Sportscaster of the Year Award.
Ernie Johnson Sr. called Braves games for 35 seasons from 1962-91 and from 1995-99 following nine seasons as a big league pitcher that included a World Series ring with the 1957 Braves. Johnson was affiliated with the Braves organization for over 50 years as a player, public relations director, director of broadcasting and announcer. He was a three-time winner of the Georgia Broadcaster of the Year Award.
Mike Krukow has called games on television for the Giants for the last 34 seasons, including the last 29 on the radio following a 14-year pitching career with the Cubs, Phillies and Giants. Krukow was named California Sportscaster of the Year in 2015 and 2017.
Duane Kuiper has called games for 39 seasons, including 38 with the Giants on both radio and TV in the Comcast SportsNet Bay Area and KNBR Radio broadcast booths. The 13-time Emmy Award winner spent 12 seasons in the majors as an infielder, the last four years with the Giants, following eight with Cleveland.
Dave Sims has called Mariners games on television for the last 20 years, earning three consecutive Washington Sportscaster of the Year Awards (2018-20) from the National Sports Media Association. He has also called MLB and college basketball games on ESPN, as well as basketball and football on Westwood One/CBS Radio.
John Sterling called Yankees games on the radio for 36 years before retiring in 2024 following stints with Atlanta’s TBS and WSB Radio, where he called Hawks basketball (1981-89) and Braves games (1982-87). Sterling called Nets (1975-80) and Islanders (1975-78) games prior.
Criteria for selection is as follows: “Commitment to excellence, quality of broadcasting abilities, reverence within the game, popularity with fans, and recognition by peers.”
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.
The 2025 Frick Award ballot was created by a subcommittee of the voting electorate that included past Frick honorees Marty Brennaman, Joe Castiglione and Eric Nadel, and broadcast historians David J. Halberstam and Curt Smith.
Final voting for the 2025 Frick Award will be conducted by an electorate comprised of the 13 living Frick Award recipients and three broadcast historians/columnists, including past Frick honorees Brennaman, Castiglione, Bob Costas, Ken Harrelson, Pat Hughes, Jaime Jarrín, Tony Kubek, Denny Matthews, Al Michaels, Jon Miller, Nadel, Bob Uecker and Dave Van Horne, and historians/columnists Halberstam (historian), Barry Horn (formerly of the Dallas Morning News), and Smith (historian).
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