Ford C. Frick Award
For broadcasters' contributions to baseball.
Ten of the National Pastime’s most honored and respected voices have been named as the finalists for the 2026 Ford C. Frick Award, presented annually for excellence in baseball broadcasting by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
The winner of the 2026 Frick Award will be announced on Dec. 10 at baseball’s Winter Meetings in Orlando, Fla., and will be honored during the July 25 Awards Presentation as part of the July 24-27 Hall of Fame Weekend 2026 in Cooperstown.
Brian Anderson has spent the last 19 years as the TV play-by-play voice of the Milwaukee Brewers. A multi-time winner of the Wisconsin Sportscaster of the Year Award, Anderson also handled play-by-play for TBS’ postseason coverage starting in 2009 and TBS’ Sunday national games beginning in 2011. He joined the Brewers from the Golf Channel, where he served as a play-by-play announcer from 2003-06. Anderson called minor league and Little League games for ESPN from 1998-2000. He began his career in baseball with the Double-A San Antonio Missions of the Texas League from 1994-2003.
Joe Buck called games for 33 years (1991-2021, 2025), including 17 seasons with the St. Louis Cardinals from 1991-2007 and 26 seasons as Fox Sports’ lead baseball announcer. The multiple Emmy Award-winning broadcaster began with Fox baseball at age 27, becoming the youngest play-by-play announcer to call a World Series since Vin Scully (25) in 1953. Buck broadcast 24 World Series (1996, 98, 2000-21) and 20 League Championship Series. He began baseball broadcasting with the Louisville Redbirds in 1989 and most recently called a game on ESPN in 2025. His father, Jack Buck, was the recipient of the 1987 Ford C. Frick Award.
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 37 years with the Mets and currently serves as the team’s TV play-by-play voice on SNY. Cohen broadcast play-by-play of the NCAA Basketball Tournament for CBS Radio and Westwood One from 1993-2003. 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. Cohen got his start in the minor leagues with Spartanburg (1983-84), Durham (1986) and Pawtucket (1987-88).
Jacques Doucet spent 33 years broadcasting for the Expos as the play-by-play radio voice on their French network before returning to the booth as the Blue Jays’ French-speaking TV voice from 2011 until his retirement in 2022. Prior to radio, Doucet covered the Expos as a beat writer for the daily newspaper La Presse and for many years called All-Star, League Championship and World Series games. Doucet was inducted into 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.
Duane Kuiper has called games for 40 seasons, including 39 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.
John Rooney recently completed his 39th season in a big league booth, having called games for the Twins, White Sox and Cardinals as well as Fox Sports. A nationally recognized broadcaster, his Major League Baseball assignments have included the Division Series (1995-97, 2002), League Championship Series (1987-97), All-Star Games (1990-97), World Series (1987-97) and the Fox Saturday afternoon “Game of the Week” (1996-98). He also broadcast the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, including the Final Four (1984-2002), and handled play-by-play on CBS Radio’s NFL Game of the Week (1992-97).
Dan Shulman handled play-by-play of the Toronto Blue Jays on TSN for seven years from 1995 through 2001 before returning in 2016 to call games for Sportsnet. He joined ESPN in 1995 as a play-by-play commentator for baseball and college basketball, serving as the voice of the network’s Wednesday Night Baseball (2002-07), Monday Night Baseball (2008-10) and Sunday Night Baseball packages (2011-17). In addition, Shulman called postseason games for ESPN Radio from 1998-2022, including the World Series from 2011-22. He has also called NHL action for TSN, NBA for both TSN and ESPN, Olympic hockey for CTV and Olympic basketball for CBC. Shulman was the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame’s Jack Graney Award winner in 2020.
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. Including a late-season return for the final six games of the regular season and the Yankees’ entire 2024 postseason run, Sterling totaled 5,426 regular season games and 225 postseason games in the Yankees radio booth. Along with his longtime radio partner Suzyn Waldman, he was honored with the William J. Slocum/Jack Lang Award for “Long & Meritorious Service” at the 100th New York Baseball Writers’ Dinner in 2025.
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 2026 Frick Award ballot was created by a subcommittee of the voting electorate that included past Frick honorees Marty Brennaman, Joe Castiglione and Bob Costas, and broadcast historians David J. Halberstam and Curt Smith.
Final voting for the 2026 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, Costas, Tom Hamilton, Ken Harrelson, Pat Hughes, Jaime Jarrín, Tony Kubek, Denny Matthews, Al Michaels, Jon Miller, Eric Nadel and Dave Van Horne, and historians/columnists Halberstam (historian), Barry Horn (formerly of the Dallas Morning News), and Smith (historian).