|
Frick Award Pre-Selection Begins Monday
|
One Radio World staffer read this announcement and
commented: “Only Major League Baseball could come up with a contest as
complicated as selecting the Ford C. Frick Award.” Given to a noted baseball
broadcaster each year, the Frick selection process, he thought, “is only
slightly less confusing than the Infield Fly Rule and barely less judgmental
than the Balk Rule.”
You decide. It’s a big deal for
sports broadcasters regardless. Starting Monday, Aug. 20 and running through
Sept. 7, baseball fans can visit the Baseball Hall of Fame’s Facebook page
and vote for their favorite baseball broadcaster. Broadcaster in this case is
defined as a person (active or retired) who has been broadcasting or broadcast
at least 10 consecutive years for a team or network. It is estimated that some
220 living broadcasters fit the criteria.
That process
is designed to provide a list of 40 names from which a second round of voting,
Sept. 10 through Oct. 5, will whittle down to three names. That trio will be
added to a list of seven other candidates determined by a Hall of Fame
committee on Oct. 9.
Those 10 will be handed over to a
21-member committee composed of former Frick winners and a few baseball
historians and media members. The list of former Frick winners is impressive —
Scully, Uecker, Garagiola, Kubek, Elston, Brennaman, McCarver, etc.
The eventual winner of the 2013 Ford C. Frick Award will be
announced at MLB’s annual winter meeting in Nashville, early December. MLB says last year, Tom Cheek, Jacques Doucet and Mike Shannon earned spots on the final ballot via fan voting.
(Unnecessarily complex? Comment below. But don’t get us
started on how All-Stars are picked, or how World Series home field advantage is
determined. And about the DH ...)
|