The National Baseball Hall of Fame announced the 10 broadcasters who were named finalists for the 2024 Ford C. Frick Award, which is presented annually for excellence in baseball broadcasting.
The 10 finalists for the 2024 Frick Award are Joe Buck, Joe Castiglione, Gary Cohen, Jacques Doucet, Tom Hamilton, Ernie Johnson Sr., Ken Korach, Mike Krukow, Duane Kuiper and Dan Shulman. All of the 2024 Frick Award candidates are living except for Johnson.
The criteria for selection calls for a “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 ballclub, network, or combination of the two.
The winner of the 2024 Frick Award will be announced on December 6 at baseball’s Winter Meetings in Nashville, Tennessee, and be honored during the July 20 awards presentation as part of the July 19-22 Hall of Fame Weekend 2024 in Cooperstown.
The ballot marks the second election of the four-year cycle with a composite ballot of local and national voices whose broadcast careers have extended into, or began following, the advent of the Wild Card in 1994.
It will be followed by a fifth year featuring a ballot of candidates whose broadcasting careers concluded prior to the Wild Card era.
Ballots of local and national voices in the Wild Card era will continue with the awards in 2025 and 2026 before the pre-Wild Card era ballot is considered for the 2027 Award. The cycle then repeats.
The 2024 Frick Award ballot was created by a subcommittee of the voting electorate that included past Frick honorees Marty Brennaman, Bob Costas and Pat Hughes, and broadcast historians David J. Halberstam and Curt Smith.
Final voting for the 2024 Frick Award will be conducted by an electorate comprised of the 12 living Frick Award recipients and three broadcast historians and columnists.
The electorate includes past Frick honorees Brennaman, Costas, Ken Harrelson, Hughes, Jaime Jarrín, Tony Kubek, Denny Matthews, Al Michaels, Jon Miller, Eric Nadel, Bob Uecker and Dave Van Horne, and historians and columnists Halberstam (historian), Barry Horn (formerly of the Dallas Morning News), and Smith (historian).
The annual award is named in memory of Hall of Famer Ford C. Frick, a renowned sportswriter, radio broadcaster, National League president and baseball commissioner.
Jarrín, the former Los Angeles Dodgers Spanish language broadcaster, was named the recipient of the award in 1998 while Dodgers legend and Hall of Fame broadcaster Vin Scully won it in 1982.
The first Frick Award was given out in 1978 to former Brooklyn Dodgers broadcaster Red Barber.
2024 Ford C. Frick Award Finalists
Joe Buck
Buck called games for Fox Sports for 26 seasons as the network’s lead baseball announcer after working as a broadcaster for the St. Louis Cardinals for 17 seasons, calling 24 World Series along the way. After joining ESPN, Buck was replaced as the voice of the World Series by Dodgers’ broadcaster Joe Davis.
Joe Castiglione
Castiglione has spent 44 years calling big league games, including the last 41 as the Boston Red Sox’s lead radio voice.
Gary Cohen
Cohen has spent the last 35 years with the New York Mets and currently serves as the team’s TV play-by-play voice on SportsNet New York.
Jacques Doucet
Doucet spent 33 years broadcasting for the Montreal Expos as the play-by-play radio voice on their French network (1969-2004), and he returned to the booth in 2012 as the Toronto Blue Jays’ French-speaking TV voice.
Doucet is already in the Quebec Baseball Hall of Fame.
Tom Hamilton
Hamilton has called Cleveland Guardians games on radio for 34 seasons, including the team’s three World Series appearances in that span.
Ernie Johnson Sr.
Johnson called Atlanta Braves games for 35 seasons from 1962-1991 and 1995-1999. He previously spent nine seasons as a Major League pitcher, which included winning a World Series championship with the 1957 Braves.
Ken Korach
Korach has been heard on Oakland Athletics’ radio for the last 28 years following a four-year stint with the Chicago White Sox. He has served as the A’s lead radio voice for the last 18 seasons.
Mike Krukow
Krukow has called games on television for the San Francisco Giants for the last 33 seasons, including the last 28 on the radio with three World Series in that span. He also had a 14-year pitching career with the Chicago Cubs, Philadelphia Phillies and Giants.
Duane Kuiper
Kuiper has called games for 38 seasons, including 37 with the Giants on both radio and TV. He also spent 12 seasons with Cleveland and San Francisco at the Major League level as a second baseman.
Dan Shulman
Shulman handled play-by-play duties for ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball package from 2011-17 and called games on ESPN Radio prior to that. He also called games for Blue Jays from 1995-2001 before returning in 2016 to call games for SportsNet.
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