Courtesy MLB.com

(December 7, 2010) The National Baseball Hall of Fame will announce the winner of the Ford C. Frick Award for excellence in Major League Baseball broadcasting at a noon press conference at the Winter Meetings on Wednesday.

The 10 finalists are Rene Cardenas, Tom Cheek, Dizzy Dean, Jacques Doucet, Bill King, Ned Martin, Tim McCarver, Graham McNamee, Eric Nadel and Dave Van Horne.

The winner, who will be elected by a committee of 20 people that includes 15 Frick Award winners and five historian/columnists, will receive the award on July 24 during the induction ceremony in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Pat Gillick, elected to the Hall on Monday by the Expansion Era committee, will be inducted in July along with any players selected by the Baseball Writers' Association of America from its current ballot. That announcement will come on Jan. 5. Roberto Alomar and Bert Blyleven are the favorites.

Earlier on Tuesday, Bill Conlin of The Philadelphia Daily News won the annual J.G. Spink Award, which is presented yearly by the BBWAA "for meritorious contributions to baseball writing."

Conlin, a long-time Phillies beat writer and columnist, will accept his award on the same day as Gillick, who is still a special assistant to the Phillies and was their general manager in 2008 when they defeated the Rays in the World Series.

Jon Miller, the long-time play-by-play man for the Giants and 2010 Frick Award winner, said during his acceptance speech on July 25 that all he wanted to do, from the moment he attended his first game at Candlestick Park in San Francisco as a 10-year-old, was announce baseball.

"I just wanted a job where I could eat French fries while I was working," Miller said, "and here I am today."

Among the 10 Frick finalists, three were selected by fans via a vote this past September on www.facebook.com/baseballhall. They were Cheek, King and Doucet. McCarver, Nadel and Van Horne are the only active broadcasters on the ballot. Cardenas and Doucet are the only other living candidates.

The 15 Frick Award winners on the committee are Miller, Marty Brennaman, Jerry Coleman, Gene Elston, Joe Garagiola, Jaime Jarrin, Milo Hamilton, Tony Kubek, Denny Matthews, Dave Niehaus, Felo Ramirez, Vin Scully, Lon Simmons, Bob Uecker and Bob Wolf.

The Hall received a ballot from Niehaus two days before the long-time Mariners play-by-play announcer passed away on Nov. 10, Brad Horn, a spokesman for the Hall, said.

There are many accomplished and worthy announcers among the candidates this year. Cardenas helped create the first Spanish-language MLB broadcast in 1958 with the Dodgers, working a total of 38 years for the Dodgers, Astros and Rangers.

Cheek broadcast 31 Major League seasons for the Expos (1974-76) and Toronto Blue Jays (1977-2004). Prior to his death during the 2005 season, Cheek had done play-by-play for 4,603 straight games over the span of 28 seasons.

Dean, a Hall-of-Fame pitcher, broadcast 24 years in St. Louis and nationally on the CBS Game of the Week from 1955-65.

Doucet spent his entire 34-year career broadcasting for the Expos. He was the play-by-play radio voice for the team's French network from the inception of the organization in 1969 through 2004, the final season in Montreal before the team left for Washington D.C.

King worked for 25 seasons (1981-2005) as the A's lead play-by-play voice on radio. He also was once the voice of the National Basketball Association Warriors and the National Football League Raiders.

Martin worked as the Red Sox's radio and television voice from 1961-92 and covered the 1975 World Series for NBC-TV.

McCarver, a former big league catcher, has broadcast for 30 seasons, the past 15 for FOX on its national broadcast, extending a string of 21 seasons working the postseason.

McNamee was a national pioneer in sports broadcasting, calling games for 13 seasons for Westinghouse and NBC and also calling 12 World Series.

Nadel has spent 32 seasons with the Rangers, the longest tenure of any announcer in franchise history, including the past 16 as the club's lead play-by-play voice.

Van Horne has spent 42 years in broadcasting, the first 32 as the English-speaking voice of the Expos and the past 10 for the Marlins.

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