Subjectivity. The very root of the business we love. This time we’re talking subjectivity in the process for picking the Ford Frick Award winner.
Most recently we have Joe Block, a young man with both professional baseball and basketball broadcasting experience, campaigning for former Montreal Expos iconic broadcaster Jacques Doucet as his choice as Ford Frick Award winner. Joe knows broadcasters. His represents an outstanding choice, no doubt.
It’s also extremely hard to argue against Daron Sutton, a second generation baseball broadcaster at the top of his game, and his insistence that the late Toronto Blue Jays announcer Tom Cheek receive the top baseball broadcasting honor.
A month or so ago, Mario Impemba who worked around Ernie Harwell and should know a thing or two about HOFers, mentioned his major league mentor Bob Starr. Of course I am prejudiced there because Mario and Bob were on hand the day I made the decision to switch from news to baseball.
Having said all this, and after looking over the list of candidates fulfilling the criteria for possible enshrinement, I just simply threw up my hands.
How in the world will the voters, HOF broadcasters themselves, and a group of media experts, ever pick one and only one from this group? Of the numbers listed as candidates, about 200 as I count, I can make an easy case for at least two dozen and maybe more than that if I stopped to think about it.
So what I’m merely pointing out presents to me the ultimate dilema in picking any person for any award, given the fact we all have personal preferences and prejudices, and most especially picking baseball broadcasters. We all have our favorites. As I child of radio, and thanks to the preponderance of numerous fifty thousand watt radio stations in middle America that carried baseball, I grew up on Gene Elston with the Houston Colt 45s and then the Astros, Harry Caray and Jack Buck in St.Louis, Herb Carneal with the Twins and of course, Ernie Harwell in Detroit. Think I wasnt lucky to tune into that Hall of Fame group every night?
So, the process it seems to me, amounts to personal connection or affection, with a flavor of regionalism thrown in. I mean seriously, how does a sportswriter or broadcast writer from the midwest subjectively pick someone from the west coast, especially someone they’ve never seen or heard much? Nigh onto impossible, I’d say. Now, for HOF announcers the choices may be a little more clear. Because of their stature, they’ve been there and know what it takes to succeed at the highest level.
If the time-honored process of “best of the best of their era,” holds then the choice become a little more clear. But, winnowing down to the final choice must be an unmitigatged nightmare.
In a strange sense, this reminds me a bit of the process major league teams face in hiring broadcasters in the first place. Maybe front offices should take a lesson from The Baseball Hall of Fame, and hire HOFers or at least former major league broadcasters as consultants when faced with the job of finding a new broadcaster. Seriously, who in an organization is as qualified to know what it takes moreso than someone who has done it…and done it better than anyone else?
Mike Capps has called Round Rock Express baseball for 10 seasons. He has worked on-air and behind-the-camera for WFAA-TV in Dallas/Fort Worth, for ABC News in St. Louis and KPRC-TV in Houston. While working for CNN, Capps covered the Gulf War as well as the Waco Siege, which garnered him an Emmy Nomination and a CableACE Award.
Tags: ford frick