A little more on the Frick Award

Fan voting continues for the Ford C. Frick Award, to come up with the finalists to place a baseball announcer into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

The entertaining site Awful Announcing has a post on the voting from regular weekend poster One More Dying Quail. OMDQ goes through the three people on the list for whom he would vote and a hilarious honorable mention.

Ned Martin (Boston Red Sox, 1961-92): You had to know there was gonna be a Sox announcer on any ballot I filled out. My sincerest apologies to Joe Castiglione and Ken Coleman that it couldn't be them.

Joe Nuxhall (Cincinnati Reds, 1967-2004): A win for Nuxhall would mean that the Reds had a pair of Hall of Fame announcers in the booth from 1974-2004; Marty Brennaman won the Frick award in 2000.

Tom Cheek (Montreal Expos, 1974-76; Toronto Blue Jays, 1977-2004): Called more than 4,300 consecutive games for the Blue Jays, from the team's first contest in 1977 to June 2004. Cal Ripken, eat your heart out.

Honorable Mention: Ray Fosse (something about the idea of Fosse being in the Hall while Pete Rose isn't makes me chuckle), Dave Niehaus (has been behind the mic for all of Seattle's 31 seasons) and Ralph Kiner (no one has ever been honored by the Hall as both a player and a broadcaster; by my count, there are sixteen Hall of Famers among the 200 names on this year's ballot).

Re-read that Honorable Mention. Again, hilarious.

I ran through my four yesterday, but did not give a bio on them. I'll fix that now.

Earl Gillespie: The voice of the Milwaukee Braves from 1953-1963. He was a sports anchor on WITI-TV Channel 6 in Milwaukee until 1985. JSOline.com has the Gillespie's obit HERE. How did he get the Braves job?

Gillespie was hired in 1951 as the play-by-play announcer for the old Milwaukee Brewers by WEMP, which at the time was Milwaukee's No. 1 radio station for sports. When the Braves moved to Milwaukee in 1953, Gillespie was hired as play-by-play announcer and held the post for 11 of their 13 years in Milwaukee.

Gillespie was up for the Green Bay Packer play-by-play job at one point. But, the legendary Ray Scott got the gig. How did that happen?

"Earl Gillespie was the guy that probably should have gotten the job," explained announcer Ray Scott, who got the job instead. "But Earl was the Braves' broadcaster. Their sponsor in those days was Miller. Hamm's was a sponsor of the Packers' games back then, and they didn't want anybody associated with another brewery."

Merle Harmon: The play-by-play announcer for the Brewers from 1970-1979. He also replaced Gillespie on Braves broadcasts for the final few seasons that they were in Milwaukee. Merle's resume can be found at his website. If I am remembering correctly, Harmon left the Brewers before the 1980 season to be able to cover the Moscow Olympics for NBC. That didn't quite work out, but he look where he worked...

Merle was the voice of five Major League Baseball teams over a thirty-five year span, including the A's, Braves, Twins, Brewers and Rangers. He was also the voice of the New York Jets for nine seasons, during the Joe Namath glory years. He worked three Major League no-hitters, including two perfect games and Nolan Ryan's 5000th strikeout game. He saw the great ones, from Williams, Mantle, Mays and Aaron, to Ryan, Ripken, Yount and Clemens.

Dave Niehaus: The original announcer of the Seattle Mariners. His official bio at the Seattle site has this:

He was named one of Seattle Times' Top 10 Most Influential People of the Century and named the Entertainer of the Century by a local radio station. In 1997, Niehaus was honored by the Washington State House of Representatives for his "contributions to the quality of life in the Pacific Northwest." He was elected Sportscaster of the Year for the state of Washington in 1995 and 1996 by his contemporaries in the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association. His expressions like "My Oh My" and "It will fly away" (for home runs) have become familiar throughout the Northwest. In addition, on May 7, 2000, Dave was inducted into the Mariners Hall of Fame. Niehaus joined Mariner first baseman Alvin Davis as the first two members of the club’s Hall of Fame.

Vince Lloyd: Broadcaster for the Chicago Cubs for 23 years. Remember this from WGN-Radio broadcasts?

During the 1970s, a fan sent the broadcasting team a cow bell, and when a Cubs player would hit a home run, Lloyd and [Lou] Boudreau would ring the bell as Lloyd proclaimed, "It's a bell-ringer!"

Is that where the More COWBELL! skit originated? "The Cubs have a fevah! And the only pre-SCRIP-tion is more COWBELL!"

Here is some of Lloyd's bio at WGN Gold.com:

In September, 1949, Vince Lloyd joined WGN, where he would spend the next 38 years covering sports on both radio and television. Although he is best known for his 23 years of radio broadcasts of the Cubs with Lou Boudreau, he also worked alongside Jack Brickhouse on Cubs and White Sox telecasts, was the voice of the Chicago Bulls for eight years, and covered Chicago Bears and Big Ten football as well as professional wrestling. His versatility in the broadcast booth earned him the respect of many who called him "The Voice of Summer" and "The Voice for All Seasons."

Maybe I'll just run through some of the other nominees on the list over the rest of the month...Maybe.