Ford C. Frick Award

The Ford C. Frick Award is presented annually by the Baseball Hall of Fame in the United States to a broadcaster for "major contributions to baseball". It is named for Ford C. Frick, former commissioner of baseball. Prior to his career as an executive, Frick was a baseball writer and occasional broadcaster; he gained fame as a ghostwriter for Babe Ruth in the 1920s. The award was created in 1978, and named in tribute to Frick following his death that year.

Recipients of the award are not members of the Hall of Fame—they are not "inducted" or "enshrined", they are not "Hall of Fame broadcasters", and there is no "broadcasters' wing" of the Hall of Fame—they are officially "honorees." The award is given at a separate ceremony from the induction ceremony on Hall of Fame weekend. As with recipients of the BBWAA Career Excellence Award for baseball writing, the honorees are permanently recognized in a "Scribes & Mikemen" exhibit in the Hall's library.

Selection

Detail on the selection process for the award when it was first established is lacking.

From to , fans were allowed to vote for three of the award's ten annual nominees; in the final years of fan voting, it was conducted on the Hall's Facebook page. Through , seven candidates were selected by a committee consisting of previous Frick Award winners and broadcast historians and columnists, which also determined the final recipient. Beginning with the award, the final election committee no longer selected any of the finalists; that became the role of a Hall of Fame research committee.

2014 changes

Other changes in the selection process were also announced for the 2014 award; these changes were similar to those instituted in 2010 for Veterans Committee balloting. From 2014 to 2016, candidates were considered every third year, based on the era in which they made their most significant contributions:

"Current Major League Markets": Broadcasters who made their mark with one or more specific MLB teams. These individuals were first considered for the 2017 award.
"National Voices": Broadcasters who made their contributions with national media. These individuals were first considered for the 2018 award.
"Broadcasting Beginnings": Pioneers of baseball broadcasting, roughly covering the time span of the previous "Broadcasting Dawn Era". These individuals were first considered for the 2019 award.

2022 changes

In April 2022, the Hall of Fame announced further changes to the Frick Award selection process. The size of the ballot was restored to 10 nominees, while also requiring that at least one candidate be a foreign-language broadcaster.

Composite ballot (local and national voices): , 2024, 2025, 2026
Pre-Wild Card Era ballot: 2027

Veterans Committee participation

For several years in the early 2000s, Frick Award honorees also became life members of the Veterans Committee, which considers candidates for Hall of Fame induction who are not eligible for the regular voting by the Baseball Writers' Association of America – specifically, players no longer on the BBWAA ballot and all non-players. However, starting with the elections, voting for players on the main Veterans Committee ballot was restricted to Hall of Fame members. After further changes announced for the elections, Frick Award winners became eligible to serve on the voting bodies that replaced the Veterans Committee that consider candidates from different eras of baseball.

Recipients

thumb|right|upright=.8|[[Mel Allen, 1978 co-recipient]]

thumb|right|upright=.8|[[Harry Caray, 1989 recipient]]

thumb|right|upright=.8|[[Jaime Jarrín, 1998 recipient]]

thumb|right|upright=.8|[[Bob Costas, 2018 recipient]]

{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"

!scope="col"|Year

!scope="col"|Honoree

!scope="col"|Primary affiliation(s)

|rowspan="2"|1978