Longtime “MLB on Fox” play-by-play announcer and current voice of ESPN “Monday Night Football” Joe Buck has been named the recipient of the Ford C. Frick Award from the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Buck is joining his father, Jack, to form the only father-son duo to ever win the prestigious award for excellence in baseball broadcasting.
“It’s a huge honor, something I did not expect I would get anytime soon, and I’m just beyond, beyond humbled,” Buck told Sports Media Watch. “I realize what kind of an award this is. I saw it through my dad’s eyes in 1987 when he went in. At that time, I had never seen him more proud and so consequently, since he was my best friend, I was never more proud of him. So I get the gravity of this, and I’m just thrilled and honored.”
Buck called 24 World Series championships and 22 MLB All-Star games throughout his three-decade tenure with Fox Sports. Prior to the 2022 NFL season, he moved over to ESPN to continue pairing with Troy Aikman on “Monday Night Football” broadcasts. Buck called an Opening Day matchup on ESPN between the Milwaukee Brewers and New York Yankees this past season. In addition, he returned to the St. Louis Cardinals booth for a game alongside Chip Caray last summer.
Buck becomes the sixth broadcaster in history to win both the Ford C. Frick Award and its football equivalent, the Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award, from the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Buck was on a ballot that included nine other finalists featuring active and former MLB broadcasters such as Brian Anderson, Duane Kuiper and John Sterling.
Buck said that he owes Bob Costas for being “in the room kind of banging the drum for me.” Costas was part of a 16-member voting electorate that contained former recipients, broadcast historians and columnists, including Joe Castiglione, Tom Hamilton and Curt Smith.
“Joe has had one of the most accomplished careers in sports broadcasting history. And baseball has been a huge part of it,” Costas told Sports Media Watch. “Apart from his impressive body of work, it’s a nice grace note that he and his Dad will now be enshrined together in both the Football and Baseball Halls of Fame.”
Buck admitted that it can be harder for a national announcer to make the cut for the Frick Award. In fact, no national announcer has won the honor since 2021 when Al Michaels received the honor for his work with ABC, along with the Cincinnati Reds and San Francisco Giants. Al Helfer posthumously won the award in 2019 for his work with the Mutual Broadcasting System and Brooklyn Dodgers.
Buck is the 50th person to win the Frick Award and second-youngest recipient in its history, finishing second to former Los Angeles Dodgers voice Vin Scully. Next summer in Cooperstown, he will be honored as part of the awards presentation during Hall of Fame Weekend.
“I’m just so thankful for anybody who voted for me and even those who didn’t,” Buck said. “So yeah, it’s pretty special, and I love that my mom’s here and we get to make this a family affair because it’s a family that helped get me ready and basically literally put me in, so pretty cool.”
