Broadcast Nominees Named for Baseball Hall

No one has entered the Baseball Hall of Fame as both a player and a broadcaster.
That could change in February, when the 2005 Ford C. Frick Award winner is announced, according to MLB.com.
Ten nominees for the broadcast honor have been named. Among them are Ron Santo, the former Chicago Cubs third baseman who also is on the Veterans Committee players’ ballot for Hall consideration; and Dizzy Dean, who went into the Hall as a player in 1953.
Also candidates for the broadcast wing are Tom Cheek, Jerry Coleman, Ken Coleman, Gene Elston, Tony Kubek, France Laux, Graham McNamee and Dave Niehaus.
Among this list of great voices, McNamee can lay claim to being the progenitor. He called the first 12 World Series on the radio, worked the first Army-Navy college football broadcast in 1923, the first Republican Party Convention to be broadcast over the radio in 1924 and other firsts.
He was signed to assist sportswriter Grantland Rice for broadcasts on WEAF for the 1923 World Series, and by Game 4 was the full-time play-by-play announcer, according to MLB.com.
The award is named in memory of Ford C. Frick, a sportswriter, radio broadcaster, National League president and Major League Baseball commissioner. Bay Area broadcaster Lon Simmons was honored last year.
For bios on the nominees, see www.baseballhalloffame.org.