Swung on and gone ... to Baseball's Hall of Fame

“Athletics was such a big part of Waterloo,” Hamilton said. “They had quite a period of time where they were really good at high school sports. Athletics was a big deal to pretty much everybody that came out of Waterloo.

“Like every kid, you grow up and hope you are good enough to play a pro sport, but I knew that wasn’t reality in high school. (Play by play announcing) seemed like the next best thing.”

Hamilton, 70, began a lifelong journey in sports broadcasting working for WTTN, covering the Watertown Goslings and other area teams in football, basketball and baseball.

From 1987-89, he called baseball games for the Triple-A Columbus Clippers. In 1990, he broke into the major leagues with Cleveland and has spent the past 35 seasons calling games for the Guardians.

Locals such as former Watertown High School football coach Dan Herbst never forgot those days with Hamilton, and he hasn’t forgotten, either.

“Dan was phenomenal.” Hamilton said. “I got to work with great coaches, like (former Watertown boys basketball coach) Eli Crogan. Eli and I were lifelong friends.

“That’s where I got my first chance to do a lot of high school play-by-play. That was something I always wanted to do. I didn’t just get into it to be a major league announcer. I got into it because I loved doing play-by-play. I got my first experience in Watertown, and I am eternally grateful for that.”

Hamilton never expected to take his place among baseball broadcasting’s all-time greats, either, but that’s exactly what will happen on Saturday in Cooperstown, NY.

He learned in December that he had been selected as the 2025 recipient of the Ford C. Frick Award, presented annually for excellence in broadcasting by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

Hamilton will be honored during the Hall of Fame Awards Presentation as part of Hall of Fame weekend, which starts today and runs through Sunday. He becomes the 49th winner of the Frick Award, as he earned the highest point total in a vote conducted by the Hall of Fame’s 16-member Frick Award Committee.

The final ballot features broadcasters whose main contributions came as local and national voices and whose careers began after, or extended into, the Wild Card Era. The ten finalists were Skip Caray, Rene Cardenas, Gary Cohen, Jacques Doucet, Ernie Johnson, Sr., Mike Krukow, Duane Kuiper, Dave Sims, John Sterling and Hamilton.

Josh Rawitch, President of the National Baseball Hall of Fame Museum, heaped praise on Hamilton when the news was announced on the Baseball Hall of Fame’s website at baseballhall.org.

“With an unmatched love for Cleveland, Tom Hamilton has narrated the story of one of the franchise’s most successful eras since joining the team’s broadcast crew in 1990,” Rawitch said.

“Guardians fans adopted Tom as one of their own as soon as he arrived in Cleveland, thanks to his knowledgeable play-by-play and passionate calls of some of the franchise’s most historic moments. For a generation of listeners, Tom Hamilton is the very definition of Cleveland baseball.”

Hamilton worked alongside former Cleveland pitching great Herb Score for the first eight seasons, which included World Series appearances

in 1995 and 1997. Upon Score’s retirement, Hamilton officially became the voice of the franchise. He worked with Mike Hegan, Dave Nelson, Jim Rosenhaus and Matt Underwood over the coming years on WWWE-AM and WTAM-AM, the longtime radio home of the Guardians.

During his tenure, Hamilton has been named the seven-time winner of the Ohio Sportscaster of the Year Award. He has called more than 100 postseason games and is the only broadcaster in franchise history to call three different Cleveland World Series teams.

“Nothing tops October baseball,” Hamilton said. “I don’t think any sport has more entertaining, more riveting, more peaks and valleys in the postseason than baseball does in October. Any time you’ve been in the playoffs ... we’ve been in the playoffs 14 times in my time here, and I cherish each and every opportunity. It’s what you want to be a part of. You want to broadcast big games. None are bigger than the World Series.

“I have done three of them, and two of them went to Game 7, including a classic with the Chicago Cubs in 2016. It was wild. I’ve been very fortunate.”

The 16-member Frick Award voting electorate for this latest nomination, comprised then of the 13 living recipients and three historians/columnists, included Frick honorees Marty Brennaman, Joe Castiglione, Bob Costas, Ken Harrelson, Pat Hughes, Jaime Jarrin, Tom

Kubek, Denny Matthews, Al Michaels, Jon Miller, Eric Nadel, Bob Uecker and Dave Van Horne, and historians/columnists David J. Halberstam (historian), Barry Horn (formerly of the Dallas Morning News) and Curt Smith (historian).

Other notable past recipients include Vin Scully, Jack Buck, Harry Caray and Dick Enberg.

“Oh my gosh, yeah, it’s more than humbling,” Hamilton said. “It’s very surreal. It is very humbling. We’re very grateful. I am not sure if I belong in that group, but like I say, we’re very honored.”

Uecker, a Milwaukee Brewers broadcasting legend who passed away in January, was one of Hamilton’s radio icons growing up.

“Wisconsin being the sports state that it was, we had a lot of really good broadcasters,” Hamilton said.

“Earl Gillespie was doing the Milwaukee Braves game when they were still in Wisconsin through the mid 60s. When the Brewers moved from Seattle and became the Milwaukee Brewers in 1970, they had Merle Harmon and Bob Uecker. They were great people to listen and learn from.

“Gary Bender was tremendous. He was a sportscaster in Madison, who used to do the Packers and Badgers. There were some really incredible play-by-play people I was able to listen to. I probably didn’t realize it at the time. You’re too young to realize how good they were, but looking back at it now, they were tremendous.”

Life in the broadcast booth hasn’t changed much for Hamilton over the years. How his audience tunes in is another matter.

“I think whether it’s print or electronic, the media has continued to evolve, especially the way we consume it,” Hamilton said. “Nobody gets the newspaper any more. They read it online. Even though radio is still very big in my profession, being baseball, people now listen to you on their Iphone and there are so many other ways on the computer.

“We have people listening to us in Europe, who never would have had that ability years ago. The way you broadcast a game, none of that has never changed. What is important hasn’t changed, but how we consume it has obviously changed.”

From the years of transistor radios to modern streaming, baseball has remained music to the ears of its listeners.

“I think that’s why (baseball) is a great fit for the radio,” Hamilton said. “It’s a time of the year when people have been cooped up all winter long, they are not going to be cooped up for six months watching a baseball game every night. That’s why radio and baseball have such a perfect marriage.”

Speaking of which, Hamilton made sure to credit his better half for making family life work with his busy travel schedule.

“When you have four children as we raised, you better have a great wife, and I certainly have that in Wendy,” Hamilton said. “So much of that falls on her shoulders because literally during a six month baseball season, plus another six weeks in spring training, you are gone more than half the time. If you don’t have a great wife, you have no chance.”

Hamilton’s lengthy tenure has earned him some affectionate parodies by fans over the years.

Jakob Berger’s TikTok video of him aping one of Hamilton’s bombastic home run calls drew rave reviews from fans, for both of them.

Several Guardians fans called Hamilton the GOAT (Greatest of All Time) in the comments section.

A couple New York Yankees fans openly identified as members of another tribe, for the express point of stating how they considered Hamilton one of their favorite broadcasters.

Another poster wrote, “The best is hearing his voice in the breeze way at the Jake during a game while you’re grabbing a beer and dog.”

Perhaps the best comment summed up a loyal fan base showing extra loyalty to its long time announcer.

“Win or lose, I love my Guardians,” the poster wrote. “It’s tough sometimes being a Cleveland fan. We may not have the big money, but (dang) it, we got Hammy.”

Hamilton is also grateful to his listeners, who brought him into their cars, garages, kitchens and backyards to be a part of their lives.

“That’s really one of the real gratifications of the job, is how kind people have been,” Hamilton said.

“They’ve accepted us. I’m not from here, but we have been accepted for 36 years. That’s never a given. It’s been a great place to raise our children. You never know when you are new to a market, how people will feel about you, that part of it is very humbling.

“At the end of the day, I don’t want anyone to ever think that I don’t realize what’s important. What’s important are teachers, coaches, doctors, nurses, first responders, policemen, firemen. I am not doing anything to save lives or anything on that scale. I am lucky to do something I love doing and I am grateful that people seem to enjoy it.

“I love going to work every day. For me, it doesn’t feel like work. It’s been a labor of love. I never take for granted how fortunate I have been.”