Cardinals legends litter announce finalists list for prestigious award

While the St. Louis Cardinals finished the 2025 season without much pomp and circumstance on the field, some outside connections have the opportunity to be honored in December. Radio play-by-play voice John Rooney, Joe Buck, Skip Caray, and Dan Shulman have all been nominated for the Ford C. Frick Award, all with varying connection to St. Louis.

Four Ford C. Frick Award nominees have connections to the St. Louis Cardinals

The award, which is a section of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, is voted on by the 13 living Frick Award recipients and three broadcast historians and will be announced in December before official enshrinement takes place at the Hall of Fame ceremony in July. Among the 10 nominees, St. Louis connections can be found in four of them. The nominee with the clearest relation to the Cardinals organization is John Rooney, the current voice of the Cardinals on KMOX.

Rooney, 70, has been with the team since 2006 after he came to St. Louis from the White Sox booth. Since being with the Cardinals, he has called two World Series championships and was the first broadcaster to call back-to-back World Series after announcing the White Sox's 2005 title. Rooney is known for his "That's a Redbird winner" and "That's a goner" calls, and I have definitely started to sync the radio broadcast with the TV broadcast as my normal way of taking in a Cardinals game.

Joining Rooney on the ballot is former broadcaster and St. Louisan Joe Buck, son of Cardinals Hall of Fame broadcaster Jack Buck. Joe began calling games for the Cardinals in 1991 when Jack was on the national broadcasts. The younger Buck stayed with the Cardinals in some capacity through 2007 while also balancing a national schedule that included NFL games. While with FOX, Buck was also the TV voice of the World Series and joined Rooney in calling the Cardinals' two most recent titles while using a spinoff of his father's catch phrases by saying "St. Louis has a World Series winner" in 2006 before bringing back "We will see you tomorrow night" after David Freese's famous home run in 2011. If Joe were to win the award, he would share the recognition with his father, who won the award in 1987.

Another family connection was nominated for this year's award is Skip Caray, father of current television play-by-play man Chip Caray, who has been with the team since 2023. The Caray family made history in 1991 when Skip, Chip, and Harry announced a game, becoming the first three-generational broadcasting crew. This season, Chip was able to return the favor by having his twin sons, Chris and Stefan, join him in the booth.

The final nominee with an ever-so-slight connection to the Cardinals is Dan Shulman, who is a national broadcaster for multiple sports. The St. Louis connection to Shulman again comes from the 2011 World Series. Shulman, who had been announcing postseason games on ESPN radio starting in 1998, was tasked with his first Fall Classic in 2011 and was the national radio voice behind the Cardinals' most recent title.

Other Ford C. Frick Award winners with Cardinals connections: Jack Buck (1987), Harry Caray (1989), Joe Garagiola (1991), Bob Uecker (2003), and Tim McCarver (2012)